Chicago Stockyards
The Union Stock Yard & Transit Company opened its doors in the winter of 1865 and immediately became an icon for the city of Chicago.[1] Chicago meatpacking quickly cornered the U.S. market by feeding Union troops during the Civil War. While demand fluctuated, Chicago remained the leader of meatpacking in the U.S. right through WWI. To feed the newly raised U.S. army and the rest of her allies, African Americans taking part in the Great Migration flooded the stockyards looking for jobs created by the war, in their work they faced both racial tensions and the formidable task of meeting the massive demand of meat created by WWI.
Shortly before the war, the U.S. while rapidly industrializing, was still a primarily agrarian country. With mass industrialization came new technologies and jobs making products more affordable for the average American. However, this mass industrialization came with some terrible costs to the individual. Jobs had long hours, terrible conditions, and even though injuries were common, another man was always waiting to take the job. Upton Sinclair describes the working and living conditions in his novel, The Jungle, “…penned up in filthy houses and left to rot and stew in misery, and the conditions of their life make them ill faster than all the doctors in the world could heal them…”[2] While other industries like arms and munition manufactures were reaching new highs selling supplies to the allies, meatpacking production fell significantly in the years before the U.S. entered the war.[3]
Dead hogs in the slaughter pens courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago [4]
While the key factor that caused the decline in meat manufacturing before the war is debated, once America began to raise her own army the demand for meat skyrocketed. “In the two years of war the export of beef of all kinds has been 597,000,000 pounds, against 73,500,000 pounds in the two years preceding the war.” [5] Even with the British blockade effectively excluding half the world market, the beef market although limited to the rest of the U.S. and the allies saw tremendous growth. An eight-fold increase in the pounds of beef leaving the stockyards of Chicago in just two years. Amazingly, beef was not the only meat moving through the stockyards at this point in time. Nearly 1,000,000,000 pounds of pork were exported in 1916 alone.[6] With the majority of meat being sent overseas for the war effort, the exports had to pass army sanitation and health regulations. The 100-man Veterinary Corps assigned to Chicago was tasked with inspecting millions of pounds of meat being exported on a weekly basis.[7] However, even with an insufficient number of inspectors, the demand did not slow as the stockyards exported roughly 200 percent more meat during the war than before it. The massive increase in exported meat raises the question, how did the Chicago stockyards manage to export that quantity of meat so shortly after losing a large percentage of their workforce to the war?
Captain G. McEvers, First Cavalry veterinarian, inspecting a horse at the stockyards in 1916 courtesy of the Chicago History Museum [8]
Just as the U.S. was preparing to enter the war, millions of African Americans from the rural South traveled North in search of work and better lives. This mass movement, termed the Great Migration, coupled with the quickly industrializing North mixed perfectly as many factories were looking for unskilled laborers. When the U.S. eventually did enter the war, many workers in the stockyards left via the draft or volunteered for Europe leaving gaps in the stockyard workforce. “…stockyards and packing companies, desperately short of labor because of the war, hired white labor agents and black preachers to tour the South recruiting.”[9] Demand was so high that companies actively sought-after workers in the South and employed many that had already come to Chicago looking for work. While men leaving for war left a gap in the stockyard workforce, it was not completely made up of new African American workers.
New job opportunities came with challenges as preexisting white workers were often harsh and violent toward African American workers. “Going to and from work, the blacks often encountered violence from the Irish ‘athletic clubs,’ which were organizations of adolescents sponsored by ward bosses and operating with little political interference.”[10] The residential areas surrounding the stockyards of Chicago were extremely segregated, and that segregation led to violent interactions when one group passed through another’s territory. Unfortunately, this residential segregation was not kept out of stockyards as white workers refused to let African Americans join their unions or organized strikes. The influx of African American workers to Chicago increased from 27,000 to almost 70,000 in the years during the war which threatened white workers jobs.[11] They were willing to work for less wages and were frequently hired to break strikes as they were not allowed to become union members.
Soldiers with rifles standing guard at a vandalized house during the Race Riots of 1919 courtesy of the Chicago History Museum [12]
African American workers who came North during the Great Migration were a quintessential reason the stockyards of Chicago were able to produce such immense quantities of meat. New opportunities and hope of a better life brought them to the stockyards as jobs were plentiful. Unfortunately, as the war came to a close so did the job opportunities for African Americans in the stockyards. African American men, women, and white women were the first to be laid off following the armistice in November 1918.[13] White men returning from war were given the jobs over many who had taken them up in their absence. While the stockyards did not completely lay off their African American workforce, many men were replaced by returning soldiers. Regardless of this shift at the close of the war, the tremendous demand for beef, pork, and other meats could have never been met without the massive African American workforce that rose to meet the challenge.
References:
[1] Abbott, Edith, and S. P. Breckinridge. "Women in Industry: The Chicago Stockyards." Journal of Political Economy 19, no. 8 (1911): 632-654.
[2] Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle. New York: Penguin Books, 1985.
[3] "Gain in Meat Exports Explains High Prices." American Meat Trade and Retail Butcher Journal 19 (October 12, 1916): 1-11.
[4] Taylor, J.W. Union Stock Yards. Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago
[5] "Gain in Meat Exports Explains High Prices." American Meat Trade and Retail Butcher Journal 19 (October 12, 1916): 1-11.
[6] Ibid.
[7] United States War Department, Annual Reports of War Department, Vol. 1 (Jan. 1, 1919): 743.
[8] Chicago Daily News, Inc. Captain G. McEvers, First Cavalry veterinarian, inspecting a horse at the stockyards. June 30, 1916, Chicago History Museum, Chicago
[9] Lemann, Nicholas. The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1991.
[10] Tuttle, William M. Race Riot - Chicago in the Red Summer of 1919. University of Illinois Press, 1996.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Chicago Daily News, Inc. Chicago race riot, soldiers with rifles standing guard at vandalized house. July-August 1919, Chicago History Museum, Chicago
[13] Tuttle, William M. Race Riot - Chicago in the Red Summer of 1919. University of Illinois Press, 1996.