Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T19:42:28.041Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Role of Pollution Regulation and Litigation in the Development of the U.S. Meatpacking Industry, 1865–1880

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2015

Christine Meisner Rosen
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Business historians have treated the emergence of large, modern, vertically integrated meatpacking firms in the second half of the nineteenth century as the economically rational and inevitable product of the industry's search for ways to maximize profits through technological innovation, vertical integration, and the achievement of economies of scale and scope. This is only part of the story, however. Society's efforts to force the industry to abate its environmental pollution through government regulation and private lawsuits also stimulated and shaped these processes of modernization.

Type
Articles
Information
Enterprise & Society , Volume 8 , Issue 2: Business and Nature , June 2007 , pp. 297 - 347
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2007. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Business History Conference. All rights reserved.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bibliography of Works Cited

Books

Cain, Louis P. Sanitation Strategy for a Lakefront Metropolis: The Case of Chicago. DeKalb, Ill., 1978.Google Scholar
Chandler, Alfred D Jr. Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History of the Industrial Enterprise. Cambridge, Mass., 1962.Google Scholar
Chandler, Alfred D Jr. The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business. Cambridge, Mass., 1977.Google Scholar
Classen, Constance, Howes, David, and Synnott, Anthony. Aroma: The Cultural History of Smell. London, 1994.Google Scholar
Clemen, Rudolf Alexander. The American Livestock and Meat Industry. New York, 1923.Google Scholar
Clemen, Rudolf Alexander. By-Products in the PackingIndustry. Chicago, 1927.Google Scholar
Corbin, Alain. The Foul and the Fragrant: Odor and the French Social Imagination. Cambridge, Mass., 1986.Google Scholar
Duffy, John. A History of Public Health in New York City, 1625–1866. New York, 1968.Google Scholar
Duffy, John. A History of Public Health in New York City, 1866–1966. New York, 1974.Google Scholar
Duffy, John. The Sanitarians: A History of American Public Health. Urbana, 1ll., 1990.Google Scholar
Labbe, Ronald M., and Lurie, Jonathan. The Slaughterhouse Cases: Regulation, Reconstruction, and the Fourteenth Amendment. Lawrence, Kansas, 2003.Google Scholar
Leavitt, Judith Walzer. The Healthiest City: Milwaukee and the Politics of Health Reform. Princeton, N.J., 1982.Google Scholar
Leech, Harper, and Carroll, John Charles. Armour and His Times. New York, 1938.Google Scholar
McMartin, Barbara. Hides, Hemlocks, and Adirondack History: How the Tanning Industry Influenced the Region’s Growth. Utica, N.Y, 1992.Google Scholar
Melosi, Martin V. The Sanitary City: Urban Infrastructure from Colonial Times to the Present. Baltimore, Md., 2000.Google Scholar
Miller, Donald. Cityofthe Century: The Epic ofChicago and the Making of America. New York, 1996.Google Scholar
Muir, Diana. Reflections in Bullough’s Pond: Economy and Ecosystem in New England. Hanover, N.H., 2000.Google Scholar
Novak, William J. People’s Welfare: Law and Regulation in Nineteenth-Century America. Chapel Hill, N.C., 1996.Google Scholar
Pierce, Bessie Louise. A History of Chicago, 1871–1893. New York, 1957.Google Scholar
Platt, Harold L. Shock Cities: The Environmental Transformation and Reform ofManchesterand Chicago. Chicago, 2005.Google Scholar
Rosen, George. A History ofPublic Health. Expanded Edition, Baltimore, Md., 1993.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, Charles E. The Cholera Years: The United States in 1832, 1849, and 1866. Chicago, 1962.Google Scholar
Schneirov, Richard. Labor and Urban Politics: Class Conflict and the Origins of Modern Liberalism in Chicago, 1864–97. Urbana, Ill., 1998.Google Scholar
Schultz, Stanley K. ConstructingUrban Culture: American Cities and City Planning, 1800–1920. Philadelphia, P.A., 1989.Google Scholar
Slayton, Robert A. Back of the Yards: The Making of a Local Democracy. Chicago, 1986.Google Scholar
Smith, Stephen. The City That Was and The Report of the General Committee of Health, New York City, 1806. Metuchen, N.J., 1973, Reprint of 1911 edition.Google Scholar
Swift, Louis F., and Vlissingen, Arthur Van Jr. The Yankee ofthe Yards: The BiographyofGustavus Swift. Chicago, 1927.Google Scholar
Valencius, Conevery Bolton. The Health ofthe Country: How American Settlers Understood Themselves and Their Land. New York, 2002.Google Scholar
Wade, Louise Carroll. Chicago’s Pride: The Stockyards, Packingtown, and Environs in the Nineteenth Century. Urbana, Ill., 1987.Google Scholar
Walsh, Margaret. The Rise of the Midwestern Meat Packing Industry. Lexington, Ky., 1982.Google Scholar
Washington, Sylvia Hood. Packing Them In: An Archaeology of Environmental Racism in Chicago, 1865–1954. Lanham, Md., 2005.Google Scholar
Whipple, George Chandler. State Sanitation: A Review ofthe Work ofthe Massachusetts State Board ofHealth. Cambridge, Mass., 1917.Google Scholar
Yeager, Mary. Competition and Regulation. Greenwich, Conn., 1981.Google Scholar

