Who made coffins in 1880?

Answer 1

In most cases, caskets were made by local furniture and cabinet makers who served also as undertakers, building coffins on an "as needed" basis. In the US, the main impulse for the founding of specialized casket makers came during the Civil War, when thousands of coffins were needed to transport dead soldiers.

In 1870, the J. M. Hutton Company of Richmond, IN (founded in 1845) began to concentrate all its activities on making caskets. In the 1880s there existed already several casket companies in the US, for example the Stein Manufacturing Co. founded 1872 in Rochester, NY - a company which later became the famous National Casket Company with its headquarter in Boston. In the same year, the Marsellus casket company - which probably became the most famous hardwood manufacturer of America - was founded in Syracuse, NY. Also the parent company of the renown Crane & Breed Company of Cincinnati, OH (founded under that name in 1882) was already in existence: since the mid 1860s, Martin H. Crane had experimented with wrought sheet iron as a less expensive alternative to cast iron, and by the end of the decade he had developed the industry's first sheet metal casket which could be mass produced. In 1884 the renown Springfield metallic casket company was founded The beginnings of the Batesville casket company - nowadays the largest casket manufacturer in the US - go back to the same year. Batesville became the most important pioneer of reasonably priced steel caskets and gasket sealer caskets.