The historical significance of the cooling board
Discover the untold story of a simple yet profound tradition that shaped cultural practices and led to modern funeral care.
Understanding the cooling board
A "cooling board" was a simple wooden platform used in the past to lay out a person who had died before burial. It was an important part of home funerals, particularly in rural communities before modern refrigeration and widespread professional funeral homes. The cooling board looked somewhat like a long, flat wooden board, sometimes with holes or a lattice surface. The person was placed on the board while family or an undertaker prepared them for burial. In some versions, ice was placed underneath the board. The cold helped slow the natural changes that occur after death and allowed more time for the family to prepare for the funeral.
A cornerstone of African American funeral traditions
The cooling board has an especially important connection to African American funeral traditions in the South. During slavery and afterward, families and communities often cared for their own deceased at home. Accounts describe the deceased being washed, dressed, and placed on a cooling board while relatives and neighbors gathered for prayer, mourning, and preparation for burial. These traditions continued into the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Black funeral businesses eventually developed partly from these community traditions. For example, the Royal Undertaking Company in Savannah, Georgia, served African Americans who were excluded from white-owned funeral homes. They also trained Black apprentices in caring for and preserving the deceased on cooling boards.
From tradition to modernity
As refrigeration, embalming, and modern funeral equipment became common, cooling boards gradually disappeared from ordinary use. We want visitors to understand the relationship of the cooling board to the Black community before the use of funeral homes. This is another example of a cultural Black southern tradition that paved the way for funeral services today.