Articles and Essays

Armour, Philip D. “The Packing Industry.” In One Hundred Years of American Commerce, ed. Depew, Chauncey M. New York, 1895, pp. 383–88.Google Scholar
Brieger, H. “Sanitary Reform in New York City: Stephen Smith and the Passage of the Metropolitan Health Bill.” Bulletin ofthe History of Medicine 40: (Sept-Oct. 1966): 407–29.Google Scholar
Dalton, Edward B. “Annual Report of the Metropolitan Board of Health of New York, 1866.” North American Review 106 (April 1868): 351–75.Google Scholar
Hamlin, Christopher. “Providence and Putrefaction: Victorian Sanitarians and the Natural Theology of Health and Disease.” Victorian Studies 28 (Spring 1985): 381–411.Google Scholar
Hill, Howard Copeland. “The Development of Chicago as a Center of the Meat Packing Industry.” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 10 (Dec. 1923): 253–73.Google Scholar
Horowitz, Roger, Pilcher, Jeffrey M., and Watts, Syndey. “Meat for the Multitudes: Market Culture in Paris, New York City, and Mexico City Over the Long Nineteenth Century.” American Historical Review 109 (Oct. 2005): 1055–83.Google Scholar
Hovenkamp, Herbert. “Technology, Politics, and Regulated Monopoly: An American Historical Perspective.” Texas Law Review 62 (April 1984): 1295–96.Google Scholar
Hurley, Andrew. “Busby’s Stink Boat and the Regulation of Nuisance Trades, 1865–1919.” In Common Fields: An Environmental History of St. Louis, ed. Hurley, Andrew. St. Louis, MO., 1997, pp. 145–62.Google Scholar
Hurley, Andrew. “Creating Ecological Wastelands: Oil Pollution in New York City, 1870–1900.” Journal of Urban History 20 (May 1994): 340–64.Google Scholar
John, Richard B. “Elaborations, Revisions, Dissents: Alfred D. Chandler, Jr.’s, The Visible Hand After Twenty Years.” Business HistoryReview 71 (Summer 1997): 151–206.Google Scholar
Kramer, D. “Early Municipal and State Boards of Health.” Bulletin ofthe History of Medicine 24 (Nov-Dec. 1950): 503–16.Google Scholar
Rosen, Christine Meisner. “Industrial Ecology and the Greening of Business History.” Business and Economic History 26 (Fall 1997): 123–37.Google Scholar
Rosen, Christine Meisner. “‘Knowing’ Industrial Pollution: Nuisance Law and the Power of Tradition in a Time of Rapid Economic Change, 1840–1864.” Environmental History (Oct. 2003): 563–95.Google Scholar
Rosen, Christine Meisner, and Sellers, Christopher C. “The Nature of the Firm: Towards an Ecocultural History of Business.” Business History Review 73 (Winter 1999): 577–600.Google Scholar
Ross, Michael A. “Justice Miller’s Reconstruction: The Slaughter-House Cases, Health Codes, and Civil Rights in New Orleans, 1861–1873.” Journal of Southern History 64 (Nov. 1998): 469–676.Google Scholar
Scaria, K.J. “Economics of Animal By-Products Utilization.” FAO Agricultural Services Bulletin 77 (1989): 1–3.Google Scholar
Smith, Stephen. “The History of Public Health, 1871–1921.” In A Half CenturyofPublic Health, ed. Ravenel, Mazyck P. New York, 1921, pp. 1–12.Google Scholar
Stine, Jeffrey, and Tarr, Joel A. “At the Intersection of Histories: Technology and the Environment.” Technologyand Culture 39 (Oct. 1998): 601–40.Google Scholar

