Australian ways of death : a social and cultural history, 1840-1918

This book examines where and how people have died in Australia; how they have been buried, mourned, and commemorated; and how social and regional factors have influenced mortality rates and people's consciousness of death and loss. Frontmatter Acknowledgments (page v) Introduction (page 1) Part 1 Immigrant Deaths at Sea: The Transition from the Old World to the New Chapter 1 The terror of 'a watery grave': The deaths of infants and children at sea, 1838-90 (page 15) Chapter 2 Faith, fever, and consumption: Disease and adult deaths at sea (page 33) Part II The Good Christian Death: Transmission from Europe to Australia Chapter 3 The transmission of the European culture of the good Christian death (page 51) Chapter 4 'Angels in heaven': The common tragedies of babies' and children's deaths (page 69) Chapter 5 Medical and secular challenges to Christian ideals of death (page 88) Chapter 6 Funerals and undertakers (page 108) Chapter 7 Women, widowhood, and gendered mourning (page 129) Chapter 8 Christian mourning ritual and heavenly consolations (page 144) Chapter 9 Memory and mourning: Secular and material commemoration (page 161) Chapter 10 Dr Springthorpe's memorialisation of his wife: Melbourne's Taj Mahal (page 177) Part III Death and Destitution Chapter 11 Sick and dying old people in 'benevolent' asylums (page 199) Chapter 12 An asylum system 'degrading to the most inhuman race of savages': Revelations and reform in New South Wales (page 219) Part IV Death in the Bush and the Great War Chapter 13 Death and burial in the bush: A distinctive Australian culture of death (page 243) Chapter 14 Male deaths in the bush: Frontier violence, old age, suicide, and accidents (page 263) Chapter 15 Frontier struggles for survival: Stoical women and lost children (page 284) Chapter 16 Epilogue: The Great War and silent grief (page 304) Abbreviations (page 329) Notes (page 330) Select bibliography (page 362) Index (page 371) "Australian Ways of Death: A Social and Cultural History 1840-1918 describes how Australians in the past came to terms with death within the constraints and cultural perspectives of their own times. This book is the result of intensive research into where and how people have died in Australia, how they have been buried, mourned, and commemorated, and how social and regional factors have influenced mortality rates and people's consciousness of death and loss."--Jacket This volume is the result of intensive research into where and how people have died in Australia, how they have been buried, mourned and commemmorated, and how social and regional factors have influenced mortality rates and people's consciousness of death and loss.