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Puritan Way of Death: A Study in Religion, Culture and Social Change
Americans have "rediscovered" death. But the recent torrent of books and articles has focused on issues of the present, primarily the search for "death with dignity." In this profound and moving book a historian uses the narrow experience of America's earliest New England settlers, the Puritans, as a "window" through which doctors and nurses, psychologists and sociologist, clergy and ordinary mortals can get a new perspective on the present.
236 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1977
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
January 4, 2017
An excellent case study, social history, and I appreciated this studying the anthropology of death and dying as an undergraduate. I remember reading this when I was working full-time as an "activity director" and full-time university classes (and full-time social life, of course - is that three lives?) and was somewhat shocked to reflect that Puritan women may have up to 10, 12, or more children, and commonly a handful of them died, and the elderly women whom I sat with and listened to their life stories, most all were Catholic second generation immigrants who worked in the Dover, NH shoe mills, but *also* had about the same ratio of (too many) of both births and deaths of children through the 1930s. Maybe more like 6-8 children, but generally with a couple dying. Imagine how long women's lives were like that, how recently we've had change, and how many women in the world still experience this. Stannard's point here was that the Puritans had reason to reckon (literally) with what death means, how to interpret it as both an abstraction but a practical reality, whether God decreed death as the ultimate publishment for what you'd done unGodly, but also with that Calvinistic believe that after death is when you'll get your "just rewards" in Heaven especially if you worked hard.
Now I must read his book on Native Americans and the "American Holocaust"!
Now I must read his book on Native Americans and the "American Holocaust"!
May 18, 2007
It's interesting as a Christian to read social science books about religion, where everything is explained from an atheistic perspective, and therefore reduced to nothing but the analysis of social forces, evolutionary change, etc. There are helpful insights gained via this model that someone with a "faith" perspective could easily miss, ignore, or intentionally avoid, but I feel it also can miss what a particular faith meant to its practitioners. Now a good anthropologist, following say the Geertzian model, tries to interpret rituals according to the community that uses it, and although Stannard gives a great job of putting the changing funerary practices of American Puritans into the broader European context, and certainly has a good grip on Puritan/Calvinist theology, I don't know, there is still something missing. Nevertheless, it is a good read, and though while it ignores the economic and land issues involved in the breakdown of the Puritan communities, it does a great job showing how the crisis of their dwindling community was reflected as their death practices changed dramatically from practically just burying someone 6 feet under once they kick the bucket, no funeral, etc. to elaborate tombstones and funeral sermons. Must have been tough being a person of faith who also believes that there is no way one can know where they would spend eternity. An existential crisis dealt with through ritual. Also, a great use of "material culture" in explaining cultural meanings and changes. Lots of great and helpful illustrations, and a critique of our contemporary culture, which likes to pretend death (and aging) don't exist.
January 3, 2016
This is a very uneven book. When Stannard is actually talking about seventeenth and eighteenth century New England and the conflict in Puritan orthodoxy between longing for and fear of death, he's excellent (the section on funerary carving and sculpture was particularly illuminating). But he insists on trying to make a transhistorical argument (of the "since the beginning of time" sort), and those parts of the book I found both unconvincing and off-putting: I didn't want to be convinced, because the argument seemed smug, superficial, and arrogant. And very 1977.
December 14, 2007
In Puritan days, children were told to know that their own cold deaths were coming, and soon--yes, even to them--and that they'd better lead their lives filled with dread because there was little guarantee anyone was going to heaven; quite possibly, their own parents would forsake them when it came time for St. Peter to decide whether or not they gained entry beyond the pearly gates.
In the 1800s, American children were told that death was coming --yes, even to them---and that they should look forward to it and try not to wish for it too hard because death was just so, so much better than this land here.
Today we don't tell children anything about death and we put dying people in hospital broom closets.
Great illustrations, too.
In the 1800s, American children were told that death was coming --yes, even to them---and that they should look forward to it and try not to wish for it too hard because death was just so, so much better than this land here.
Today we don't tell children anything about death and we put dying people in hospital broom closets.
Great illustrations, too.
September 13, 2010
The Puritan way of death was inseparable from the Puritan way of life--this is what Stannard shows. In reading this brief history, you learn so much more about the Puritans than their attitude towards death and their funeral practices. Of, as his well-chosen epigraph from Heimito Von Doderer notes:
"An yet--in fact you need only draw a single thread at any point you choose out of the fabric of life and the run will make a pathway across the whole, and down that wider pathway each of the other threads will become successively visible, one by one."
"An yet--in fact you need only draw a single thread at any point you choose out of the fabric of life and the run will make a pathway across the whole, and down that wider pathway each of the other threads will become successively visible, one by one."