Government Documents and Reports

Annual Reports of the Massachusetts State Board of Health. Boston, 1870–1877.Google Scholar
Bliss, George Jr. “‘C’: Report of the Attorney of the Metropolitan Board.” In Third Annual Report of the Metropolitan Board of Health. New York, 1868, pp. 161–62.Google Scholar
Bliss, George Jr. “‘F’: Report of the Attorney.” In Annual Report of the Metropolitan Board of Health. New York, 1866, pp. 358–75.Google Scholar
Ceccarini, G., Smith, Stephen, and Gross, Magnus. “Fat Melting.” In First Annual Report ofthe Board ofHealth ofthe Health Department ofthe City of New York. New York, 1870, pp. 509–11.Google Scholar
Chicago Board of Health. Report of the Board of Health of the City of Chicago for the Years 1870, 1871, 1872, and 1873; and a Sanitary History of Chicago; from 1833 to 1870. Chicago, 1874.Google Scholar
Chicago Department of Health. Annual Report for 1878. Chicago, 1878.Google Scholar
Chicago Department of Health. “Report of Bureau of Sanitary Inspection.” Annual Report for 1906. Chicago, 1906, pp. 217–21.Google Scholar
Citizens’ Association of Chicago. Address and Reports of the Citizens’ Association of Chicago, 1874–1925. Chicago, 1925.Google Scholar
Citizens’ Association of Chicago. “Annual Report for 1876,” “Annual Report for 1877,” “Annual Report for 1878,” “Annual Report for 1879.” In Address and Reports ofthe Citizens’ Association ofChicago, 1874–1925. Chicago, 1925.Google Scholar
Citizens’ Association of Chicago. Report ofthe Committee ofthe Citizens’ Association on the Main Drainage and Water SupplyofChicago. Chicago, 1885.Google Scholar
Citizens’ Association of Chicago. Citizens’ Association of New York, Council of Hygiene and Public Health. Sanitary Condition ofthe City: Report ofthe CouncilofHygiene and Public Health of the Citizens’ Association of New York. New York, 1970, Reprint of the Second Edition of Report of the Council of Hygiene and Public Health. New York, 1866.Google Scholar
“Communication from Professor Hare of Philadelphia in Relation to the Removal of Dead Animal Substances, Etc., from the Streets of the City.” Documents of the Board of Aldermen (New York City) no. 80, XVII, Part 1 (Jan-June 1850), 1263.Google Scholar
Crowell, Henry G. “Sanitary Regulations Relating to Abattoirs.” Public Health Reports and Papers 3 (1877): 16–23.Google Scholar
Dalton, E.B. “‘A’: Report of the Sanitary Superintendent.” In Second Annual Report ofthe Metropolitan Board of Health. New York, 1867.Google Scholar
Devron, Gustavus. “Abattoirs,” Public Health Reports and Papers 6 (1881): 217–30.Google Scholar
Eaton, B. “‘B’: Third Annual Report of the Legal Department.” In Third Annual Report ofthe Metropolitan Board of Health. New York, 1868, pp. 154–61.Google Scholar
Harris, E. “‘A’: Report of the Sanitary Superintendent.” In Third Annual Report ofthe Metropolitan Board of Health. New York, 1868.Google Scholar
James, Bushrod W. “How Abattoirs Improve the Sanitary Condition of Cities.” Public Health Reports and Papers 6 (1881): 232–38.Google Scholar
Janes, E.H. “Sanitary View of Abattoirs and the Slaughtering Business in New York.” Public Health Reports and Papers 3 (1877): 24–31.Google Scholar
Letter from a Committee of Citizens to the Pennsylvania Railroad Company on the Proposed Schuylkill Drove-Yard and Abattoir. Philadelphia, 1874.Google Scholar
Massachusetts State Board of Health. “Report on Slaughtering for Boston Market.” In First Annual Report of the State Board of Health of Massachusetts. Boston, 1870, pp. 20–22.Google Scholar
Massachusetts State Board of Health. “Slaughtering, Bone-Boiling, and Fat Melting.” In Third Annual Report of the State Board of Health. Boston, 1872, pp. 223–45.Google Scholar
Morris, Moreau. “‘K’: Report of Inspector Moreau Morris Upon the Nuisance from Fat Melting.” In First Annual Report of the Metropolitan Board ofHealth. New York, 1866, pp. 410–14.Google Scholar
New York Board of Health. Annual Report of the Board of Health of the Health Department ofthe City of New York. New York, 1870.Google Scholar
New York Metropolitan Board of Health. Third Annual Report of the Metropolitan Board of Health. New York, 1868.Google Scholar
New York Metropolitan Board of Health. Fourth Annual Report ofthe Metropolitan Board of Health. New York, 1869.Google Scholar
The Philadelphia Stock Yards and Abattoir: The Testimony in Favor of Their Location on the Schuylkill River Above Market Street. Philadelphia, 1875.Google Scholar
Sanitary District of Chicago. The Activated Sludge Process for Handling Packingtown Trade Wastes. Chicago, 1917.Google Scholar
Sanitary District of Chicago. Report on Industrial Wastes from the Stock Yards and Packingtown of Chicago. Chicago, 1914.Google Scholar
Schultze, Jackson S. “‘H’: Code of Health Ordinances and Rules and Sanitary Ordinances.” In Annual Report of the Metropolitan Board of Health, New York Metropolitan Board of Health. New York, 1866, pp. 385–96.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census. Census of Manufacturers: 1905: “Slaughtering and Meat packing, Manufactured Ice, and Salt,” Bulletin 83. Washington, D.C., 1907, pp. 14–5.Google Scholar

