Episode 39: Funeral Directing: A Family Affair

Undertakers were valued and essential community members. Known as undertakers in the 19th and earlier 20th centuries they morphed into funeral directors by the 1930s. Whether in the 19th century, the 20th century, and even today, they ran small family businesses whose survival depended on the continuity of family generations and a clientele of their own ethnicity. The first generation of Irish undertakers came on the scene when undertaking was a new profession. The next generation of undertakers  emerged at the turn of the century, while a large cluster of Irish-owned funeral operations formed to serve the 1920s cohort of immigrants. The bond between Irish funeral directors and the Irish American community remains strong to this day.