Rare Books

The American way of death

Image not available

Description: " ... Here is a whole complex of commercial operations that result in funerals whose expense, display and mumbo jumbo are unrelated to any Christian or Jewish tradition and virtually unheard of in any other country today. And there is precise information on what is being done to lower the cost and raise the dignity of burial in the United States."
Type: Rare Books(Opens in new tab)
Publication date: 1963.
Call number: 655152
Creator: Mitford, Jessica (1917-1996)(Opens in new tab)
ISBN: 0449239853; 9780449239858
Provenance

Detailed statistical abstracts of Treasury accounts of each branch of public revenues and expenditures, (bulk) 1687-1702

Manuscripts

The present matched set of nine volumes are contemporary or nearly contemporary copies of the Treasury's detailed accounts of annual or semi-annual public revenues from commodity-specific customs and excise fees, goods seized, Parliamentary loans, licensing fees, land and hearth taxes, profits from the Mint, shipping and port taxes, marriage and burial fees, and numerous other revenue streams, each amount collected being set off against specific expenditures on the civil service, army, navy, secret service, government pensions and annuities, interest on the new national debt, building and construction, and other "contingents of divers natures". The precise relation of these records to the Treasury's Annual Account series remains to be established. The volumes are as listed below.

mssHM 69953-69955

Image not available

Death certificate of indentured servant from Canton

Manuscripts

This collection contains 93 documents relating to the bureaucracy and administration of Chinese indentured servants in Cuba working on sugar and commercial crop plantations. The documents include certificates of nationality from the Chinese consulate in Havana, which contains information about individual laborer's age, place of origin, and provides their Hispanic name. Also included are new contracts for laborers who sought new indenture after the expiration of their initial contract, identification papers or cedulas, legal proceedings, death and burial certificates. Additionally, there is a log sheet from a slave depository, a temporary holding place for enslaved persons before they were purchased or transported, containing names and descriptions of recaptured indentured servants who had attempted to escape.

mssCISC

Burying the Dead on the Battle-Field of Antietam

Visual Materials

A Union burial detail with shovels and pickaxes readying the ground for the burial of dead Confederate soldiers. A tall tree stands in the background, left-hand side of frame.

photPF 2648

Image not available

Death certificate of forty-six-year-old male from Canton

Manuscripts

mssCISC

Image not available

Extended family

Manuscripts

Extended Kawakami, Sakai, and Kozawa families; bulk is of Saichi and Chizu Kawakami, their children and grandchildren, especially Kawakami family weddings. Some portraits represent early years in California as well as family in Japan (box 36, 38), and Sakai family funerals, 1920s.

mssSK

Image not available

The journey

Rare Books

A book of autobiographical musings, introspection and social commentary based on inteviews gathered on a driving tour of coastal Georgia. The focus was on human dignity apparent in the suffering and pain in the lives of many individuals in the South.

645722

The American way of death

Opening Hours

Admission Info and Tickets

You might also be interested in

Detailed statistical abstracts of Treasury accounts of each branch of public revenues and expenditures, (bulk) 1687-1702

Death certificate of indentured servant from Canton

Burying the Dead on the Battle-Field of Antietam

Death certificate of forty-six-year-old male from Canton

Extended family

The journey