Charles 0. Jackson, in The Journal of American Studies (Dec. 1977), Cambridge University Press, 32 E. 57th St., New York, N.Y. 10022.
Twentieth-century custom enjoins Americans to repress grief and to
deny any thought of death. But it has not always been so. Jackson, a
University of Tennessee historian, reviews the scant literature and finds
three distinct phases in the history of American attitudes and responses
to dying.
In colonial times, when as many as one in four childen died before...