death-care industry
n.— «In recent years, laws requiring funeral homes and cemeteries to disclose costs and provide price lists have removed much of the mystery from what some in the business refer to as the “death-care industry.”» —“Funeral business has to balance dollars, emotion” by Keith Roysdon Star Press (Muncie, Indiana) Jan. 27, 2008. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
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Hello,
I am new to the site, so may be misunderstanding your purpose; if you’re looking for the earliest mention of a word or phrase, then you may be interested to know that “death-care industry” appears in Jessica Mitford’s “The American Way of Death Revisited.” On page 188 she writes,”Of all the changes in the funeral scene over the last decades, easily the most significant is the emergence of monopolies in what the trade is pleased to call the ‘death-care’ industry.” Interestingly, on the following page, she quotes Goldman Sachs using the phrase as well: “The aging of America should enable the death-care industry to experience extremely stable demand…” (189). The phrase “death care” (without the “industry” part) appears a number of other times throughout the book, which is a 1998 update of her original 1963 book on this topic. I don’t know if the phrase appears in the 1963 edition.
I’m enjoying the site. Thanks.