A Social History of the Slaughterhouse: from Inception to Contemporary Implications

Research in Human Ecology A Social History of the Slaughterhouse: From Inception to Contemporary Implications Amy J. Fitzgerald1 Department of Sociology and Anthropology University of Windsor Windsor, Ontario, Canada Abstract Noelle Vialles points out, animal “slaughtering tends to be a somewhat ‘unpopular’ subject: no one wants to know about This paper traces the development of the slaughterhouse it” (1994, 125, emphasis mine). So why write a paper chron- as a specialized institution through three major periods. The icling the development of the slaughterhouse as an institution first began with increasing concerns about animal slaughter- and the consequences for contemporary slaughterhouse com- ing in the eighteenth century and resulted in “public slaugh- munities? There are two answers to this question: the first is terhouse” reforms, which marked the beginning of the con- conceptual and the second practical. centration of animal slaughter and its movement away from Conceptually, an examination of the slaughterhouse as the gaze of the public. Second, slaughterhouses became in- an institution has a lot to offer: it is a location from which one dustrialized, as exemplified by the development of notorious can view economic and geographic changes in the production Union Stockyard in Chicago during the late nineteenth cen- of food, cultural attitudes toward killing, social changes in tury. Finally, during the latter part of the twentieth century, small communities, and the changing sensibilities and rela- slaughterhouses in the United States were relocated to small tions between humans and non-human animals. If Levi- rural communities, which began to exhibit negative conse- Strauss was correct that “animals are good to think with”, quences. This paper represents a modest step in developing then it would likely follow that the institution which kills the an historical understanding of the slaughterhouse as a greatest number of them and is summarily obscured from the unique institution and moving towards an understanding of public’s gaze is particularly worthy of detailed examination. the consequences of modern slaughterhouses in what Bulliet Along these lines, York (2004; 2006) has suggested the de- (2005) refers to as “postdomestic” societies. velopment of a “sociology of the slaughterhouse.” A socio- logical understanding of the modern slaughterhouse and its Keywords: slaughterhouse; meatpacking; abattoir; implications will, however, require an historical understand- slaughterhouse communities ing of the institution and its development. This paper is in- tended to contribute to this foundation. Introduction The second reason for this paper is to tie together seg- ments of the literature on slaughterhouses, which are current- Today, the slaughterhouse is cursed and quaran- ly divided by time period and geographic location, in an ac- tined like a boat carrying cholera. In fact, the vic- cessible, article-length manuscript. Noteworthy monographs tims of this curse are not butchers or animals, but have detailed how the development of the Chicago Union the good people themselves, who, through this, are Stockyards in the nineteenth century forever transformed the only able to bear their own ugliness... The curse production of meat and the physical landscape (e.g., Cronon (which terrifies only those who utter it) leads them 1991; Horowitz 2006; Jablonsky 1993; Patterson 2002; Sin- to vegetate as far as possible from the slaughter- clair 1946[1905]; Skaggs 1986). A less well known and per- houses. They exile themselves, by way of antidote, haps even more provocative narrative can be found in the in an amorphous world, where there is no longer contemporary slaughterhouse industry where dramatic anything terrible. changes are once again taking place. As the industry has — Georges Bataille (1997, 22). been relocating to rural communities in the U.S. significant social problems have begun to emerge (Artz, Orazem, and We seldom think about the slaughtering of non-human Otto 2007; Broadway 2007; Broadway 1990; Broadway animals (hereafter referred to simply as animals) for meat, 1994; Broadway 2000; Broadway 2001; Broadway and Stull much less the space in which it takes place. This is no acci- 2005; Fitzgerald, Kalof, and Dietz 2009; Gouveia and Stull dent or simple oversight: it is intentional. As anthropologist 1995; Grey 1995; Grey 1998; Horowitz and Miller 1999; 58 Human Ecology Review, Vol. 17, No. 1, 2010 © Society for Human Ecology Fitzgerald Stull and Broadway 2004). Tying these developments to- to present various animals, such as pigs, calves, and hares, gether provides insight into the trajectory of the slaughter- with their heads attached (see also Thomas 1983). Today house as an institution and raises