PETA Offers a Custom Titan Casket — and Its President’s Mortal Remains — To Promote Veganism

Although this pun-filled news release appeared on October 29 — just in time for Halloween — it’s not a spooky prank:  PETA, or People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, has offered to place a vegan-themed casket in the National Museum of Funeral History in Houston. It’s just the latest in a series of PETA promotions that tie an early death to a non-vegan diet, which ultimately supports one of the organization’s end goals: to prevent animals from becoming or producing food. It’s also a message that PETA’s current president has pledged to send post-mortem in the most PETA way possible.

An offer they can’t refuse?

“In time for Halloween, PETA sent a letter today to the National Museum of Funeral History with a deadly serious offer,” the release, which is found on PETA’s website, reads. “The group will provide a full-size casket for animal rights–oriented loved ones bearing the message ‘Life Is Short—Don’t Wait to Go Vegan’ to display in the museum’s collection as well as a vegan food giveaway to promote the new installation if the funerary facility agrees to let those who wish to continue their activism from beyond the grave do so.”

PETA adds that their goal for this unexpected offer is to “help educate the living about the animals who are tormented and killed every day for human use and remind everyone about the reapercussions of eating cholesterol-laden meat, eggs, and dairy, which increase the risk of suffering from heart disease, strokes, obesity, and numerous other potentially fatal ailments and conditions.”

Unending advocacy

The idea for a death-themed campaign, complete with a custom coffin, came about organically, according to PETA president Ingrid Newkirk, who was participating in discussions with the organization’s fervent supporters.

“In talking to some of our members, this recurring theme keeps coming up,” Newkirk explained to Connecting Directors. “What happens when I die? That’s the end of my advocacy for these animals. These wonderful animals will have one fewer voice to speak for them and to advocate. And somebody said, ‘Well, you know, you can get a message on a coffin that would be quite interesting.’”

Newkirk and her team have recognized the growing deathcare trend of uber-personalized products and services that truly pay homage to the deceased and their professions, hobbies, and other interests. A customized casket bearing the PETA logo and message can serve as one last reminder of the deceased’s passions and beliefs — and Newkirk hopes that it makes others ponder their own participation.

“Somebody could feel quite good about the fact that they’re going to choose a coffin, that when their loved ones come through to see them, they’ll see this message, or anybody who comes to this service will see this message,” Newkirk explains. “And so they could live on a little bit in their advocacy. People can live on through their bequests and are very proud to do that. They know that that’s one way and this is another way that they can make a statement.”

Team Titan

The organization’s selection of a Titan Casket to illustrate its mission isn’t surprising. In its short existence, Titan has become quite famous for its unexpected partnerships, as well as its seemingly-endless options for customization. 

Titan’s PETA casket collaboration was first introduced in 2022 with a press release appearing — you guessed it — just days before the Halloween, All Saints Day, and Dia de los Muertos holidays, alluding to the fact that a vegan lifestyle could delay one’s need for a casket of any kind. Today, Titan offers PETA supporters three options to customize its Orion model with “pro-animal” messages including “Life Is Short—Don’t Wait to Go Vegan” and “PETA Member for All Eternity.”

“Titan is a very reliable, good company,” Newkirk adds. “We looked at them and they seemed to be just the ticket. So we asked them if they would be game to sell one of these caskets on demand. And they said they would. We’re fond of it and we want to do something more with it as time goes on.”

Post-mortem activism

Throughout its 44-year history, PETA and its more than 9 million members have found some unusual, startling, and often controversial methods to educate others on their mission, and Newkirk’s final wishes, which she announced last year, may be one of the most drastic statements that could be made.

In June 2023, Newkirk announced that she had updated her will to “include a request for her flesh to be cooked, and for her body parts to be transformed into activist messages post-mortem.” Her will also includes having her skin “peeled off” to make leather goods, having one eye shipped to the National Institutes of Health “for funding experiments on animals” and for her foot be made into an umbrella stand “as is done for elephants.”

“It’s a real thing,” Newkirk shares. “I have an attorney. I have a pathologist. It came about because I was in a plane that almost crashed. And so the next day, you know, when I was sitting in a meeting, I thought, and this happens to people who’ve had that kind of experience, I thought ‘I shouldn’t be here.’ And then I started to think, ‘What is going to happen?’ And I thought, well, one good thing is I have excellent people in charge of departments, so that’s good.”

“And the second thing I thought was, this is the end of my activism, and my activism is so important to me,” she continues, “because I’ve been on dairy farms and in laboratories, and I’ve seen with my own eyes, I’ve been in slaughterhouses, I’ve seen with my own eyes what the animals go through. Activism to stop that is very important to me. And then I thought, ‘Well, what can I do?’ And I thought, ‘Well, I won’t need my body when I’ve gone, so why don’t I make a statement with it?” And I asked my mother, who was alive at the time. I said, ‘Do you mind if I do this?’ And she said, ‘No, dear, you do whatever you like.’ And so I got a pathologist, I got an attorney. I drew up a will and I thought, ‘What are the bad things that are happening and what are the good things that are happening? And how can I divide up the parts of my body to make those points through PETA when I’m gone?’ And that’s what happened.”

Coffin stickers

For those PETA supporters who aren’t yet ready to barbecue their deceased loved ones or purchase a themed casket, PETA’s online shop offers another option: casket stickers.

“As Halloween approaches, PETA is introducing customized coffin and urn stickers that let the dearly departed take their animal activism all the way to the grave,” reads the product description. “Sticking up for animal rights is a way of life—and now, it can also be a way of death. These witty and touching messages will inspire viewers to embrace a vegan lifestyle. They make great statement accessories for the actual dead or those feigning death with coffin paraphernalia this Halloween.”

