A funeral home is a term that refers to a company that provides services to a family to handle the final arrangements for a family member after they have died.
Traditionally, a family would prepare a family member’s body after death and lay it out in their home where friends and relatives could come and pay their respects before burial. However, as cities became more populated in the late 1800s and workers’ residences were too small to accommodate a family member’s funeral, businesses emerged to replace this function. A deceased person would no longer be prepared and memorialized in a family’s home. Instead funeral home business would provide that function. They were actual buildings that doubled as a home for a funeral.