History
Humans have raised domesticated animals since the beginning of civilization. Early farm animals were given protection in exchange for providing food for humans. This relationship began to change when large-scale farming started to replace small farms. This change in farming started with cattle and other grazers in America and Australia, where there were large plains of grass unsuitable for growing crops. By the early nineteenth century, cattle herds containing hundreds of thousands of cattle roamed the plains of the US. Feedlots are a natural extension of this expansion. Mass chicken production began just after World War II, and was soon followed by the mass production of pigs. (http://www.ru.org/arttreat.html)
As farming practices changed, the way in which animals were slaughtered also changed. From each family raising and butchering their own meat, it went to taking the animals to the village butcher and some of the meat going to feed the people of the village. By the turn of the 19th century, animals were taken to slaughter houses in the cities. At this point, slaughter houses used mostly immigrant labor and had poor working conditions. In the 1930s the slaughterhouses became unionized. The Unions remained strong in the industry for about thirty years, until the slaughter houses moved out of the city to be near the feedlots. With this change, the unions were lost, and the industry again turned to using mostly immigrant labor in poor working conditions. (Organic Consumers Association)
photo courtesy of www.inthesetimes.com
