Humans, Animals, and U.S. Society in the Long Nineteenth Century: A Documentary History

This volume focuses on forms of human-animal relations particularly expressive of the momentous sociocultural and economic transitions that paved the road towards modernity in American society. The increasing urbanization and industrialization of society significantly reconfigured modes and spaces of encounter between humans and animals and the visibility of animal life more generally. With the exception of pets, the presence of domesticated animals was increasingly relegated to the margins of urban society, particularly so in the case of industrialized practices of animal slaughter and meat processing. At the same time, zoos and other institutions of animal display engaged in exhibitions of wild and "exotic" creatures as an early form of "edutainment," while the increasing popularity of modern sports allowed for the development of, and - aided by new visual technologies like photography - the mass cultural representation of new forms of human-animal interaction (e.g. in horse racing) and even the emergence of animal "stars."