Cows in the Commons, Dogs on the Lawn: a History of Animals in Seattle
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Cows in the Commons, Dogs on the Lawn: A History of Animals in Seattle Frederick L. Brown A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2010 Program Authorized to Offer Degree: History ©Copyright 2010 Frederick L. Brown University of Washington Abstract Cows in the Commons, Dogs on the Lawn: A History of Animals in Seattle Frederick L. Brown Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Associate Professor Linda Nash Department of History This dissertation explores the ways humans used animals to shape Seattle in its material and cultural forms, the struggles among humans about how best to incorporate animals into urban life, and animals’ own active role in the city. The power of animals in this history stems, in part, from their ability to provide three things that humans desire: materials goods, love, and prestige. Humans have considered animals to be property, companions, and symbols – creatures of economic, social, and cultural importance. Human quests for these goods have consistently resulted in struggles over three distinctions: those between human and animal, between domestic and wild, and between pet and livestock. This dissertation explores the interplay of two alternative strategies that humans adopt toward these three distinctions: treating them as strict dualisms versus considering them to be borderlands, as distinctions that are fluid and permeable. Yet it also asserts that animals have their own active role in history. It is not in isolation but in relationship with animals and the rest of nonhuman nature that humans formed plans for Seattle. Animal actions sometimes furthered and sometimes countered human projects. In this sense, it was humans and animals together who shaped the city. The dissertation begins with the encounter of Native people and newcomers in the context of the fur trade on Puget Sound in the 1830s, describing the differing conceptions of the human-animal distinction both groups held and the role domestic animals played in newcomers’ land claims. It then considers the role of the spread of livestock and the destruction of wild animals in the early history of Seattle, founded in 1851. It then takes up the role that removing first cows and then horses took in making neighborhoods urban and middle-class and the city modern in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Finally, it describes the growing pet-livestock dichotomy, by considering both the consolidation of the livestock industry away from cities in the twentieth century and the growing importance of pets to city-dwellers in that same century. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page List of Figures………………………………………………………………………………....ii List of Tables……………………………………………………..………………………..…iv Introduction…………………………………………………………..………………………..1 Chapter One Salmon, Beaver, and Sheep: Animals in the Salish and European World……….……………………………..………..…17 Chapter Two Oxen and Cougars: Constructing the Town and the Wilderness………………………………………………….51 Chapter Three Cows and Horses: Eliminating Livestock in the Modern City………………………..…………………………91 Chapter Four Dogs and Cats: From Servants to Children in the Twentieth-Century Home…………………..………...…153 Chapter Five Cattle, Pigs, and Chickens: Concentrating and Hiding Livestock in the Twentieth Century……...…………………….191 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….....238 Bibliography……………………………………………………...…………………...……243 Appendix A: Methodology………………………………………………………………....259 i LIST OF FIGURES Figure Number Page 1. Map of Seattle showing current boundaries, selected neighborhoods, and other points of interest……………………………………………………………………………………....135 2. Map of Seattle showing annexations up to 1943.………………………………………..136 3. Map showing distribution of Seattle businesses and households owning cattle in selected neighborhoods in 1900……………………………………………………………………...137 4. Map showing distribution of Seattle businesses and households owning horses in selected neighborhoods in 1900.……………………………………………………………………..138 5. Seattle, 1874……………………………………………………………………………...139 6. Oxen pulling logs on the Seattle waterfront, ca. 1885…………………………………...140 7. “C. T. Conover and S. L. Crawford in horse and carriage on 5th Avenue between Cherry and Columbia Streets, ca. 1889” …………………………………………………………...141 8. Horses and men at work digging the Lincoln Reservoir, Seattle, 1899……………….....142 9. Four boys and calf in pasture near 5021 50th Avenue South, Columbia City, Seattle, ca. 1910-1920………………………………………………………………………………......142 10. Cow in backyard, Capitol Hill neighborhood, Seattle, ca. 1905.……………………….143 11. Phalen’s Grocery Store, Columbia City, Seattle, 1908..………………………………..144 12. Frank Pritchard with his dog after a successful hunt, Rainier Beach, Seattle, ca. 1910………………………………………………………………………………………....145 13. A man and woman watching a kitten, ca. 1900, at Warner residence on 18th Avenue South near Yesler, Seattle, ca. 1900……………………………………………………......145 14. Priscilla Grace Treat with her dog, ca. 1920…………………………………………....146 15. G.S. Dudley watches as his grandson Hawley pets a cat, Columbia City, 1905.