Black Women Undertakers of the Early Twentieth Century Were Hidden in Plain Sight

Abstract

AbstractThis essay foregrounds Black women in the very narrative of undertaking that they helped create and develop. It was the wives who helped start the country’s oldest undertaking firms, and it was the wives, sisters, and daughters who sustained and professionalized the funeral home legacy. The article follows women from the American South and mid-Atlantic regions, illustrating how, with their skills and capital, they labored not just as funeral directresses, embalmers, and undertakers but also as bookkeepers, hairdressers, accountants, caterers. These women were “race women,” college-educated Black women who were trained to uplift the race. And as race women in the death trade, they brought their skills and education to a field that created generational wealth and civic empowerment.