Although livestock are not usually thought of as a technological innovation, domesticated livestock are an Old World import. As Roger Caras points out in A Perfect Harmony, none of the large North American animals have been domesticated. Near Chicago, horses were the only Old World animal to be widely embraced by the Native Americans.
For livestock to be useful to humans there are a host of associated technologies such as breeding, herding, fencing, harnesses, wagons, food preparation and meat preservation techniques. Chicago contributed innovations in many of these areas.
Livestock technology was important in Chicago during the 200 years from the 1770s, when Du Sable arrived, to the closure of the stockyards in 1971. When Du Sable sold up and went west in 1800 much of his prosperity depended upon his knowledge of livestock. He owned, among other things, a dairy, a horse‑drawn mill, a poultry house, a smokehouse and two barns.
I’ll write about three large domesticated animals important in Chicago: pigs, cattle and horses. Especially as the nineteenth century progressed, these animals were not born in Chicago, but raised in the countryside.
Five‑year‑old horses came to Chicago to spend the rest of their lives working. Most horses ended up in rendering plants, not for meat, which Americans wouldn’t eat, but for hides and other byproducts.
Pigs and cattle mostly came to Chicago to die in the stockyards, but milk production is also an important Chicago story.
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