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E-book
Author Robichaud, Andrew A., 1981- author.

Title Animal city : the domestication of America / Andrew A. Robichaud
Published Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2019
©2019

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Description 1 online resource (338 pages) : illustrations, maps
Contents Introduction : Gentlemen hogs -- Cow town : New York City and the urban dairy crisis, 1830-1860 -- "The war on butchers" : San Francisco and the remaking of animal space, 1850-1870 -- Blood in the water : the butchers' reservation and the reshaping of San Francisco -- How to kill a horse : SPCAs, urban order, and state power, 1866-1910 -- That doggy in the window : the SPCA and the making of pets in America -- Captivating spectacles : the public battle over animal entertainment -- Domesticating the wild : Woodward's Gardens and the making of the modern zoo -- Conclusion : Stampede
Summary Americans once lived alongside animals. They raised them, worked them, ate them, and lived off their products. This was true not just in rural areas but also in cities, which were crowded with livestock and beasts of burden. But as urban areas grew in the nineteenth century, these relationships changed. Slaughterhouses, dairies, and hog ranches receded into suburbs and hinterlands. Milk and meat increasingly came from stores, while the family cow and pig gave way to the household pet. This great shift, Andrew Robichaud reveals, transformed people's relationships with animals and nature and radically altered ideas about what it means to be human. As Animal City illustrates, these transformations in human and animal lives were not inevitable results of population growth but rather followed decades of social and political struggles. City officials sought to control urban animal populations and developed sweeping regulatory powers that ushered in new forms of urban life. Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals worked to enhance certain animals' moral standing in law and culture, in turn inspiring new child welfare laws and spurring other wide-ranging reforms. The animal city is still with us today. The urban landscapes we inhabit are products of the transformations of the nineteenth century. From urban development to environmental inequality, our cities still bear the scars of the domestication of urban America.-- Provided by publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Andrew A. Robichaud is Assistant Professor of History at Boston University, where he teaches courses on environmental history, the history of cities, and the history of humans' relations with animals
Print version record
Subject Human-animal relationships -- United States -- History -- 19th century
Urban animals -- United States -- History -- 19th century
Animal culture -- United States -- History -- 19th century
Urban policy -- United States -- History -- 19th century
HISTORY -- United States -- 19th Century.
Urban policy
Urban animals
Human-animal relationships
Animal culture
United States
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780674243187
0674243188
9780674243194
0674243196