Early in the history of our country families cared for their own dead. Bodies were washed and laid out in front parlors. Family, friends and neighbors visited and all followed the body in a funeral procession to the church and cemetery.

It was not until the Civil War that embalming became common when it was used to preserve the bodies of dead soldiers being shipped home over long distances for burial. By the turn of the century the newly formed National Funeral Directors Association was urging its members to regard themselves as professionals not craftsmen like carpenter coffin makers. They encouraged the regular use of embalming suggesting that it was in the interest of public health. As Americans moved to apartments and smaller houses not sufficiently ample to accommodate mourners and coffins the social activities surrounding death gradually left the home and became centered in the funeral parlor which offered more and more lavish and expensive services.

Concurrently in rural areas in the northwest the burial cooperatives of granges were providing simple, low-cost funerals. This concept spread to cities and the People's Memorial Association of Seattle, organized in 1939, became the first urban group . In the late 1950s and early 1960s several writers, among them Jessica Mitford, argued for changing the way we commemorate and bury our dead. They demonstrated through their researches that death practices in the United States were among the most costly and elaborate in the world. Indeed, funeral expenses had been rising faster than the general cost of living.

This spurred a national reform movement and the federal government launched investigations into funeral industry practices. As a result of a nationwide survey in the early 1980s, the Federal Trade Commission concluded that "the emotional trauma of bereavement, the lack of information, and time pressures place the consumer at an enormous disadvantage in making funeral arrangements." In 1984 it adopted rules that modified funeral industry practices and required protection for consumers.

Now prices must be given over the phone; written price lists for services must be given to anyone who requests them in person; services must be sold on a per service basis so that consumers do not have to pay for services they do not want; making false claims for merchandise quality or performance is prohibited; suggesting to consumers that embalming is required by law (when it usually is not) is forbidden.

CAFMS is now known as Funeral Consumers Alliance, a national consumer organization that has been on the legislative and judicial front lines defending the right to green burial and family directed funerals, and requiring the funeral industry to follow mandated FTC guidelines and the anti-trust laws. Most Memorial Societies are now known as Funeral Consumers Alliances. The Pittsburgh Society changed its name in 2003 to better reflect its focus on consumer service and its affiliation with the national organization. There are now about 100 affiliates across the U.S.

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