Undertakers

By the middle of the war, an increasing number of death care professionals handled the dead. Funerary professionals, in increasing numbers, emerged in federally occupied urban centers throughout Tennessee and began to advertise their services in local and statewide newspapers. Below are example advertisements from both Nashville and Chattanooga.

These advertisements show a diverse range of commercial funerary services, including coffin-making and selling, embalming, transporting the body, burial, and the production and installation of a grave marker, the work previously conducted by the deceased's families and communities. While these new professionals offered a greater variety of commercial services, most of these services remained in urban centers and county seats.