ShareThisAlthough cremation was once common in the ancient world, the practice didn't get much public attention in the United States until 1876 with the cremation of Baron Joseph Henry Louis Charles De Palm.
De Palm's cremation took place on Dec. 6 in the small town of Washington, Pa. According to The New York Times, he had requested cremation shortly before his death in May. But since there was no appropriate crematory at the time, his remains were kept until Dr. F. Julius LeMoyne finished building the first one on his estate in Pennsylvania.
A scientific discussion on the subject was held immediately after the cremation.
According to Stephen Prothero, a professor of religion at Boston University, the disposal of De Palm's body drew controversy.
"Supporters hailed the event, the first cremation in modern America, as a harbinger of a new age of scientific progress and ritual simplicity. Opponents denounced it as Satan's errand," Prothero wrote in his 2001 book, "Purified by Fire: A History of Cremation in America."
The pro-cremationists said that cremation was a more sanitary practice than burial, an argument that fell apart when scientific evidence proved otherwise in the early 1900s.
The movement then argued that cremation was more spiritually pure than burial, Prothero said.
Cremation was statistically insignificant in America until the '60s, when the numbers began to grow. The rate of cremation had almost reached 15 percent in 1985, and had more than doubled by 2004, according to the Cremation Association of North America.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)
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