Hog Wash, Swill Milk, & the Politics of Waste Recycling in Antebellum Manhattan

Local food has not always been prized as better food. In 19th-century Manhattan, entrepreneurs took advantage of the city’s overwhelming piles of organic waste to transform it into food to feed the city. Using two controversies over local pork and milk, Catherine McNeur, author of Taming Manhattan, will explain why pigs and cows were treated so differently, why politicians rallied around one but not the other, and how this affected the built environment, real estate interests, immigrants, consumers and the developing illustrated newspaper industry.This lecture is part of our “Garbage and the City” series, produced in collaboration with the Museum of the City of New York and ARCHIVE Global and supported by the New York Council for the Humanities.

Free, advanced registration required.