new questions about the great pains are taken so that people are not reminded of the cultural implications of animal slaughter. origins of their meat while they are eating it.4 The paper begins with an examination of the changing This shift in sensibilities regarding meat was cotermi- sensibilities in the Western world2 regarding animal slaugh- nous with the movement of responsibility for animal slaughter, which provides an important backdrop against which to ter from individuals in the household to specialists who trace the emergence and development of the modern slaugh- would take care of meat production “behind the scenes” in terhouse detailed herein. It is demonstrated throughout the slaughterhouses.5 Yet the creation of the slaughterhouse, paper that the development of current sensibilities towards where concentrated animal slaughtering discreetly takes animal slaughter on the one hand and the contemporary place, has not been a panacea for the mounting cultural angst. slaughtering industry on the other have created a significant According to Otter, it might have even had the opposite ef- disjuncture. fect: “The abattoir, invisible but not secret, may have been built in response to concerns about civility, or feelings of Shifting Sensibilities deep repulsion, but it in turn created the conditions under which true disgust can be felt” (2008, 105). Rémy (2003) The way in which we view animals has changed dramat- and Smith (2002) point out that modern humane slaughter re- ically over time (for most species at least). To make sense of quirements in the slaughterhouse have resulted in contradic- these changes, historian Richard Bulliet (2005) distinguishes tion or tension whereby it is acknowledged that the sentient between two periods in our relationships with animals: do- creatures being killed are worthy of protection. mesticity and postdomesticity. During the domestic era, the Adding to the growing tension, as we move further into social and economic structures normalize daily contact with the postdomestic era, the number of animals slaughtered for animals (including non-pets). This era is easily contrasted food is increasing and their quality of life is diminishing. with the current postdomestic era (which Bulliet argues took Somewhat ironically, the largest meat producing countries shape in the 1970s), where people are physically and psycho- today, including the US, Canada, Australia, and New logically removed from the animals that produce the products Zealand, also have the “strongest postdomestic mentality” they use, yet most somewhat paradoxically enjoy very close (Bulliet 2005), and there are indications that the massive relationships with their pet animals (see Grier 2007 for a his- scale of animal slaughter in these countries can be particular- tory of pet animals in the US). A tension emerges in this era ly disturbing. For instance, Vialles (1994) observes in her between a growing fondness of some animals and the con- ethnography of modern slaughterhouses that “whereas the sumption of others: “a postdomestic society emerging from slaughter of a few animals may be a festive occasion, slaugh- domestic antecedents continues to consume animal products ter on a large scale is different. It is disturbing; therefore in abundance, but psychologically, its members experience means must be found of putting it out of mind” (p. 72). Yet feelings of guilt, shame, and disgust when they think (as sel- the attempted cultural amnesia brings its own set of conse- dom as possible) about the industrial processes by which do- quences. For instance, Otter (2008) has warned that “this in- mestic animals are rendered into products and about how stitutionalized forgetting might create the conditions of pos- those products come to market” (2005, 3). Philosopher sibility for cruelty of a new kind, on a greater, more deeply Nancy Williams (2008) argues there is actually an unwilling- hidden scale” (105). The next section of the paper examines ness among the public to think about how their meat is pro- the steps taken towards the goal of institutionalized forget- duced, and that this has important ethical implications.3 She ting. Later in the paper the potential consequences are ex- characterizes this unwillingness as “affected ignorance”, amined. whereby a choice is made not to investigate whether a prac- tice one is involved in is immoral. From Backyard to Sociologist Norbert Elias (2000[1939]) links this grow- Centralized Animal Slaughter ing unwillingness to confront our treatment of animals with larger social processes. In his book, The Civilizing Process, The slaughterhouse emerged as a unique institution in Elias argues that practices of meat consumption are illustra- the early nineteenth century as part of a larger transition from

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