Newspapers and Periodicals

“Abattoirs.” New York Times. 1 April 1866, p. 3.Google Scholar
“Abattoirs at Communipaw." New York Times, 5 May 1866, p. 2.Google Scholar
“The Abattoir System.” New York Times, 11 March 1874, p. 3.Google Scholar
“About the Butchers.” New York Times, 16 March 1866, p. 4.Google Scholar
“An Abattoir for New York.” Scientific American 15 (18 Aug. 1866): 120.Google Scholar
“Board of Health-About Butchers.” New York Times, 29 Aug. 1866, 5.Google Scholar
“Board of Health-An Important Meeting Yesterday.” New York Times, 3 Sept. 1874, 2.Google Scholar
“The Board of Health-Sanitary Measures.” New York Times, 13 Aug. 1873, 2.Google Scholar
“The Butchers and the Board of Health.” New York Times, 15 March 1866, 4.Google Scholar
“The Butchers and the Board of Health.” New York Times, July 1868, 5.Google Scholar
“City Slaughter-Houses.” New York Times, 29 Aug. 1866, 5.Google Scholar
“The Code of Health-Practical Requirements of the Sanitary Law.” New York Times, 20 May 1866, 4.Google Scholar
“The Communipaw Abattoir.” New York Times, 12 Nov. 1868, 8.Google Scholar
“The Communipaw Abattoirs.” New York Times, 20 Sept. 1866, 2.Google Scholar
“Developing Packinghouse By-Products.” National Provisioner, 17 (23 Jan. 1915): 41.Google Scholar
“The Great Abattoirs at Communipaw, New Jersey.” Scientific American, 19 (16 Dec. 1868): 392.Google Scholar
“How to Stop the Odors.” New York Times, 17 April 1881, 16.Google Scholar
“‘Injunctions’ on Nuisances.” New York Times, 31 July 1866, 4.Google Scholar
“Law Reports-The Cattle Driving and The Slaughterhouse Nuisance. ‘’ New YorkTimes, 24 Aug. 1866, 3.Google Scholar
“Law Reports-The Fat-Boiling Nuisances.” New York Times, 28 July 1866.Google Scholar
“Law Reports - The Fat-Melting Establishment at Abattoir-Place-Argument of the Motion for an Injunction.” New York Times, 20 July 1866, 3.Google Scholar
“Law Reports-Superior Court-General Term-June 22.” New York Times, 23 June 1867, 3.Google Scholar
“Legislation at Albany.” New York Times, 17 March 1885, 1.Google Scholar
“Local Intelligence-Another Injunction.” New York Times, 17 July 1866, 2.Google Scholar
“Local Intelligence-The Butchers and Drovers.” New York Times, 20 June 1866, 8.Google Scholar
“Local Intelligence - Closing the Fat-Melting Establishments.” New York Times, 24 July 1866, 2.Google Scholar
“Local Intelligence - The Communipaw Abattoirs.” New York Times, 29 June 1866, 2.Google Scholar