……....146 16. Children with dogs at Greenwood Boys Club dog show, Seattle, 1944.……………….147 ii 17. Fredric and Sonny Matthieson with dog, likely South Seattle.………………………....147 18. “Elise Chandler feeding chickens on the Chandler farm,” Rainier Valley, Seattle, 1908………………………………………………………………………………………....148 19. Two-year-old Hearst Summers, feeding chickens, Rainier Valley, Seattle ca. 1910.….148 20. Butchers dressed up for a parade day, Seattle.………………………………………….149 21. Dan’s Meats, Pike Place Market, Seattle, ca. 1950s.…………………………………...150 22. Associated Packing Company with cattle in foreground, ca. 1930s.…………………...150 23. Sow with piglets at Queen City Hog Farm, Maple Valley, Washington, 1954.………..151 24. Pigs at feeding troughs, Queen City Hog Farm, Maple Valley, 1954……………….....151 25. Young male cougar captured in Discovery Park, Seattle, September 2009.…………..152 iii LIST OF TABLES Table Number Page 1. Cow limit petitioners in Latona and Ballard by occupation categories, 1899-1905.…….103 2. Attitudes of pro-leash law petitioners, 1935-36 and 1957-58…………………………...181 3. Attitudes of anti-leash law petitioners, 1935-36 and 1957-58….………………………..181 4. Estimated local production of meat, milk, and eggs in Seattle area, 1900-2002……...…221 5. Estimated local production of meat, milk, and eggs in Washington state, 1900-2002…..222 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I begin by acknowledging the many animals, seen and unseen, that have been a part of my urban life as I wrote this dissertation and before. There is no possibility of innocence in our relationships with animals. Ultimately and tragically, life only exists at the expense of other life. There is, however, honesty and respect and the effort to bring the least harm and the most good to our fellow creatures. Perhaps there is even forgiveness. I thank the animals that have sustained my body through meat, milk, eggs, honey, and wool, whose manure is crucial to organic farming, and whose pollination work is required for so many food crops – from the cattle on my grandparents’ farm in Kansas (some of whose flesh made its way onto our Oklahoma dinner table) to the chickens that Cameroonian farmers gave me when I was a Peace Corps volunteer to the hundreds of animals whose meat, milk, and eggs have reached my plate through the anonymous channel of the industrial food system and increasingly, as I try to eat meat, milk, and eggs less often and more local, from nearby farms that manage their animals in ways I approve. I thank the millions of animals that suffered in the testing of vaccines and drugs that have contributed to my health. I thank the polar bears of the Arctic region, the pelicans of the Gulf of Mexico, the salmon of the Columbia River, the voles, foxes, and rabbits in farmers’ fields and all the other unseen animals that my consumerism kills. I thank the elk of Olympic National Park’s Enchanted Valley, the beaver at Yellowstone National Park’s Heart Lake, and the hundreds of other wild animals in whose presence I have stood transfixed. I thank the geese, starlings, crows, pigeons, gulls, squirrels, raccoons, possums, rats, mice, flies, roaches, and other creatures who love urban environments as much as I do. I thank the urban dogs and cats I love seeing as I walk in my neighborhood, and especially the cats who have, one after the other, been my most constant companions as I’ve written this dissertation: Orca, Red, and Skit. Many humans have also helped me make this history as good as it may be. I alone am responsible for its many shortcomings. I especially thank the members of my reading committee. Linda Nash, my committee chair, has helped me to think harder and write better about this topic is so many ways. This project always sounds so much more coherent and insightful when she explains what it’s about than when I do. I only hope some of her wisdom and insight has rubbed off on me. Jim Gregory helped me learn how to turn a set of ideas and documents into a sustained academic paper in my first graduate school writing seminar. He has always encouraged me to consider how the particular stories I’m telling fit into big trends. I know I haven’t done that well enough. John Findlay helped stir my interest in history when I audited his Pacific Northwest history course in 1998 long before I applied to the graduate program in history. He has always demanded I be careful about the words I choose. I’m sure I haven’t been careful enough. Michael Brown provided very helpful comments at the final stage of the project. I would also like to thank many other teachers through the years, who have encouraged my interest in learning and writing: Bettye Smith, Susan Rava, Stamos Metzidakis, James F. Jones, Arthur Greenspan, A. J. Heisserer, Susan Carol Rogers, and Raya Fidel. v I am very lucky to have a wonderful group of colleagues at the Pacific West Region Office of the National Park Service, who have made the other half of my historical endeavors very gratifying these last seven years. I am especially thankful to David Louter, who has talked through many of these chapters with me as I’ve struggled with them and provided a great deal of useful advice.