Americans love cows. The United States possesses an entire economic sector geared for rearing, feeding, slaughtering, shipping, and eating the big-eyed ruminants. So all-encompassing is the American cattle-industrial complex that it helps determine what crops are grown on what land, what is done with the waste materials from chemical and food processing, the composition of soils, the purity of air and water, and the health effects of eating your dinner. How has the American love of cows come to shape our world so profoundly?

Historian and anthropologist Nicole Welk-Joerger seeks answers in her research on cattle and sustainability in the United States. Taking a dual approach that involves ethnographic fieldwork and historical research in the archive, Dr. Welk-Joerger traces the growth of the livestock feed industry from its beginnings in the late nineteenth century, to its dominance of the economic scene in the early twenty-first century. Key to this history is the changing ideas Americans had about their cattle, from hooved factories to sacred objects, which demonstrates how we became a ruman nation.

In support of her research, Dr. Welk-Joerger received the NEH-Hagley post-doctoral fellowship. For more information on the Center for the History of Business, Technology, & Society and the Hagley Museum & Library, visit us online at www.hagley.org.

Ruman Nation: An Environmental History of American Cattle with Nicole Welk-Joerger

SPECIAL THANKS to my good friend, Australian new music trombonist extraordinaire, Simone de HAAN.

‘the Symphony Orchestra” 

some extinctions are sweet
see the saprophytic
symphony orchestra
where our much will have more 
is forever at war 
with the speed of sound
morbidly obese strip miner 
of the past with superb technique 
like the humble sex worker who 
mimics true love perfectly
sad swan-song of the beautiful
young conductor decomposer-in-chief 
baton hard sharp pointed erect
leading its troops straight into 
the motionless oblivion of moist muck
the happy food of hungry worms

IMAGE: An actual sign in SNAKE RIVER COUNTRY along the CANNABIS HIGHWAY, spectacular gravel mountain bike road from Richland to Huntington, OREGON

Ruman Nation: An Environmental History of American Cattle with Nicole Welk-Joerger

Hagley Museum and Library

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