Making Machines of Animals: The International Livestock Exposition – PDF

This eBook discusses how the Chicago International Livestock Exposition used the eugenics movement to transform animals into machines and industrialize American agriculture.

In 1900, the Chicago International Livestock Exposition became a hub for agricultural reform. It aimed to redesign animals’ bodies to suit modern industrial needs. Meat packers from Chicago joined forces with professors from land-grant universities to create the International Livestock Exposition, which was akin to a world’s fair. Their goal was to establish a standard for animal quality and, in the process, revolutionize American agriculture.

In Making Machines of Animals (PDF), Neal A. Knapp explores the motivations behind this collaboration between meat packers and professors. He explains how they utilized the International Exposition to redefine the concept of animality. Both groups aimed to replace “inferior” livestock with “improved” animals, basing their judgment on the emerging eugenics movement. The International Livestock Exposition introduced new criteria for animal superiority and established new norms, resulting in significant changes in animal weight, size, and market age. These alterations transformed animals from versatile beings into single-purpose products. The standardized animals, dependent on external inputs and exchanges, limited farmers’ choices and hindered their ability to pursue balanced farming or maintain soil fertility.

By analyzing research and publications from land-grant universities, meat packer records, propaganda, newspapers, and agricultural journals, Knapp criticizes the supposed market-driven, efficiency-oriented industrial reforms promoted by the International Livestock Exposition. He highlights the underlying irrational and racist ideologies. The livestock reform movement not only led to cruel and violent treatment of animals but also resulted in inefficiencies and vulnerabilities in twentieth-century crop and animal husbandry.

ISBN: 978-1421446554, 978-1421446561

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