August 20, 2014
Quite interesting; particularly in its comparison of funeral customs and art in puritan Britain and puritan New England.
January 22, 2020
As someone who has written an essay on aspects of the Puritan way of death [1], and someone who tends to reflect often upon death and the complexity of how we deal with it, I found much to appreciate in this book that others may not necessarily appreciate in the same way. That said, if you like reading about how the view of death has changed over time and the way that the Puritan's view of death was neither inhumane nor a bad example of our own times, this book provides a reflective look at how it was that the Puritans dealt honestly with death in a way that we would be hard-pressed to emulate because of the way that we have shielded ourselves from better understanding the more unpleasant aspects of our reality. Indeed, the Puritan opposition to the more romantic view of death that we have is something that makes its view of death rather important for us to come to grips with, even if this book is merely a partial survey of that way of thinking and not as complete as the author or reader would hope.
This book is about 200 pages long and is divided into three parts and seven chapters. Beginning with a preface and then an introduction (I), the first part of the book explores death within the general patterns of Western tradition (1), setting the context for what made the Puritan view distinctive. After that, the bulk of the book discusses the Puritan Way of Death (II), with chapters that look at the world of the Puritan (2), death and childhood (3), death and dying (4), death and burial (5), and death and decline (6). These chapters help the reader to understand what the Puritans expressed concerning their own fears about death and the split between their view that death was supposed to be the entrance into the Kingdom of heaven on the one hand, but also something that they did not always handle well, even while expecting to be bodily resurrected in the future without a desire to be very showy about death and graves. Finally, the book ends with a discussion of how the Puritan way of death moved towards an American way of death that was more romantic and less honest (7) in the Epilogue (III), after which there are notes and an index.
It is wise that the author considers this book to be an extended essay rather than the sort of book that most people would expect. The author does not have all the answers about the Puritan view of death and that topic is itself limited to the evidence that we have. The author does not even use all of that evidence, as he is more interested in the writing that people had about death and their views of judgment and the suffering they experienced at the loss of their children and the seriousness in which they took God's judgment than he is about pondering what the wills of the Puritans meant. There is a lot of look at headstones and what they have to say about the view of death that Puritans had, which was a lot different in the United States (where headstones were more common) than in England where such things were viewed as holdovers from the days of vile popery and superstition, which I can well understand. The author does a great job with fragmentary evidence and this is a notable if an obscure achievement in exploring how it is that views of death change and how they are shaped sometimes in opposition to the ways of the past.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2018...
This book is about 200 pages long and is divided into three parts and seven chapters. Beginning with a preface and then an introduction (I), the first part of the book explores death within the general patterns of Western tradition (1), setting the context for what made the Puritan view distinctive. After that, the bulk of the book discusses the Puritan Way of Death (II), with chapters that look at the world of the Puritan (2), death and childhood (3), death and dying (4), death and burial (5), and death and decline (6). These chapters help the reader to understand what the Puritans expressed concerning their own fears about death and the split between their view that death was supposed to be the entrance into the Kingdom of heaven on the one hand, but also something that they did not always handle well, even while expecting to be bodily resurrected in the future without a desire to be very showy about death and graves. Finally, the book ends with a discussion of how the Puritan way of death moved towards an American way of death that was more romantic and less honest (7) in the Epilogue (III), after which there are notes and an index.
It is wise that the author considers this book to be an extended essay rather than the sort of book that most people would expect. The author does not have all the answers about the Puritan view of death and that topic is itself limited to the evidence that we have. The author does not even use all of that evidence, as he is more interested in the writing that people had about death and their views of judgment and the suffering they experienced at the loss of their children and the seriousness in which they took God's judgment than he is about pondering what the wills of the Puritans meant. There is a lot of look at headstones and what they have to say about the view of death that Puritans had, which was a lot different in the United States (where headstones were more common) than in England where such things were viewed as holdovers from the days of vile popery and superstition, which I can well understand. The author does a great job with fragmentary evidence and this is a notable if an obscure achievement in exploring how it is that views of death change and how they are shaped sometimes in opposition to the ways of the past.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2018...
August 3, 2018
I'd love to spend time in early colonial graveyards poking around after reading this book. I loved the pictures showing the developing ideas about death/resurrection over time. Overall really a fascinating journey. I believe this was published in the 1970s so there is some outdated discussion about the modern American healthcare system and death which seems to stop at the 1950s and is totally unrecognizable to me as far as my experience goes in the healthcare system today.
December 12, 2017
Thorough, relevant, and well researched. Occasionally redundant.
