Chapter 2
registered with the local council; but all other private slaughterhouse or yards required an annual license, and had to be managed in accordance with the bylaws were subject to confirmation of the Ministry of Health (Cassidy, 1983).
History of the Slaughterhouse
Beginning in the eighteenth century, reformers argued that “public slaughterhouses” would be preferable to “private slaughterhouses” (the term referred to any structure in which animals were slaughtered for human consumption, e.g., a butcher’s shed) because they would remove the sight of animal slaughter from public places and indiscreet private slaughterhouses. The sole purpose of the new buildings would be to slaughter animals —regulated by the state and outside of the city core. The first public slaughterhouse appeared in France at the beginning of the nineteenth century and the French word abattoir was introduced to refer to a specific place where animals are slaughtered for human consumption (Brantz, 2008).
Public authorities in other Western European countries tried to concentrate the slaughter of animals outside town walls in larger, public slaughterhouses, although it was not a uniform process. One common theme that linked these developments was an interest in making animal slaughter less visible. Ironically, the new slaughterhouses, which were labeled as “public”, increasingly removed animal slaughter from the view of the public. Slaughterhouse reforms also took place in the US. Mass animal slaughter had begun in the New World when the first famine hit the English settlers in Jamestown in the winter of 1607-08. At that time the cattle, pigs, and sheep they brought from England were slaughtered for food. From that, point on the slaughtered the surplus animals at the beginning of the winter. This quickly gave rise to the sale of surplus salted and cured meat. The earliest reference to commercial slaughterhouses in the US dates back to 1662 in Springfield, Massachusetts where William Pynchon
History of the Slaughterhouse
Beginning in the eighteenth century, reformers argued that “public slaughterhouses” would be preferable to “private slaughterhouses” (the term referred to any structure in which animals were slaughtered for human consumption, e.g., a butcher’s shed) because they would remove the sight of animal slaughter from public places and indiscreet private slaughterhouses. The sole purpose of the new buildings would be to slaughter animals —regulated by the state and outside of the city core. The first public slaughterhouse appeared in France at the beginning of the nineteenth century and the French word abattoir was introduced to refer to a specific place where animals are slaughtered for human consumption (Brantz, 2008).
Public authorities in other Western European countries tried to concentrate the slaughter of animals outside town walls in larger, public slaughterhouses, although it was not a uniform process. One common theme that linked these developments was an interest in making animal slaughter less visible. Ironically, the new slaughterhouses, which were labeled as “public”, increasingly removed animal slaughter from the view of the public. Slaughterhouse reforms also took place in the US. Mass animal slaughter had begun in the New World when the first famine hit the English settlers in Jamestown in the winter of 1607-08. At that time the cattle, pigs, and sheep they brought from England were slaughtered for food. From that, point on the slaughtered the surplus animals at the beginning of the winter. This quickly gave rise to the sale of surplus salted and cured meat. The earliest reference to commercial slaughterhouses in the US dates back to 1662 in Springfield, Massachusetts where William Pynchon