Not only did preserving bodies ensure clean and safe travel for cadavers and dead soldiers, it also secured one last glance at a loved one’s body before burial. Instead of a rush to clean and prepare the body before the unsettling realities of death became apparent, there was time for the last goodbye.

The professionalization of the funerary industry created a slew of new job possibilities for those who were willing to work with the deceased and their distressed families, and this seemingly-peculiar trade was open to allowing women to be educated and trained. Many men became trained in embalming because it was associated with medicine, but nearly all medical schools were closed to women. During the Victorian era it was still considered indecent for men to handle theunclothed, lifeless bodies of deceased women and children.[3] This social predicament left many upset families seeking an embalmer to preserve the bodies of their loved ones, but coming up with nothing. There was an obvious gap in this new profession that must be filled.

Madame Lina R. Odou understood this need. She was originally raised across various cities in Europe, and was hugely influenced by her colleague and friend, Florence Nightingale. The two women met in London in 1868 when Odou was beginning her training as a nurse, which provided the medical background necessary to be trained in embalming. Moving to the United States from Switzerland, Odou became trained in mortuary science, founding the “Lina D. Odou Embalming Institute” in Manhattan in early 1901 within the Frank E. Campbell