“Local Intelligence - Uptown Nuisances.” New York Times, 19 May 1866, 8.Google Scholar
“Metropolitan Board of Health - The Butchers and Slaughter-Houses.” New York Times, 23 March 1866, 8.Google Scholar
“Metropolitan Board of Health - Meeting of the Butchers’ Hide and Melting Association.” New York Times, 13 March, 1866, 4.Google Scholar
“The New Abattoir - A Model Establishment.” New York Times, 1 Aug. 1875, 5.Google Scholar
“Opening ofthe New Abattoirs - Great Celebration at Comminipaw.” New York Times, Oct. 18 1866, 2.Google Scholar
“To Prepare for Cholera.” New York Times, 29 March 1885, 7.Google Scholar
“The Proposed Abattoir.” New York Times, 18 March 1874, 8.Google Scholar
“Public Slaughter-Houses.” New York Times, 18 Sept. 1867, 2.Google Scholar
“The Rendering Nuisance.” New York Times, 23 July 1873, 3.Google Scholar
“Regulating the Slaughtering Nuisance.” Sanitary Engineer 11 (2 April 1885): 378.Google Scholar
“Sanitary Matters - The Various Nuisances Which Ought to Be Abated.” New York Times, 26 July 1874, 1.Google Scholar
“Sanitary Reform.” New York Times, 18 March 1866, 4.Google Scholar
“Sanitary Reforms - Proposed Removal of the Abattoirs.” New York Times, 4 March 1874, 3.Google Scholar
“Sanitary Suggestions.” New York Times, 26 Feb. 1874, 2.Google Scholar
“The Significant Sixty: A Historical Report on the Progress and Development of the Meat Packing Industry, 1891–1951.” National Provisioner 26 June 1952, 258–59.Google Scholar
“Slaughter-Houses Inspected.” New York Times 16 March 1876, 8.Google Scholar
“The Slaughtering Nuisance in New York.” Sanitary Engineer 11 (16 April 1885): 411.Google Scholar
“A Tour by the Ladies of the Health Protective Association.” New York Times 27 Jan. 1885, 8.Google Scholar

Legal Documents

Babcock v. New Jersey Stockyard Co., 20 N. J. Eq. 296 (1869).Google Scholar
Chicago Packing & Provision Co. v. City of Chicago, 8 Ill. 221 (1878).Google Scholar
City of Chicago v. Rumpff, 45 Ill. 90 (1867).Google Scholar
Metropolitan Board of Health v. Heister, 37 N.Y. 661 (1868.)Google Scholar
Munn v. Illinois, 94 U.S. 113 (1876).Google Scholar
Sellers v. Pennsylvania RR. Co., 10 Phila. 319 (1875).Google Scholar
Slaughterhouse Cases, 83 U.S. 36 (1873).Google Scholar
Tugman v. City of Chicago, 78 Ill. 405 (1875).Google Scholar
Westheimer v. Schultz, 33 How. Prac. 11 (New York 1866).Google Scholar