Creature’s metropolis: animals, humans, and the rise of Chicago, 1870–1930

Mrs. O’Leary’s cow kicked over a lamp one fateful night in 1871 and set Chicago ablaze. At least that is how the popular myth goes. Like a tallgrass prairie recovering from a major burn, Chicago was reborn through the turn of the century. Skyscrapers clawed their way upwards and transportation systems zipped passengers from place to place. The city became a glittering world of cement and stone, with fairs and museums and electric lights. Turn-of-the-century animals—horses, cattle, sheep, hogs, dogs, cats, rats, guinea pigs, flies, sea sponges, muskox, and the innumerable other creatures who called Chicago home—all played pivotal roles in the city’s rebirth.

This dissertation is an interspecies history of Chicago’s rise to prominence at the turn of the twentieth century. Each chapter examines a modern urban form that emerged out of human-animal relationships: the street, the stockyard, the fair, and the museum. As in all habitats, one urban species’ behaviors, instincts, and choices impacts those of others. This dissertation applies an ecological lens to each habitat and inhabits a species-specific animal perspective to understand how interspecies relationships built modern industrial structures and then how those structures shaped different animals and people in return. Together, these chapters reveal that the urban systems we think of as modern—public transportation, industrialized meat processing, municipal oversight, and institutions of learning—emerged out of human’s ability to forge relationships with animals as well as their ability to forge relationships with us.