Messages for these stickers include “I Told You I Wouldn’t Be Caught Dead in Wool,” “I Told You I Wouldn’t Be Caught Dead in Leather,” “Forever Fur-Free,” “Dead Meat Should Be Buried, Not Eaten,” and one that’s similar to the messages available in PETA’s Titan casket: “Give Life Your Best Shot: Go Vegan.”

“I do think that we always say vegans live a longer life because I think on average, it’s seven years more than anyone who eats meat and dairy,” Newkirk adds. “It’s just one of those sad or good facts, whichever way you take it. But maybe when you write about this, it will stick in some people’s minds that they need to do it.”

Newkirk hopes that the Connecting Directors audience will share these PETA personalization options with pre-planners or with families of anyone who was involved with PETA or animal activism while they were alive.

“It is true that when somebody goes, you are looking back and you’re thinking, did I do enough? Did I do it? Will I cherish their memory? Will I be able to get people to understand?” she says. “And what have you got? You’ve got a tribute wall at the funeral home and you try to say something. This, if you’re making funeral arrangements or something, would be a wonderful gift to the person because it’s what mattered to them.”

Election Day Trivia: Fun Facts About Dead Presidents

Happy Election Day, everyone! Tomorrow our country will have elected the 47th President of the United States … finally. It’s been a long, strange trip of an election year, and no matter how you feel about the results, at least most of us can agree that we will be glad when it’s behind us. 

But while we wait for those electoral votes to be tallied, why not reflect on the more interesting aspects of the POTUSes who have gone before us — the dead ones, at least. We’ll start with perhaps the most popular bit of death-related trivia …

8 presidents have died in office

Four presidents died of natural causes: William Henry Harrison (pneumonia, 31 days into his presidency), Zachary Taylor (gastroenteritis from eating bad cherries), Warren G. Harding (heart attack), and Franklin D. Roosevelt (cerebral hemorrhage) 

Four presidents were assassinated: Abraham Lincoln (gunshot wounds), James A. Garfield (septic shock from infection from gunshot wounds), William McKinley (gangrene from gunshot wounds), and John F. Kennedy (gunshot wounds)

Reagan broke the death curse

For more than 160 years, many people believed that presidents elected in a year ending in zero would die in office, thanks to the so-called Curse of Tippecanoe. Legend has it that Shawnee leader Tecumseh hated William Henry Harrison so fiercely that he placed the curse on not only Harrison, but all future presidents — and year after zero-ending election year, it seemed to come true. Seven of the above-named eight presidents who died in office were elected in a year ending with zero, including Harrison (elected in 1840). Only Zachary Taylor, who was elected in the non-cursed year of 1849 (but died in 1850) was not a supposed victim.

Despite assassination attempts, however, Ronald Reagan (elected in 1980) and George H. W. Bush (elected in 2000) did not die in office, and if Biden (elected in 2020) can make it through the night, he will be the third president to break the Curse of Tippecanoe.

Reagan’s was the most expensive presidential funeral

When Ronald Reagan died in 2004, his seven-day funeral eclipsed John F. Kennedy’s $15 million goodbye with a total price tag of more than $400 million. But that tally wasn’t due to a solid gold casket or an extravagant crypt. Instead, the real cost of the funeral skyrocketed because then-President George W. Bush declared a national day of mourning, closing the stock market and giving all federal employees the day off, racking up those millions in internal expenses. (Fun fact: $13 million of JFK’s total funeral expense was the purchase of his burial plot in Arlington National Cemetery).

Presidents plan their funerals when they take office

According to the White House Historical Association, each president is “asked to attend to the strange task of imagining his own funeral service” shortly after taking the oath of office. They are tasked with selecting “personal touches that can elucidate their character and legacy on a national stage for the last time.”

Four presidents were buried in a Marcellus casket

The Marcellus Casket Company, founded in 1872, produced exquisite “Rolls Royce”-quality caskets until 2003 — including those in which four U.S. presidents are buried. Kennedy, Nixon, Truman, and Reagan were all buried in Marcellus caskets. The last casket to roll off the Marcellus production line was a “The President” model 710 — and that same casket is now on display at the National Museum of Funeral History in Houston. 

JFK’s first casket was sunk to the bottom of the ocean

Although President John F. Kennedy was buried in a hand-rubbed-500-year-old-African-mahogany Marcellus 710, his body first rested in a Handley Britannia casket from the Elgin Casket Company. The Elgin casket suffered so much interior damage during initial transport due to the president’s horrendous wounds that it was not fit for public viewing and was replaced by the 710. After more than one year in the possession of the funeral home that embalmed Kennedy, the Elgin casket was moved to the National Archives to keep it away from the “morbidly curious.” In 1966, at the request of the Kennedy family, the casket was buried at sea by the U.S. Air Force, who drilled 42 holes and placed three 80-pound sandbags in the box, then dropped it into the Atlantic Ocean, adding two parachutes to ensure it wouldn’t break apart.

Presidents are buried in only 18 states (and one district)

The 39 presidents who have died are buried in only 18 different states and the District of Columbia, leaving 32 states with no presidential plots. The state that’s most saturated is Virginia, which is the resting place of seven dead presidents: Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Tyler, Taft, and Kennedy. The only presidents who are buried in the same cities are father-son duo John Adams and John Quincy Adams (Quincy, Massachusetts), Andrew Jackson and James K. Polk (Nashville, Tennessee), James Monroe and John Tyler (Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia) and William Howard Taft and John F. Kennedy (Arlington Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia).