Maps: Chicago's meat packing industry

From the mid-1800s onwards, the region represented the largest livestock market in the world created by Chicago's point of convergence and hub of access thanks to the westward rail-road expansion, which made the city a profitable mid-port for both ships and trains transporting goods and soon countless millions of livestock between the East and West coasts. At that time, this center produced about 82 percent of the meat consumed in the United States.

Armour is known to be the first to dominate the industry, along with Swift, Morris and Wilson. In 1882, the industry advanced and accordingly Gustavus Swift created the Refrigerated Transit Company to transfer processed meat to the East coast markets. By-products such as leather, soap, fertilizers, glue, gelatin, cosmetics also emerged during that period.

Chicago Historian Dominic Pacyga, who lived near the stock yards, accounts for how this industry shaped the city when he recalls: "Some people used to say you could tell the time of day by how the smell changed". Hygienic and sanitary conditions were disastrous for no actual measures were taken to keep rats and bugs out of the meat, nor for the workers to wash their hands and wear clean working clothes.

Additionally, working conditions were very bad. Immigrants from Eastern Europe came to Chicago to find jobs and were largely employed in this industry. They worked 12 hours a day, were paid low wages and were not provided any benefit. Upton Sinclair contributed to depict these working conditions under capitalism in his 1906 The Jungle, as was mentioned in a previous article on this blog: http://chicagothethirdcoast.blogspot.fr/2015/02/chicago-hog-butcher-for-world-midland.html
Due to this growing awareness, pressure entailed several legislative measure such as the Pure Food Act and Drug Act as well as the Meat Inspection Act of 1906.

Later in the 20th century, pioneers of the Chicago meat industry relocated in more rural areas as it was cheaper. In 1971 the Chicago Union Stockyards closed its doors as technology moved forward.