Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    The City Is More Than Human: An Animal History of Seattle
    Unavailable
    The City Is More Than Human: An Animal History of Seattle
    Unavailable
    The City Is More Than Human: An Animal History of Seattle
    Ebook494 pages6 hours

    The City Is More Than Human: An Animal History of Seattle

    By Frederick L. Brown and Paul S. Sutter

    4.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Winner of the 2017 Virginia Marie Folkins Award, Association of King County Historical Organizations (AKCHO)

    Winner of the 2017 Hal K. Rothman Book Prize, Western History Association

    Seattle would not exist without animals. Animals have played a vital role in shaping the city from its founding amid existing indigenous towns in the mid-nineteenth century to the livestock-friendly town of the late nineteenth century to the pet-friendly, livestock-averse modern city.

    When newcomers first arrived in the 1850s, they hastened to assemble the familiar cohort of cattle, horses, pigs, chickens, and other animals that defined European agriculture. This, in turn, contributed to the dispossession of the Native residents of the area. However, just as various animals were used to create a Euro-American city, the elimination of these same animals from Seattle was key to the creation of the new middle-class neighborhoods of the twentieth century. As dogs and cats came to symbolize home and family, Seattleites’ relationship with livestock became distant and exploitative, demonstrating the deep social contradictions that characterize the modern American metropolis.

    Throughout Seattle’s history, people have sorted animals into categories and into places as a way of asserting power over animals, other people, and property. In The City Is More Than Human, Frederick Brown explores the dynamic, troubled relationship humans have with animals. In so doing he challenges us to acknowledge the role of animals of all sorts in the making and remaking of cities.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of Washington Press
    Release dateOct 3, 2016
    ISBN9780295999357
    Unavailable
    The City Is More Than Human: An Animal History of Seattle

    Related to The City Is More Than Human

    Related ebooks

    United States History For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      CONSERVATION Corridors

      Jul 15, 2021

      CONSERVATION Corridors
      4 min read

    • Article

      A Wave Of Green Colonialism

      Mar 1, 2023

      A Wave Of Green Colonialism
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Queer Ecology of the Colombian Civil War: Meet the transgendered ecologist helping her country move past years of conflict.

      Dec 8, 2016

      The former Luis Guillermo Baptiste began her transformation into Brigitte in the mid 1990s, when she was part of a cadre of scientists helping to establish the Bogota-based Humboldt Institute, a hybrid public-private biodiversity research foundation.

      7 min read

    • Article

      Gateway To The Third Kingdom

      Feb 3, 2020

      RECIPIENT Ella Farley PROGRAM Bachelor of Landscape Architecture (Honours), University of Technology Sydney Gateway to the Third Kingdom recognizes that, in the scale of geological time, human existence has been and will be very fleeting. By comparis

      1 min read

    • Article

      Rebugging the Planet

      Sep 10, 2021

      Rebugging the Planet
      2 min read

    • Article

      A Bog’s Life

      May 15, 2019

      A Bog’s Life
      4 min read

    • Article

      Art In The Anthropocene

      Mar 12, 2019

      Art In The Anthropocene
      7 min read

    • Article

      Nature’s Restoration

      Dec 17, 2020

      for the New Internationalist Co-operative newint.org Probably by mistake, a tiny bird flies up to my balcony in the busy, restless city and looks me in the eye. Is it sheer sentimentality that floods me with joy? Why does it feel like a visitation? I

      1 min read

    • Article

      Reading Country: Case studies

      Mar 7, 2021

      Reading Country: Case studies
      7 min read

    • Article

      Art as Multispecies Vibrancy

      Jul 1, 2020

      Art as Multispecies Vibrancy
      3 min read

    • Article

      If Bugs Are Sentient, Should We Eat Them?

      Apr 27, 2017

      Oyamel Cocina Mexicana, in the Penn Quarter neighborhood of Washington, D.C., is a restaurant specializing in insects. Stepping inside on a cool June evening in 2014, my friend Stephen Wood and I were immersed in the colors and smells of Oaxaca, Mexi

      12 min read

    • Article

      Spring By Nature

      Mar 1, 2021

      Spring By Nature
      9 min read

    • Article

      Harmonious Landscapes

      Nov 10, 2021

      Harmonious Landscapes
      9 min read

    • Article

      Writers’ Circle

      Apr 8, 2020

      Writers’ Circle
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Spirit Of The Rillito

      May 1, 2023

      The Spirit Of The Rillito
      5 min read

    • Article

      “Climate Is A Factor That Underpins All Of Human History”

      Mar 16, 2023

      Rhiannon Davies: In The Earth Transformed you argue that the history of humanity is inextricably linked to the history of the environment. Why is that? Peter Frankopan: Well, I'm not the first person to make that point. The Abrahamic faiths – Christi

      9 min read

    • Article

      The Accidental Ecosystem: Behind The Rise Of Urban Wildlife In US Cities

      Jul 19, 2022

      “Animals that do well in cities do things that, in a lot of ways, resemble what people do.” Peter Alagona, author of The Accidental Ecosystem – a new book about how wildlife make habitats out of cities – is talking about one of his favorite creatures

      4 min read

    • Article

      Human History Gets a Rewrite

      Oct 18, 2021

      Human History Gets a Rewrite
      9 min read

    Reviews for The City Is More Than Human

    4.5/5

    3 ratings1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Frederick Brown tracks how human attitudes towards animals changed and developed in Seattle from mid-nineteenth century settlement through to the present day. The chapters cover different types of animals and they largely unfold chronologically. The first white settlers, for example, relied on livestock as a source of food and wealth. They considered them a symbol of progress and evidence of success in their self-professed civilizing mission to conquer the untamed wilderness of the American West. By 1900 the rising urban, white collar, middle-class pushed livestock outside of Seattle’s bounds. There was no room for cows in their conception of a modern city. The issue of public health figured prominently in the arguments these Progressive Era reformers. Horses, on the other hand, were somewhat the reverse of livestock. As beasts of burden, horses fit into the new city, for they served as visible signs of commerce and work. That is, until the rise of the automobile rendered them, too, incompatible with modernity and public health and safety standards. The history of the dog, from semi-wild beasts roaming the urban landscape to “fur babies” is particularly good. Brown calls attention to the fact that these shifting perceptions of modernity and views on the proper role of animals in our daily, urban lives ultimately culminate in a paradox. Cattle, chickens, and pigs really haven’t been removed from our daily lives, nor are we less reliant on them. They are as much a part of most people’s lives in the twenty-first century as in the nineteenth. Even our cats and dogs need them. Just look inside of your refrigerator!