David Sloan

But they also might have all sorts of different ways that they handle that family farm.

Very, very long time.

Remember in the early 19th century, mid-19th century, we don't have bacteriology.

Right.

That's going to come at the end of the century.

And so people were very worried about what was known as a miasma.

And a miasma was a sort of atmosphere above the city.

And there was a sense that a disease could get into a miasma and you could actually get that disease because you're in this miasma.

And so how do you get that miasma?

They thought it was from decomposing material.

And so the dead are decomposing.

So they became a threat.

that they would say you died of smallpox or you died of cholera, would you then decompose in a way that would allow cholera to go into this miasma and create a danger?

So that's the first thing that happens.

The second thing that happens is romanticism.

And romanticism emerges in Europe and then moves through Britain into the United States that nature is beneficial.

beneficial for health reasons, beneficial for spiritual reasons, it's beneficial for all sorts of things.

So if you put those two together, then the idea becomes if we suburbanize the dead in a larger place that we can protect and use for a very long time to bury the dead, we protect the living, we protect the dead.

And we can use that space to

Remember, before 1860, there's very few public parks in any city in the United States.