Mass Historical Society: The War on Butchers: San Francisco and the Making of Animal Space, 1850-1870

Andrew Robichaud, Boston UniversityComment: Harriet Ritvo, MIT

For much of the nineteenth century American cities were alive with a wide variety of animal life. This paper examines some of the challenges of urban animal life (and death) in cities, while tracing the evolution of animal regulations in San Francisco between 1850 and 1870, a period of notable change. Through the creation of new livestock and slaughterhouse regulations, the city of San Francisco remade laws, space, and the environment, which together contributed to a broader transformation of urban life.

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