The Heartland

by Kristin L. Hoganson

  146. A Naturalization Record (Minors), vol. A (Chicago: Culver, Page and Hoyne, nd), Urbana Free Library Archives.

  147. 1860 U.S. Federal Census of Champaign County, 217. AncestryLibrary.com lists her as Dorena Swett, but the original census records do appear to spell her name Donena Sweet, which is the spelling used in the typescript noted above. Sweet is her married name.

  148. Arthur C. Davenport, The American Live Stock Market: How It Functions (Chicago: Drovers Journal Print [1922]), 23.

  149. Richard W. Slatta, Cowboys of the Americas (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990); Terry G. Jordan, North American Cattle-Ranching Frontiers: Origins, Diffusion, and Differentiation (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1993), 157, 207, 267.

  150. “The Texas Cattle Trade,” Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture for the Year 1870 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1871), 347. For a rare reference to Mexican herders, see “Advance in Texas Beeves,” Prairie Farmer, Nov. 26, 1870, 369. Jacqueline M. Moore, Cow Boys and Cattle Men: Class and Masculinities on the Texas Frontier, 1865–1900 (New York: New York University Press, 2010), 136.

  151. H. W. Mumford, “Beef Production in the Argentine,” The Breeder’s Gazette, Dec. 16, 1908, 1221–22.

  152. Jeffrey M. Pilcher, “Empire of the ‘Jungle’: The Rise of an Atlantic Refrigerated Beef Industry, 1880–1920,” Food, Culture and Society 7 (Fall 2004): 63–78.

  153. “The English Market, by Way of Canada,” Prairie Farmer, June 1843, 135. As a Treasury Department report put it, “Canada is nearer to and in more constant steamship communication with the European countries than is Mexico”; American Commerce: Commerce of South America, Central America, Mexico, and West Indies, 3165.

  154. On Mexican policies to attract immigrants, see “Topics of the Day,” Prairie Farmer, Oct. 31, 1874, 348; on land sales, see “Agricultural Items,” Prairie Farmer, May 23, 1874, 162. On annexation to end cross-border rustling, see “The friends of the project . . . ,” Prairie Farmer, Feb. 17, 1872, 53.

  155. “Foreign and Colonial,” Mark Lane Express, Dec. 16, 1889, 826. On Mexican Shorthorn imports starting in 1889, see “Chronology of the Trade for 25 Years,” The Breeder’s Gazette, Nov. 28, 1906, 1155–59. Salmon, Mexico as a Market, 5.

  156. History of Champaign County, Illinois, 126. On “half-breed,” see John Mason Hart, Empire and Revolution: The Americans in Mexico since the Civil War (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 367. This is not to say that racism emerged from livestock breeding, but that the principles behind livestock production contributed to racist thinking. On assessments of Mexican Americans, see De León, The Tejano Community, 11; Laura E. Gómez, Manifest Destinies: The Making of the Mexican American Race (New York: New York University Press, 2007).

  157. Mathews and McLean, Early History and Pioneers of Champaign County, 71.

  158. On beef suppliers, see Dale, The Range Cattle Industry, 45–46, 56–57, 100–01. J. Diane Pearson, “Building Reservation Economies: Cattle, American Indians and the American West,” International Journal of Business and Globalisation 1, no. 3 (2007): 404–48.

  159. Norman Arthur Graebner, “History of Cattle Ranching in Eastern Oklahoma,” Chronicles of Oklahoma 21 (Sept. 1943): 300–311.

  160. “A. J. Smith . . . ,” Atchinson Daily Globe, June 26, 1886.

  161. Ernest S. Osgood, The Day of the Cattleman (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1929); see also Graebner, “History of Cattle Ranching,” 301, 304; on grazing herds on Cheyenne and Arapaho lands, Donald J. Berthrong, “Cattlemen on the Cheyenne-Arapaho Reservation, 1883–1885,” Arizona and the West 13 (Spring 1971): 5–32.

