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Yes, that’s right. Cedar Grove once had a glass coffin factory. But what is a glass coffin, exactly?
The industrialization of casket machinery transformed the business of death in the United States by the 1920s, when multiple companies began producing caskets with glass windows. Glass windows were originally added to caskets so that family and friends could look into the coffin to see the body of the deceased. But that’s not the only reason why glass casket windows became popular.
“The window also would alert onlookers that the occupant had been accidentally buried alive if breath condensation appeared on the inside of the glass,” wrote Troy Smythe in an article called Failure to launch: The American glass casket industry, published by the Corning Museum of glass.
By the early 1920s, The National Glass Coffin Company in Cedar Grove, Louisiana (now Shreveport) was determined to provide yet another service for glass coffin customers.
“A circular letter received from the Nationa Glass Casket Co., Denver, Colorado, states that they are going to build a factory at Shreveport, La. for the purpose of manufacturing glass caskets. Their reason for locating at Shreveport is “because that section offers and unlimited supply of natural gas and glass sand, and water rates for the transportation of the product,” wrote The National Glass Budget, a weekly review of the American glass industry, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, on May 10, 1919.
“The coffins and caskets to be manufactured, it is believed, will revolutionize the coffin industry in this country. The glass coffins are hermetically sealed and are moisture proof as well as vermin proof and persons buried in these receptacles may be unearthed thousands of years hence in the same identical condition as when interred,” explained The Shreveport Journal.
During the 1920s, glass caskets were a fashionable trend in the United States.
Farm workers find glass coffin at old Mississippi Plantation
On Apr. 24, 1969, on the Egypt Plantation in Cruger, Mississippi, farm workers were using a backhoe near the old bank of the Yazoo River when they hit something 2-4′ deep in the ground. Suddenly liquid began pouring from the object, and when the farm workers began investigating the situation they suddenly saw woman’s body inside. She was wearing a red velvet dress, a long cape, silk boots, and she looked like she was in her early 30s. “The Lady in Red,” as she was later called, had red hair and pale skin.
After the farm workers called the local sheriff, an investigation proved the strange liquid to be alcohol and determined that the woman had been buried long ago.
The coffin was later determined to be a Fisk Airtight Coffin, which was made by the Fisk company in Rhode Island. Their caskets were used to preserve the bodies of the deceased as they were shipped home to their families far away.
Who was the Lady in Red? Her identity is still a mystery, but it is suspected that her body was buried long before the Civil War–which proves that caskets with glass windows were being used in the South long before a glass casket company opened in Shreveport during the 1920s.
The idea of covering the dead in a liquid that preserves their bodies is nothing new. An ancient Roman method covered the bodies of the deceased in liquid gypsum that acted almost like a plaster. Archaeologists have found that Roman burials in liquid gypsum date back at least 1700s years.
Snow White’s glass coffin
Those who grew up watching Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, an animated film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by RKO Radio Pictures, pictured the post-apple Snow White asleep in a glass coffin, waiting for her prince to show up and kiss her back to life.
It’s a rather Grimm story.
More than 80 years after the release of the 1937 film, the image of Snow White in a glass coffin is a little bit creepy when you think about it. But now that you know a little about the history of America’s glass coffin industry in the 1920s, are you really surprised that such a coffin would appear in a cartoon movie released in 1937?
Glass coffins manufactured in 1920s Shreveport
The National Glass Coffin Company was based in Denver, Colorado, and a patent for one of the class coffins was filed on Nov. 7, 1916.
And though we can’t be certain that this is the exact model that was produced by the same company’s Shreveport factory, we can easily make assumptions.
The patent application stated that the coffin was comprised of a base and a cover, with the base made of glass reinforced with metallic elements.
Sources:
The Shreveport Journal, Oct. 26, 1921, pp. 51.
The National Glass Budget, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, May 10, 1919.
Glass Worker, Volume 41, No. 1, Oct. 1, 1921, pp. 11.
The Caucasian, Shreveport, Louisiana, July 8, 1909, pp. 4.
United States Patent Office Official Gazette, Department of The Interior, May 1, 1917, pp. 96.
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