Mar 27

18. MAR 27

Assigned Work

• Ogle, Maureen, In Meat We Trust, C2, "We Are Here To Make Money" (44-62) (18)

In-Class

• Slaughter house food culture.

Slaughter vs. Hyperslaughter

• A few slides from some research on the history of the slaughterhouse and industrial slaughter. I will present this power point in class.

Ogle, Maureen, In Meat We Trust, C2, "We Are Here To Make Money"

• Tells the story of the rise of the "dressed beef" supply chain, and the fortunes of Swift, an innovator.

• Opens with Summer 1882 building of Swift's warehouse at the tip of Manhattan. Backs up to tell the story of the rail monopolies practices of overcharging for shipping costs of live beef. (29) details.

• Bringing animals into the city live was becoming impractical, a health hazard, and unsightly (also happenening in Europe, French in the lead in developing the modern abattoir). Note: old slaughterhouses could handle from 1-12 animals a day. But there were hundreds of them in a city like NY.

• Boards of Health moving against small butchers. Early modern abattoir: Communipaw. Communipaw abattoir [1]. Could handle 2,000 animals a day.

• Courts battles as butchers argued that regulation of their busines was unconstitutional. The "Slaughterhouse Cases" at the Supreme Court.

• Another version of this fight in the Vanderbilt’s proposal to build a big slaughterhouse in central Manhattan. NIMBY issue with local residents. Vanderbilt gets his stockyard and abattoir at West 59th Street, NYC.

• Live shipped animal also suffered in transit, meat damaged, lost 200 pounds.

• 34-35: initial account of slaughter process. We’ll see more of this in ethics unit.

• 36: Legal fights over forced closure of private slaughterhouses. Supreme Court “slaughterhouse cases” affirmed authority of municipalities to regulate slaughter and create municipal slaughterhouses.

• 40: Before Swift, other entrepreneurs tried shipping dressed beef. Hammond. Refrigertor cars (with ice, not compressors) in use and developing.

• Swift's success: read at 41. (get images of Chicago stockyards). Era of "cheap beef"

• 46: Philip Armour story -- not a meat guy, but understood how to corner the market with futures contracts. Went to Chicago to build a pork processing plant. Enters the New York market along with Swift.

• 50: Interesting point about meat culture and American culture: read. Choice meats available to all classes.

• Meat Ideology -- 19th/early 20th century idea that meat protein is special and accounts for European hegemony. (add notes: Japan responds by developing "Kobe" meat culture.)

• Meat Bubble - profits of 33%, era of free range livestock production with very low costs, ending. 1870: one steer per 5 acres, 1880: one steer per 50-90 acres, due to overgrazing. 52. Bubble bursts.

• Margins on dressed beef were actually very low. Demanded high volume to be profitable. Byproducts were important.

• Beef Trust -- already a focus on the Railroad Trusts, Congress investigates collusion in pricing. 57ff. 1888.

• 1890: Sherman Antitrust Act.