  162. Graebner, “History of Cattle Ranching,” 304–05, leasing, 310–11; Pearson, “Building Reservation Economies,” 417; Robert M. Burrill, “The Establishment of Ranching on the Osage Indian Reservation,” Geographical Review 62 (Oct. 1972): 524–43. Northwestern groups such as the Blackfoot Confederacy began to take up stock raising in the 1880s as well, but it took time for cattle raising to gain acceptance among native peoples and Bureau of Indian Affairs agents alike; Samek, The Blackfoot Confederacy, 80–82; Russel L. Barsh, “The Substitution of Cattle for Bison on the Great Plains,” in The Struggle for the Land: Indigenous Insight and Industrial Empire in the Semiarid World, ed. Paul A. Olson (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990), 103–26; on grazing leases, see Nimmo, Report in Regard to the Range and Ranch Cattle Business, 15.

  163. “Desire the Earth,” Champaign Daily Gazette, Feb. 10, 1890.

  164. The Biographical Record of Champaign County, Illinois, western lands, 124, children, 36, 92, 129, 229, 344; Dale, The Range Cattle Industry, 37, 45.

  165. On cattle production as women’s work among the Choctaw, see James Taylor Carson, Searching for the Bright Path: The Mississippi Choctaws from Prehistory to Removal (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999), 77–78.

  166. Graebner, “History of Cattle Ranching,” 307.

  167. “The Cattle Disease,” Prairie Farmer, Aug. 22, 1868, 60.

  168. “The Cattle Disease,” Prairie Farmer, Sept. 12, 1868, 81.

  169. Ibid.; “The Spanish Fever,” Prairie Farmer, Sept. 26, 1868, 98; “The Cattle Disease,” Prairie Farmer, Oct. 3, 1874, 313.

  170. Gamgee, “Report of Professor Gamgee,” 85, 102, 110–11. On eyeballs, stiffness, and windpipes, see H. S. Ozburn, “Texas Cattle and Texas Fever,” Prairie Farmer, Feb. 23, 1867, 114.

  171. On fifty, see Dale, The Range Cattle Industry, 37; on 15,000, see Whitaker, Feedlot Empire, 58. On “poverty,” see Joseph G. McCoy, Historic Sketches of the Cattle Trade of the West and Southwest (1874; reprint, Washington, DC: The Rare Book Shop, 1932), 148.

  172. On market rush, see McCoy, Historic Sketches of the Cattle Trade, 148; Gamgee, “Report of Professor Gamgee,” 110–11.

  173. Gates, Frontier Landlords, 23; Gates, “Cattle Kings,” 402–03; Whitaker, Feedlot Empire, 58; on finding a buyer, see McCoy, Historic Sketches of the Cattle Trade, 175.

  174. “Cattle Disease,” The American Farmer, September 1868, 3. On the 5,000 figure, see Dodge, “Report of Statistical and Historical Investigations,” 202.

  175. H. J. Detmers, “Investigation of Texas Cattle Fever,” Annual Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture for the Year 1880 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1881), 595–601.

  176. The role of ticks was discovered in 1890 by Bureau of Animal Industry scientists; R. Douglas Hurt, American Agriculture: A Brief History, revised ed. (West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 2002), 203.

  177. On the mixing of Cherokee and Texas cattle in Abilene, see “The Cattle Disease,” Prairie Farmer, Sept. 12, 1868, 81.

  178. “American Convention of Cattle Commissioners,” Prairie Farmer, Dec. 12, 1868, 185. On “foreign,” see “The Cattle Plague,” Prairie Farmer, Oct. 13, 1877, 325.

  179. “State Reports of Agriculture,” Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture for the Year 1870 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1871), 487–517; on Champaign participant, see “American Convention of Cattle Commissioners,” Prairie Farmer, Dec. 12, 1868, 185; on ticks, “American Convention of Cattle Commissioners,” Prairie Farmer, Dec. 5, 1868, 180.

  180. Whitaker, Feedlot Empire, 62.

  181. J. Stanley Clark, “Texas Fever in Oklahoma,” Chronicles of Oklahoma 29 (Winter 1951–52): 429–43, 429–30. “Texas Cattle Disease,” Prairie Farmer, Aug. 8, 1868, 44; Claire Strom, Making Catfish Bait Out of Government Boys: The Fight Against Cattle Ticks and the Transformation of the Yeoman South (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2009), 21, 23, 30; Cecil Kirk Hutson, “Texas Fever in Kansas,” Agricultural History 68 (Winter 1994): 74–104.

  182. “Jas. N. Brown’s Report on the Cattle Disease,” Prairie Farmer, Aug. 23, 1860, 116.

  183. Derry, Ontario’s Cattle Kingdom, 62.

  184. “The American Association of B
reeders of Short-horns,” Prairie Farmer, Dec. 16, 1876, 404.

  185. Julius Morton to James J. Hill, August 17, 1895, Letterbook v. 353 (June 1, 1895, to Nov. 6, 1895), Record Group 16, Animal Industry, National Archives, College Park.

  186. General Regulations under the Customs and Navigation Laws of the United States (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1884), 175. Natalia Molina, Fit to Be Citizens? Public Health and Race in Los Angeles, 1879–1939 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 13, 63. Alexandra Minna Stern, Eugenic Nation: Faults and Frontiers of Better Breeding in Modern America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 57–81; Ettinger, Imaginary Lines, 68.

  Chapter 3: Hog-Tied: The Roots of the Modern American Empire

  1. “Illinois as a Grain Growing State,” Urbana Union, Sept. 6, 1855.

  2. “The First National Bank of Champaign, Illinois,” Champaign Daily Gazette, Dec. 11, 1899.

  3. A. D. Shamel, “History of Indian Corn,” Illinois Agriculturist 6 (1902): 22–28.

  4. “International Stock Food,” Urbana Courier, March 13, 1905.

  5. “Interesting Trade Gossip on Change,” Chicago Daily Tribune, Nov. 18, 1909.

  6. J. Ogden Armour, “The Supremacy of the American Hog,” The Breeder’s Gazette, Dec. 20, 1911, 1333.

  7. “Must Increase Food Exports,” Urbana Courier, Dec. 2, 1918.

  8. Robert James McFall, The World’s Meat (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1927), 3–4, 33, 65.

  9. William Earl Weeks, The New Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations: Dimensions of the Early American Empire, 1754–1865, vol. 1 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), xvii–xviii, 41.

  10. “The Breeds of Pigs and Their Utilisations,” American Swine and Poultry Journal 3 (July, 1875): 17.

  11. C. F. Boshart, “First Prize Essay,” Berkshire Year Book, 1895 (Springfield: American Berkshire Association, 1895), 15–19.

  12. W. F. M. Arny, “Essay on the Best Breeds of Swine,” Transactions of the Illinois State Agricultural Society (1853–1854) (Springfield: Lanphier & Walker, Printers, 1855), 554–58.

  13. Sam White, “From Globalized Pig Breeds to Capitalist Pigs: A Study in Animal Cultures and Evolutionary History,” Environmental History 16 (Jan. 2011): 94–120.

  14. White, “From Globalized Pig Breeds,” 96; Benj. F. Johnson, “More about the Hog, and Its History,” Illinois Farmer 5 (Jan. 1860): 2–3.

  15. Arny, “Essay on the Best Breeds of Swine,” 555.

  16. W. J. Fraser, “History of the Berkshire Swine,” Berkshire Year Book (Springfield: American Berkshire Association, 1896), 49–50.

  17. On heavy hams and unexcelled bacon, see Boshart, “First Prize Essay,” Berkshire Year Book, 1895, 17.

  18. Year Book American Berkshire Association, 1894 (Springfield: American Berkshire Association, 1894), 74; Boshart, “First Prize Essay,” Berkshire Year Book, 1895, 15–19.

  19. A. B. Allen, “On the Origin, Breeding, and Management of Berkshire Swine,” Transactions of the Department of Agriculture of the State of Illinois (for the Year 1876) (Springfield: D. W. Lusk, 1878), 208–20.

  20. William Oliver, Eight Months in Illinois, with Information to Immigrants, 1843 (Chicago: Walter M. Hill, 1924), 80–81.

  21. Year Book American Berkshire Association, 1894, 74. On woods hogs, see Allan G. Bogue, From Prairie to Corn Belt: Farming on the Illinois and Iowa Prairies in the Nineteenth Century (1963; Chicago: University of Chicago, reprint ed., 1994), 109.

  22. Dewitt C. Wing, “Fighting the Battle for Live Stock Improvement,” Breeder’s Gazette, Dec. 16, 1908, 1210.

  23. Clarence H. Danhof, Change in Agriculture: The Northern United States, 1820–1870 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969), 176–77.

  24. Arny, “Essay on the Best Breeds of Swine,” 554–55.

  25. Allen, “On the Origin, Breeding, and Management of Berkshire Swine,” 212–13. Another account dates the Albany farmer first; see George W. Curtis, Horses, Cattle, Sheep and Swine, 2nd ed. (New York: The Rural Publishing Co., 1893), 294.

  26. Year Book American Berkshire Association, 1894, 6–7.

  27. “Death of a Profitable Berkshire,” Prairie Farmer, Jan. 10, 1885, 20; E. J. Barker, “We Are Advertised by Our Loving Friends,” The Berkshire World and Cornbelt Stockman 6 (July 1914): 9. For inflation calculation, http://www.in2013dollars.com, accessed May 23, 2017.

  28. Arny, “Essay on the Best Breeds of Swine,” 555–57.

  29. M. T. Stookey, “Class D, Swine,” Transactions of the Department of Agriculture of the State of Illinois (for the Year 1876) (Springfield: D. W. Lusk, 1878), 18–19.

  30. W. C. Flagg, “The Agriculture of Illinois, 1683–1876,” Transactions of the Department of Agriculture of the State of Illinois (for the Year 1875) (Springfield: State Journal Book, 1876), 286–346.

  31. Bogue, From Prairie to Corn Belt, 103.

  32. Frances E. Roehm, Champaign County, Illinois 1850, A Historical Overview, Urbana Free Library Archives, 1986, 95.

  33. “Hogs, Fleas, &c.,” Urbana Union, April 12, 1855.

  34. William D. Walters, Jr., The Heart of the Cornbelt: An Illustrated History of Corn Farming in McLean County (Bloomington: McLean County Historical Society, 1997), 40.

  35. “Large Farms in Illinois,” Friends’ Review: A Religious, Literary and Miscellaneous Journal, Sept. 26, 1863, 60.

  36. “The Champaign Stock Shipment,” Champaign Daily Gazette, Nov. 27, 1889.

  37. “Honor to Whom Honor Is Due,” Urbana Union, July 5, 1855.

  38. W. C. Flagg, “Indian Corn—Its Varieties, Preparation of Soil, and Most Profitable Uses,” Transactions of the Department of Agriculture of the State of Illinois (1872) (Springfield: State Journal Steam Print, 1873), 72–81.

  39. “Corn,” Transactions of the Department of Agriculture of the State of Illinois (for the Year 1876) (Springfield: D. W. Lusk, 1878), 331.

  40. History of Champaign County, Illinois, With Illustrations Descriptive of its Scenery and Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Men and Pioneers (Philadelphia: Brink, McDonough & Co., 1878), 41.

  41. On rank, Fred H. Rankin, “Points on Pork,” Illinois Agriculturist 3 (1899): 68–74. D. S. Dalbey, “Pork Production in Illinois,” Illinois Agriculturist 6 (1902): 74–80.

  42. Johnson, “More about the Hog, and Its History,” 3.

  43. History of Champaign County, Illinois, 41.

  44. “Official List of Awards at the Eighteenth Annual Exhibition (1870),” Transactions of the Illinois State Agricultural Society 8 (1869–70), 113; “Official List of Awards,” Transactions of the Department of Agriculture of the State of Illinois (for the Year 1871) (Springfield: Journal Printing Office, 1872), 25–60.

  45. A. M. Fanley, “Swine Breeding,” in J. S. Lothrop’s Champaign County Directory, 1870–71, by J. S. Lothrop (Chicago: Rand, McNally and Co., 1871), 150–52.

  46. Johnson, “More about the Hog, and Its History,” 2–3.

  47. “Origin of Berkshires,” Prairie Farmer, Feb. 8, 1890, 89.

  48. H. P. Allen, cited in Phil Thrifton, “Large and Small Berkshires,” Prairie Farmer, Aug. 9, 1890, 500.

  49. Fraser, “History of the Berkshire Swine,” 49–50.

  50. Allen, “On the Origin, Breeding, and Management of Berkshire Swine,” 210.

  51. “Things in America, Social and Agricultural,” Prairie Farmer, Dec. 8, 1866, 18, 23.

  52. British Berkshire Society, British Berkshire Herd Book, vol. 1 (Salisbury: Edward Roe and Co., 1885), front matter. Harriet Ritvo, The Animal Estate: The English and Other Creatures of the Victorian Age (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987), 53.

  53. J. W. Jaquith, “Urbana Drug Store,” Urbana Union, July 28, 1853; on silks, satins, and hats, see “For the Gentlemen,” ad for Gessie and Sherfy, Urbana Union, Aug. 18, 1853.


  54. Natalia Maree Belting, “Early History of Urbana-Champaign to 1871” (master’s thesis, University of Illinois, 1937), 71–72.

  55. “Berkshire Breeders,” Prairie Farmer, Jan. 24, 1885, 52.

  56. Year Book American Berkshire Association, 1894, 6.

  57. Allen, “On the Origin, Breeding, and Management of Berkshire Swine,” 211.

  58. Allen, “On the Origin, Breeding, and Management of Berkshire Swine,” 208–20.

  59. Allen, “On the Origin, Breeding and Management of Berkshire Swine,” 212.

  60. W. Jos Grand, Illustrated History of the Union Stockyards: Sketch-Book of Familiar Faces and Places at the Yards (Chicago: W. Jos Grand, 1901), 132–33.

  61. “The Status of Berkshires,” The Berkshire World and Cornbelt Stockman 6 (Jan. 1914): 8.

  62. Boshart, “First Prize Essay,” Berkshire Year Book, 1895, 15–19.

  63. D. Z. Evans, Jr., “Items on Breeding Stock,” American Swine and Poultry Journal 3 (Dec. 1875): 116.

  64. Arny, “Essay on the Best Breeds of Swine,” 558. O. S. [Orson Squire] Fowler, and L. N. Fowler, Phrenology Proved, Illustrated, and Applied, 4th ed. (Philadelphia, Fowler and Brevoort, 1839), 20–24.

  65. Arny, “Essay on the Best Breeds of Swine,” 554–58.

  66. Allen, “On the Origin, Breeding, and Management of Berkshire Swine,” 211.

  67. Year Book American Berkshire Association, 1894, 7.

  68. Allen, “On the Origin, Breeding, and Management of Berkshire Swine,” 213.

  69. Boshart, “First Prize Essay,” Berkshire Year Book, 1895, 15–19; Johnson, “More about the Hog, and Its History,” 2–3.

  70. Thomas Shaw, “The Berkshire Hog,” Berkshire Year Book, 1896 (Springfield: American Berkshire Association, 1896), 30–42.

  71. D. W. May, “History of the Berkshire,” Berkshire Year Book, 1896 (Springfield: American Berkshire Association, 1896), 43–44. On the role of pigs in colonization more generally, see Mark Essig, Lesser Beasts: A Snout-to-Tail History of the Humble Pig (New York: Basic Books, 2015), 151.