Frederick L. Brown

Frederick Brown tracks how human attitudes towards animals changed and developed in Seattle from mid-nineteenth century settlement through to the present day. The chapters cover different types of animals and they largely unfold chronologically. The first white settlers, for example, relied on livestock as a source of food and wealth. They considered them a symbol of progress and evidence of success in their self-professed civilizing mission to conquer the untamed wilderness of the American West. By 1900 the rising urban, white collar, middle-class pushed livestock outside of Seattle’s bounds. There was no room for cows in their conception of a modern city. The issue of public health figured prominently in the arguments these Progressive Era reformers. Horses, on the other hand, were somewhat the reverse of livestock. As beasts of burden, horses fit into the new city, for they served as visible signs of commerce and work. That is, until the rise of the automobile rendered them, too, incompatible with modernity and public health and safety standards. The history of the dog, from semi-wild beasts roaming the urban landscape to “fur babies” is particularly good. Brown calls attention to the fact that these shifting perceptions of modernity and views on the proper role of animals in our daily, urban lives ultimately culminate in a paradox. Cattle, chickens, and pigs really haven’t been removed from our daily lives, nor are we less reliant on them. They are as much a part of most people’s lives in the twenty-first century as in the nineteenth. Even our cats and dogs need them. Just look inside of your refrigerator!… (altro)