Meat, Modernity, and the Rise of the Slaughterhouse
edited by Paula Young Lee
University of New Hampshire Press, 2008 Cloth: 978-1-58465-698-2 Library of Congress Classification TS1963.M385 2008 Dewey Decimal Classification 664.902909
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Over the course of the nineteenth century, factory slaughterhouses replaced the hand-slaughter of livestock by individual butchers, who often performed this task in back rooms, letting blood run through streets. A wholly modern invention, the centralized municipal slaughterhouse was a political response to the public's increasing lack of tolerance for "dirty" butchering practices, corresponding to changing norms of social hygiene and fear of meat-borne disease. The slaughterhouse, in Europe and the Americas, rationalized animal slaughter according to capitalist imperatives. What is lost and what is gained when meat becomes a commodity? What do the sites of animal slaughter reveal about our relationship to animals and nature? Essays by the best international scholars come together in this cutting-edge interdisciplinary volume to examine the cultural significance of the slaughterhouse and its impact on modernity.
Contributors include: Dorothee Brantz, Kyri Claflin, Jared Day, Roger Horowitz, Lindgren Johnson, Ian MacLachlan, Christopher Otter, Dominic Pacyga, Richard Perren, Jeffrey Pilcher, and Sydney Watts.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
PAULA YOUNG LEE teaches Art and Architectural History at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, and is the author of a number of scholarly articles.
REVIEWS
"An unexpectedly fascinating collection of essays by historians, geographers, economists, and even an architectural historian (who is the general editor), covering France, Germany, Britain, the United States, and Mexico. The subjects range from technology to sanitation to humanitarian concerns, with rich material on the culture and traditions of the abbatoir."—Kitchen Arts & Letters
"This collection presents a cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary exploration of the emergence of industrialized animal slaughter, a disturbing and evocative subject that also reveals a great deal about less-hidden aspects of modern societies."—Harriet Ritvo, Arthur J. Conner Professor of History, MIT
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
List of Tables xi
Introduction: Housing Slaughter 1
Paula Young Lee
I. France and Germany
[1] The Grande Boucherie, the "Right" to Meat, #and the Growth of Paris 13
Sydney Watts
[2] La Villette: City of Blood (1867/1914) 27
Kyri Claflin
[3] Siting the Slaughterhouse: From Shed to Factory 46
Paula Young Lee
[4] Animal Bodies, Human Health, and the Reform #of Slaughterhouses in Nineteenth-Century Berlin 71
Dorothee Brantz
II. Britain
[5] Civilizing Slaughter: The Development of the British #Public Abattoir, 1850/1910 89
Chris Otter
[6] Humanitarian Reform, Slaughter Technology, and #Butcher Resistance in Nineteenth-Century Britain 107
Ian MacLachlan
[7] Filth and ProÞt, Disease and Health: Public and Private #Impediments to Slaughterhouse Reform in Victorian Britain 127
Richard Perren
III. United States and Mexico
[8] Chicago: Slaughterhouse to the World 153
Dominic A. Pacyga
[9] The Politics of Meat Shopping in Antebellum New York City 167
Roger Horowitz
[10] Butchers, Tanners, and Tallow Chandlers: The Geography # of Slaughtering in Early-Nineteenth-Century New York City 178
Jared N. Day
[11] To "Admit All Cattle without Distinction": Reconstructing #Slaughter in the Slaughterhouse Cases and the New Orleans #Crescent City Slaughterhouse 198
Lindgren Johnson
[12] Abattoir or Packinghouse? A Bloody Industrial Dilemma #in Mexico City, c. 1890 216
Jeffrey M. Pilcher
Conclusion: Why Look at Slaughterhouses? 237
Paula Young Lee
Notes 245
List of Contributors 289
Index 291
Meat, Modernity, and the Rise of the Slaughterhouse
edited by Paula Young Lee
University of New Hampshire Press, 2008 Cloth: 978-1-58465-698-2
Over the course of the nineteenth century, factory slaughterhouses replaced the hand-slaughter of livestock by individual butchers, who often performed this task in back rooms, letting blood run through streets. A wholly modern invention, the centralized municipal slaughterhouse was a political response to the public's increasing lack of tolerance for "dirty" butchering practices, corresponding to changing norms of social hygiene and fear of meat-borne disease. The slaughterhouse, in Europe and the Americas, rationalized animal slaughter according to capitalist imperatives. What is lost and what is gained when meat becomes a commodity? What do the sites of animal slaughter reveal about our relationship to animals and nature? Essays by the best international scholars come together in this cutting-edge interdisciplinary volume to examine the cultural significance of the slaughterhouse and its impact on modernity.
Contributors include: Dorothee Brantz, Kyri Claflin, Jared Day, Roger Horowitz, Lindgren Johnson, Ian MacLachlan, Christopher Otter, Dominic Pacyga, Richard Perren, Jeffrey Pilcher, and Sydney Watts.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
PAULA YOUNG LEE teaches Art and Architectural History at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, and is the author of a number of scholarly articles.
REVIEWS
"An unexpectedly fascinating collection of essays by historians, geographers, economists, and even an architectural historian (who is the general editor), covering France, Germany, Britain, the United States, and Mexico. The subjects range from technology to sanitation to humanitarian concerns, with rich material on the culture and traditions of the abbatoir."—Kitchen Arts & Letters
"This collection presents a cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary exploration of the emergence of industrialized animal slaughter, a disturbing and evocative subject that also reveals a great deal about less-hidden aspects of modern societies."—Harriet Ritvo, Arthur J. Conner Professor of History, MIT
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
List of Tables xi
Introduction: Housing Slaughter 1
Paula Young Lee
I. France and Germany
[1] The Grande Boucherie, the "Right" to Meat, #and the Growth of Paris 13
Sydney Watts
[2] La Villette: City of Blood (1867/1914) 27
Kyri Claflin
[3] Siting the Slaughterhouse: From Shed to Factory 46
Paula Young Lee
[4] Animal Bodies, Human Health, and the Reform #of Slaughterhouses in Nineteenth-Century Berlin 71
Dorothee Brantz
II. Britain
[5] Civilizing Slaughter: The Development of the British #Public Abattoir, 1850/1910 89
Chris Otter
[6] Humanitarian Reform, Slaughter Technology, and #Butcher Resistance in Nineteenth-Century Britain 107
Ian MacLachlan
[7] Filth and ProÞt, Disease and Health: Public and Private #Impediments to Slaughterhouse Reform in Victorian Britain 127
Richard Perren
III. United States and Mexico
[8] Chicago: Slaughterhouse to the World 153
Dominic A. Pacyga
[9] The Politics of Meat Shopping in Antebellum New York City 167
Roger Horowitz
[10] Butchers, Tanners, and Tallow Chandlers: The Geography # of Slaughtering in Early-Nineteenth-Century New York City 178
Jared N. Day
[11] To "Admit All Cattle without Distinction": Reconstructing #Slaughter in the Slaughterhouse Cases and the New Orleans #Crescent City Slaughterhouse 198
Lindgren Johnson
[12] Abattoir or Packinghouse? A Bloody Industrial Dilemma #in Mexico City, c. 1890 216
Jeffrey M. Pilcher
Conclusion: Why Look at Slaughterhouses? 237
Paula Young Lee
Notes 245
List of Contributors 289
Index 291
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC