Jessica Mitford (1917–1996)
Author of Hons and Rebels
About the Author
Image credit: Photo © Alain McLaughlin
Works by Jessica Mitford
Associated Works
The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate: Two Novels (1945) — Foreword, some editions — 1,612 copies, 30 reviews
Shaking the Foundations: 200 Years of Investigative Journalism in America (Nation Books) (2003) — Contributor — 45 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Mitford, Jessica
- Legal name
- Mitford, Jessica Lucy
Treuhaft, Jessica Lucy (married) - Other names
- Freeman-Mitford, Jessica
- Birthdate
- 1917-09-11
- Date of death
- 1996-07-22
- Gender
- female
- Occupations
- journalist
writer
political activist
professor - Organizations
- Decca and the Dectones
- Relationships
- Mitford, Nancy (sister)
Mosley, Diana (sister)
Mitford, Algernon B. (grandfather)
Devonshire, Deborah (sister)
Romilly, Esmond (first husband)
Mosley, Oswald (brother-in-law) (show all 14)
Guinness, Desmond (nephew)
Guinness, Jonathan (nephew)
Churchill, Randolph S. (second cousin)
Murphy, Sophia (niece)
Mitford, Unity (sister)
Mitford, Pamela (sister)
York, Catherine (cousin)
Truehaft, Robert (husband) - Short biography
- Jessica Mitford, known in the family as Decca, was one of the six daughters born to English aristocrats David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale, and his wife Sydney. She received little formal education but was widely read. At age 19, she eloped with her second cousin Esmond Romilly and went first to Spain, where Romilly worked as a war correspondent after having fought in the Spanish Civil War. The couple then lived in the East End of London before leaving England for the USA. At the start of World War II, Romilly enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force; he was killed a few months after Jessica gave birth to their daughter. She remarried in 1943 to Robert Treuhaft, a civil rights lawyer, and moved with him to Oakland, California, and had two sons. Jessica was active in many civil rights causes and left-wing politics. She became an investigative writer and journalist, and published her bestselling exposé of the funeral industry, The American Way of Death, in 1963. She also wrote several memoirs, including Hons and Rebels (1960, also known as Daughters and Rebels). Jessica's deeply held beliefs caused her estrangement from her sister Diana, Lady Mosley.
- Cause of death
- lung cancer
- Nationality
- UK (birth)
USA (naturalized | 1944) - Birthplace
- Gloucestershire, England, UK
- Places of residence
- Burford, Oxfordshire, England, UK
London, England, UK
Washington, D.C., USA
Oakland, California, USA
Gloucestershire, England (birth) - Place of death
- Oakland, California, USA
Members
Reviews
Once upon a time, straight out of college, I almost took a job in funeral sales. I'm glad I steered clear of that lucrative career path. The money would've been great, but not at the expense of all that absurd psychological manipulation and sales shenanigans I'd of had to have conned the bereaved with, every day, 9-5.
"Wouldn't your loved one have wanted to be buried in this gold embossed coffin? I understand he was a man of modest means, and made great personal sacrifices for you and your show more family, doesn't he now deserve the best now for his eternal rest?"
What shysters, just a small step removed from their sleazy, used car salespeople, next of kin. I wouldn't be caught dead working in the funeral industry, preying upon people's raw emotional weakness in their greatest -- and gravest -- time of need. What a disgusting, self-serving industry the funeral business became in the twentieth century in the U.S.A., and remains so, even now, despite occasional promises of reform that have arisen in reaction to persistent whistle blowers like Jessica Mitford, whose American Way of Death elicited a similar (though smaller scaled) legislative response that The Jungle did for the meat packing industry.
Jessica Mitford wrote a wonderful, smart, and snarky exposé on the closed culture and shady sales tactics of these embalming-crazed bastards -- or "memorial counselors" -- as their business cards allege they are today, who don't bat an eye inside their posh offices insisting that embalming is "required by law" when in fact no such laws requiring the dead have to be embalmed exist on the books or have ever existed. This lie has been so ingrained in U.S. culture, as Mitford observes, that these memorial counselors don't even ask the bereaved if they want "the deceased" to be embalmed; they just assume you do unless you say you don't. And if you don't want embalming, but rather, refrigeration, the average memorial counselor will proclaim, because of health reasons, that "the law requires it." But the law doesn't -- and never has -- required it. It's a lie.
But as Mitford pointed out, if you're not an attorney or legal expert, and in your vulnerable condition (you may still be in shock), having just lost a loved one, you're probably not going to argue with them that it isn't the law, but will take their good word for it; because, after all, they're the experts right?, they're the authorities on the matter, and you automatically accept their authority unconsciously. They're dressed in their Sunday best and their speech even sounds, the way they talk, if they're smooth at it, sympathetic. Like they care about you. Certainly they wouldn't dream of taking advantage of you at a horrible time like this!
But they do. They have. And will continue to do so. They've been screwing all of us over, in fact, for almost one hundred years: first our great-grandparents, then our grandparents, then our parents, and now us, doing so when we're at our lowest, screwing us over with flowery lies. How many poor people that the funeral industry has purported to serve have only been made poorer by exorbitant, debt-inducing price tags for services that are often unnecessary to begin with, such as embalming or air-tight coffins? Bless Jessica Mitford for exposing the industry's collective ruthlessness and unprofessional practices throughout the last thirty-plus years of her life. show less
"Wouldn't your loved one have wanted to be buried in this gold embossed coffin? I understand he was a man of modest means, and made great personal sacrifices for you and your show more family, doesn't he now deserve the best now for his eternal rest?"
What shysters, just a small step removed from their sleazy, used car salespeople, next of kin. I wouldn't be caught dead working in the funeral industry, preying upon people's raw emotional weakness in their greatest -- and gravest -- time of need. What a disgusting, self-serving industry the funeral business became in the twentieth century in the U.S.A., and remains so, even now, despite occasional promises of reform that have arisen in reaction to persistent whistle blowers like Jessica Mitford, whose American Way of Death elicited a similar (though smaller scaled) legislative response that The Jungle did for the meat packing industry.
Jessica Mitford wrote a wonderful, smart, and snarky exposé on the closed culture and shady sales tactics of these embalming-crazed bastards -- or "memorial counselors" -- as their business cards allege they are today, who don't bat an eye inside their posh offices insisting that embalming is "required by law" when in fact no such laws requiring the dead have to be embalmed exist on the books or have ever existed. This lie has been so ingrained in U.S. culture, as Mitford observes, that these memorial counselors don't even ask the bereaved if they want "the deceased" to be embalmed; they just assume you do unless you say you don't. And if you don't want embalming, but rather, refrigeration, the average memorial counselor will proclaim, because of health reasons, that "the law requires it." But the law doesn't -- and never has -- required it. It's a lie.
But as Mitford pointed out, if you're not an attorney or legal expert, and in your vulnerable condition (you may still be in shock), having just lost a loved one, you're probably not going to argue with them that it isn't the law, but will take their good word for it; because, after all, they're the experts right?, they're the authorities on the matter, and you automatically accept their authority unconsciously. They're dressed in their Sunday best and their speech even sounds, the way they talk, if they're smooth at it, sympathetic. Like they care about you. Certainly they wouldn't dream of taking advantage of you at a horrible time like this!
But they do. They have. And will continue to do so. They've been screwing all of us over, in fact, for almost one hundred years: first our great-grandparents, then our grandparents, then our parents, and now us, doing so when we're at our lowest, screwing us over with flowery lies. How many poor people that the funeral industry has purported to serve have only been made poorer by exorbitant, debt-inducing price tags for services that are often unnecessary to begin with, such as embalming or air-tight coffins? Bless Jessica Mitford for exposing the industry's collective ruthlessness and unprofessional practices throughout the last thirty-plus years of her life. show less
Not only have I found my favorite book of the year, this one made it into my top 20 books of all time! Hons and Rebels (alternatively titled Daughters and Rebels) is a nonfiction book that follows Jessica Mitford, one of the Mitford siblings. The book starts out during Jessica's childhood and teen years, growing up in an eccentric British upper class family. Eventually, with her values gradually morphing to conflict with many of her relatives, she decides to escape her upper class life, show more leaving her family and England behind.
Before I started reading, I had done a Wikipedia deep dive on the Mitford siblings, so I figured this book would be interesting, but not too thrilling, because I felt like I already knew all of the events that would happen. Boy, was I wrong. Hons and Rebels was RIVETING! I was spellbound for every single word of this book. I laughed uproariously at Jessica's exploits, I became attached to the people Jessica and Esmond met during their travels, and by the end of the book, I was in tears. She was such a fantastic writer. I can't wait to read more of her books! show less
Before I started reading, I had done a Wikipedia deep dive on the Mitford siblings, so I figured this book would be interesting, but not too thrilling, because I felt like I already knew all of the events that would happen. Boy, was I wrong. Hons and Rebels was RIVETING! I was spellbound for every single word of this book. I laughed uproariously at Jessica's exploits, I became attached to the people Jessica and Esmond met during their travels, and by the end of the book, I was in tears. She was such a fantastic writer. I can't wait to read more of her books! show less
“[The funeral director] will do his best to hypnotize the family into believing that the more expensive the casket, the more elaborate the preparations, the greater the love and honor shown the deceased…” so Mitford quotes a 1942 ed. of Etiquette in “The American Way of Death Revisited.” This work is exactly what a reader wants from evidence-based, forthright investigative journalism.
Did you know that embalming isn't required? No religion commends it, nor health or sanitation. Yet show more funeral directors will embalm a body without first consulting the family. It is also unnecessary for an open casket. In fact, this pricey procedure only lasts through the service and burial. The real preservation is for bodies donated to science. But it is claimed as necessary for “grief therapy." In 1996 a $7000+ funeral was not uncommon.
Did you know that a casket isn't required for cremation? The costlier grades cannot be burned or reused. They are broken down and scrapped. Cremation is no guarantee against the show room, along with flowers, portraits, escorting services, multiple “coaches” for the funeral train, etc. Even Jacqueline Kennedy faced these "nefarious transactions" during her husband’s funeral, despite the efforts by Robert K.
At the time of this book, the top players were: Service Corp. Intl, the Loewen Group and Stewart Enterprises with profits in the billions. Terms like “service”, “preparation room”, “reposing room,” or “grieving room” among many others, are all part of the sales pitch. In the industry, “combos” are cemeteries with integrated undertaking. "It is standard practice to not start construction until at least 1/3 of all burial space has been sold.” So much greed and manipulation! At the end the author was sure to include a directory of non-profit funeral and memorial societies for each U.S. state. I absolutely commend this author for her efforts. show less
Did you know that embalming isn't required? No religion commends it, nor health or sanitation. Yet show more funeral directors will embalm a body without first consulting the family. It is also unnecessary for an open casket. In fact, this pricey procedure only lasts through the service and burial. The real preservation is for bodies donated to science. But it is claimed as necessary for “grief therapy." In 1996 a $7000+ funeral was not uncommon.
Did you know that a casket isn't required for cremation? The costlier grades cannot be burned or reused. They are broken down and scrapped. Cremation is no guarantee against the show room, along with flowers, portraits, escorting services, multiple “coaches” for the funeral train, etc. Even Jacqueline Kennedy faced these "nefarious transactions" during her husband’s funeral, despite the efforts by Robert K.
At the time of this book, the top players were: Service Corp. Intl, the Loewen Group and Stewart Enterprises with profits in the billions. Terms like “service”, “preparation room”, “reposing room,” or “grieving room” among many others, are all part of the sales pitch. In the industry, “combos” are cemeteries with integrated undertaking. "It is standard practice to not start construction until at least 1/3 of all burial space has been sold.” So much greed and manipulation! At the end the author was sure to include a directory of non-profit funeral and memorial societies for each U.S. state. I absolutely commend this author for her efforts. show less
It seems rather morbid to give a book about the American funeral industry five stars. But it was a very interesting book, and a very eye-opening look into the business end of death. One of the best things about it was how funny it was. Most of this wasn't the author's doing, it was when she directly quoted from trade journals of the funeral industry that the laughs kept coming. I don't think I was supposed to be laughing, though, which made those gems even funnier.
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Statistics
- Works
- 15
- Also by
- 8
- Members
- 4,151
- Popularity
- #6,062
- Rating
- 4.0
- Reviews
- 81
- ISBNs
- 77
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- 4
- Favorited
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