Slaughterhouse Blues The Meat and Poultry Industry in North America

by Stull, Donald D.; Broadway, Michael J.

• ISBN13: 9781111828783
• ISBN10: 1111828784
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-01-30
• Publisher: Cengage Learning

Summary

SLAUGHTERHOUSE BLUES: THE MEAT AND POULTRY INDUSTRY IN NORTH AMERICA draws on more than 20 years of research by the authors; a cultural anthropologist and a social geographer, to present a detailed look at the meat and poultry industry in the United States and Canada. Following chapters on today's beef, poultry, and pork industries, SLAUGHTERHOUSE BLUES examines industry impacts on workers and on the communities that host its plants. The book details the authors' efforts to help communities plan for and mitigate the negative consequences of meat and poultry plants as well as community opposition to confined animal feeding operations. The book concludes by exploring alternatives to North America's model of industrialized meat production. Features a forward by Eric Schlosser. The second edition includes updated demographic information as well as a new chapter, "Is Meat Murder?" that examines the ethics of meat eating.

Table of Contents

Series Foreword	p. xv
Preface	p. xvii
Preface to the Second Edition	p. xxi
Introduction	p. 1
The Tour	p. 1
Studying the Meat and Poultry Industryùand Why	p. 5
Setting the Table	p. 11
More Inputs, Fewer Farms	p. 12
Eat In or Eat Out?	p. 14
Agricultural Industrialization	p. 15
Consequences of Agricultural Industrialization for the Meat and Poultry Industry	p. 17
Conclusions	p. 24
From Roundups to Restructuring: The Beef Industry	p. 27
A Branding on the Flying V	p. 27
The Cattle Kingdom	p. 32
Home on the Range: The Short, Happy Life of a Beef Cow	p. 35
Go West, Young Steer, Go West	p. 37
From Hogsheads to Disassembly Lines: The Rise of the Meatpacking Industry	p. 38
Beef packing Moves to the Country: Relocating and Restructuring the Industry	p. 41
Chicken Little, Chicken Big: The Poultry Industry	p. 42
Down on the Farm	p. 42
Poultry Production and Consumption in the Early Twentieth Century	p. 42
Mrs. Steele's Chicks: The Birth of the Modern Poultry Industry	p. 44
Industrializing, Integrating, and Marketing the Chicken	p. 46
Contract Growing and Factory Farming	p. 48
Big Chicken Comes to Roost in Kentucky	p. 48
Old MacDonald Takes a Factory Job: How Chickens Are Grown, 1998	p. 50
The Sky Is Falling	p. 55
Deus Ex Machina	p. 58
Justice Denied	p. 59
Hog Heaven: The Pork Industry	p. 62
The Essence of Pig	p. 65
The Road to Porkopolis	p. 66
Hog Heaven or Hell?	p. 67
Miss Piggy's New Frontiers	p. 71
Is Meat Murder?	p. 75
Animal Liberation	p. 77
Twenty-First Century Abolitionists	p. 78
"Nature Is Cruel, but We Don't Have to Be"	p. 80
Cruel and Unusual Punishment	p. 81
"Confined Is Not Kind"	p. 83
Happier Meals	p. 85
So, Is Meat Murder?	p. 87
The Human Price of Our Meat	p. 89
The Jungle	p. 89
"On to Organize"	p. 93
"It Don't Pay Great"	p. 99
Meatpacking Has Always Been Dangerous	p. 100
On the Line	p. 102
"A Lot of People Leave"	p. 106
On the Floor at Running Iron Beef	p. 109
The Walkout	p. 109
Anthropologists in the Jungle	p. 110
Managing Running Iron Beef	p. 111
Running Iron Beef's Workforce	p. 112
Labor Issues	p. 113
Corporate and "Work Cultures at Running Iron Beef	p. 115
Cultural and Language Differences	p. 124
Our Final Report and Its Impact	p. 126
Garden City, Kansas: Harvest of Change	p. 130
Beefpacking's Golden Triangle	p. 130
The Fastest Growing Town in Kansas	p. 131
The Changing Relations Project	p. 132
Will It Ever Settle Down?	p. 134
What Goes Up Must Come Down	p. 135
Garden City's Great Big Meat Adventure: 30 Years and Counting	p. 145
Don't Shoot the Messenger: Technical Assistance to Packinghouse Towns	p. 150
The Pliancy Factor	p. 151
Community Development Models	p. 152
Hope for the Best and Prepare for the Worst	p. 153
Brooks: "City of a Hundred Hellos"	p. 158
Community Study Teams: The Ideal and the Real	p. 160
What Can Host Communities Do, and When Must They Do It?	p. 162
The Way Forward	p. 167
Not in My Backyard: Community Opposition to the Meat and Poultry Industry	p. 169
Western Kentucky's Tour de Stench	p. 170
The Sierra Club Takes on Big Chicken	p. 173
A Fight Lost, a Fight to Be Won: Big Pig in Alberta	p. 174
Let the Match Recommence	p. 175
The Decision and Its Aftermath	p. 179
Save Our Jobs!	p. 181
Food for Thought	p. 183
Brave New Animal Wodd	p. 184
How Now Mad Cow in the United States?	p. 187
What's in That Ham Sandwich?	p. 188
Plenty More Where That Came From	p. 189
Meatpacking and Uncle Sam	p. 192
Meat Me in Court	p. 194
No Such Thing as a Free Lunch	p. 194
Organic and Natural	p. 196
Voting with Your Stomach	p. 199
The Meat and Poultry Industry: History Repeated?	p. 201
References	p. 203
Index	p. 221
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