August 16, 2015
While Stannard approaches this topic from a secular perspective, he does provide some interesting insights into the New England Puritan view of death, how it changed over the years, and what it tells us about Puritan culture in general. The Puritans were certainly pre-Enlightenment thinkers and took the supernatural very seriously. They saw death as a final trial, beyond which was the eternal destiny of heaven or hell. They also stressed the importance of genuine conversion and faith, and thus did not see death as a welcomed thing for everyone. Thus, as Stannard points out, instead of trivializing or sentimentalizing death, they saw death as the "King of Terrors," a final and ultimate conflict for the soul. And in part because of the high childhood mortality and harsh conditions, death was often discussed and often used in exhortations aimed at repentance and the stages of conversion.
Stannard does not do entire justice to the postmillennial optimism of many of the Puritans or to the formal theology of the Westminster Confession and other Puritan documents, but he does point out certain theological trends that emerged in New England that led to some departure from their English heritage (I think Stannard might have done a little better in tracing the development of the doctrine of assurance from the English to the American Puritans). Stannard says that "although it was impossible for a man ever to know with confidence that he was among the holy elect...all Puritans battled fiercely with their consciences as they searched to find among the numberless indications of depravity some signs, at least, that they might be among the chosen few" (p. 41). This is incorrect if we are talking about the Puritans who composed the Westminster Confession of Faith, but it does seem to be true of a trend in American Puritanism (though it might be overstated). My conclusion from the book is that the increased emphasis on subjectivity, experience, doubt, and introspection led to increasing pessimism and fear. It led to the halfway covenant and the lack of generational continuity. Basically it led to the decline of Puritanism.
A good point that Stannard makes near the end of the book is that instead of dealing with death head on, either through trivializing it (Middle Ages), struggling through it (Puritan) or sentimentalizing it (Victorians), modern American culture is vastly unprepared to meet death and has taken on the approach of avoiding death. The Puritans were able to withstand their struggle with death because they had a firm religious vision, purpose, and tightly-knit community. We lack these things today. "It may be uncomfortable, it may be in many ways be condemnable, but the modern American way of death is a direct response to the modern American way of life....It we are to even think of changing our way of death, we will first have to think of changing the very fundamentals of our highly complex and institutional way of life" (196-197).
Stannard does not do entire justice to the postmillennial optimism of many of the Puritans or to the formal theology of the Westminster Confession and other Puritan documents, but he does point out certain theological trends that emerged in New England that led to some departure from their English heritage (I think Stannard might have done a little better in tracing the development of the doctrine of assurance from the English to the American Puritans). Stannard says that "although it was impossible for a man ever to know with confidence that he was among the holy elect...all Puritans battled fiercely with their consciences as they searched to find among the numberless indications of depravity some signs, at least, that they might be among the chosen few" (p. 41). This is incorrect if we are talking about the Puritans who composed the Westminster Confession of Faith, but it does seem to be true of a trend in American Puritanism (though it might be overstated). My conclusion from the book is that the increased emphasis on subjectivity, experience, doubt, and introspection led to increasing pessimism and fear. It led to the halfway covenant and the lack of generational continuity. Basically it led to the decline of Puritanism.
A good point that Stannard makes near the end of the book is that instead of dealing with death head on, either through trivializing it (Middle Ages), struggling through it (Puritan) or sentimentalizing it (Victorians), modern American culture is vastly unprepared to meet death and has taken on the approach of avoiding death. The Puritans were able to withstand their struggle with death because they had a firm religious vision, purpose, and tightly-knit community. We lack these things today. "It may be uncomfortable, it may be in many ways be condemnable, but the modern American way of death is a direct response to the modern American way of life....It we are to even think of changing our way of death, we will first have to think of changing the very fundamentals of our highly complex and institutional way of life" (196-197).
January 12, 2015
Far more about Calvinistic/Puritan theology than actual deathways and culture, and a bit dated (of course, it was written in 1979) it's still a worthy read. It puts much of the baffling mindset of Puritan culture into context missing from many history courses. However, it is more sociological than historical; many facts are presented out of order and this requires some mental track-keeping, or a strong foundation in the timeline of Puritanism, to keep a handle on. If you're coming to it for death-ways, grave symbology, actual funerary rites, etc, there's only about a chapter's worth - however, it's a short book and a fairly easy read.
February 16, 2011
Have loved this book for a very long time, and continue to teach it and find new things to love about it. The single book that finally made the Puritans accessible to me--and eminently fascinating. I wish I could sit down and have a conversation with David Stannard about how to craft a great book!
January 27, 2014
Repetitive and obvious, but informational I suppose. Some interesting plague anecdotes.
October 6, 2016
An old standard on th subject, still valid in today's field of history.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews