Historical Tidbits: Meat. Tyson Closes the Original IBP Packing Plant

Before I hie myself back to final revisions: Today the Des Moines Register reported that Tyson Foods plans to close its slaughtering facility in Denison, Iowa. I note this for two reasons:

First, by coincidence I'm in the midst of revising the chapter in which I recount the founding of IBP and the construction of the Denison packing plant, which began operating on March 21, 1961. It was IBP's first facility, and was, at the time, a marvel of modernity. It wasn't the only such modern marvel among packing plants, but it helped push IBP to the top of the beef-packing heap just a few years later.

But second, the article is interesting (to me) for the reason that Tyson gave for the closure: The decline in local supplies of cattle.

If only Iowa cattle feeders had listened to IBP's honchos back in 1965! Four years into it, IBP executives realized they'd made a rare miscalculation: Iowa cattle feeders couldn't provide the company with enough livestock to keep the plant running at capacity.

The company drew on cattle from a four-state area, which added to its costs, so IBP's executives urged Iowans to feed more efficiently, pointing out, correctly, that they were being clobbered by cattle feeders in Texas, Colorado, Kansas, and other western states. Feeders in those states had the advantage of better climate, cheaper feed grains (primarily sorghum, which was far cheaper than corn), and a more efficient feeding system. 

That led IBP to announce plans to build a state-of-the-art, confined cattle feedlot, less because it wanted to get into feeding than because it hoped doing so would inspire/encourage Iowans to modernize their feeding practices. The response? Iowans lobbied a Congressional representative to introduce legislation that would ban packers from feeding livestock.

Several years later, IBP finally opened the feedlot, but in conjunction with Iowa State University, which operated it as a research facility. And the then-president of IPB wrote to an Iowa Senator warning, again, that if Iowans didn't move with the times, they would lose their cattle feeding industry to western feeders.

They didn't, and now they have. The whole story is more complex than that, but, hey, I gotta go finish revising that very tale, And you can read more about it when the book comes out.

The Brain-Equation At Work; Or A Quickie Take On the Stuff That Makes the World Go Round

Another drive-by post because I am otherwise occupied. (*1.)

This is especially for the non-beer types --- because lotso you readers aren't into beer.

But because I'm generous -- it's a two-fer: It's for you beer types, too. Clever me.

So: In which I contemplate [briefly] passion, the creativity of daily life, and ...beer. (*2)

Chris Bowen is a beerish Facebook "friend." I've never met him. Don't know anything about him other than what's on his wall. (*3) (Viva Zuckerberg!)

Today Bowen posted a link to a short Youtube vid about him that Forbes mag shot a couple of years ago. (*4)

So I watched.

Great stuff! I enjoyed a wash of memory about what draws me me to beer folk: Passion. Passion and creativity. 

In the video, Bowen, a gifted homebrewer, expresses both.

He explains beer. And, hooray!, does so in plain language accessible to everyone, including those who don't speak beerish. And because he's a typical beer person (eg, passionate as all hell), the clip is compelling.

Jesus. Almost made me wanna start homebrewing!

Bonus? The vid also illustrates something that fascinated me when I was researching the beer book.

Brewers, by which I mean the people who concoct those vats of elixir, fall into two groups: They're either  science-y or chef-y. (*5)

As in: "Beer is fascinating science!" Or "Making beer is like cooking!"

Chris is a chef-type. Watch a similar video that featured an equally passionate, scienc-y beer person, and you'd get an equally engaging introduction from a different perspective.

Again, here's the link. If I weren't so tired, I'd go figure out how to embed the vid --- but surely you can just click the link, right?

Urgh! So much for my intention to be "quick" about it.

Oh -- Yes: feeling slightly, light-heartedly optimistic about The End.

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1. This ramble started out as a 20-second Facebook post --- and about 100 words into it I thought "Geez. This is what blogging is for: fun and relaxation. Time to break my rule" 

But this'll be quick because the brain is deep into constructing "the end" of the new book.

*2. (As many of you know, I don't drink much beer. Do I like and appreciate beer? YES. Am I a beer geek? No.) (Do I like beer geeks? Of course!)

And I'm not surprised beer's on my mind. My brain's in overdrive, finishing the book, but part of it is also contemplating the rigors of the creative process.

Which means, heh, the brain-equation behind this post is:

Working hard >> Creativity >> Joy of previous >> Beer people.

*3. More on Bowen: There's this website, and otherwise google "Chris Bowen beer".

*4. I feel obliged to link direct to the Forbes site, but add this: during the 20th century, Forbes dished up excellent business reportage. Have no idea what its quality is now, but it's long been one of this historian's pals. 

*5. There's also a third, more rare type: Beer is a great way to make money." NOTHING wrong with these folks. In many ways, they're the most interesting of the group. Believe me, they're doing as much if not more to bring the world good beer as, well, as the people who make the beer.

Historians: Missing in Action

By way of an update (and evidence that, yes!, I’m still alive): As I near the end of the Project From Hell, I finally understand why it has taken so. damn. long.

Well, okay, one of the reasons. (*1) And, hey, it’s connected to one of my favorite subjects --- how historians work --- and, hey, it allows me to rant, and bonus! break my rule about no blogging until I’m finished. (*2)

Here’s the deal: 

For the last two years, I’ve been at first surprised, and then outraged by my fellow historians, who, I have discovered, to my dismay, have zero interest in exploring the history of contentious contemporary issues. 

Or, as I now phrase it: WHAT THE HELL ARE HISTORIANS DOING? Besides, apparently, nothing?

Let me give you an example. It may seem trivial, but it makes my point:

For reasons that aren’t worth going into here (I’m trying to be brief), in the book’s last chapter I needed to discuss the microwave oven. That device, which can be found in 98% of American homes (and widely used in restaurants, too) is the single most important cooking tool to enter the American kitchen in the past century. 

So I needed to write two, maybe three sentences about it. But I couldn’t write those sentences until I first educated myself about the microwave oven’s history, and especially about the speed with which Americans adopted it.

Obviously microwave ovens are not my central topic. So this is a classic example of where it’s appropriate to rely on “secondary sources.” In this case, those secondary sources would be work by historians whose main topic was the microwave oven. 

So I conducted a “literature search”: I looked for other historians’ research on the microwave oven, its introduction into American kitchens, and its impact on Americans’ diets. 

Nada. Zip. Zero. Gotnuthin’forya.

Translation: in order to include those two or three sentences about the microwave oven, I had to drop what I was doing and do my own research into the history of the microwave oven, a task that would require at least a full day, but more probably two or three, just so I could write those two or three sentences.

Okay, so maybe a two-day detour isn’t such a big deal. Unfortunately, I encountered these research gaps over and over and over again --- for Major Big Deal Topics.

Consider the matter of livestock confinement, which is the practice of raising meat animals inside instead of outside on pasture. 

This is a hot button political/social issue in the US and has been for years. So it’s a no-brainer for historians, right? Surely, I assumed, someone has researched the history of confinement farming (which is now more than fifty years old). 

Nope. 

Here’s another Big Deal Topic: corporate-owned hog farms. For the last forty years, these farms, which consist of buildings that contain hundreds of thousands of hog, have provoked controversy, lawsuits and legislation (both state and federal), and have shaped environmental policies. Corporate hog farms are a BIG deal.

You’d think historians would be interested in researching the history of these farms.

Nope. Nada. Nuthin’ there.

Here’s another example: In the last 40 years, chicken has gone from being an afterthought to the number one meat in America. The lowly chicken toppled steak from its throne. Don Tyson built a mega-global corporation based on that change. 

You’d think someone would have researched that change, right?  

What did I find? Three short articles and one dissertation, each focusing on a narrow aspect of the American broiler industry in the mid-twentieth century. (“Broiler” is the industry term for meat chickens.)

In this case, that dearth of research translated into a month in the library --- working seven days a week, eight hours a day --- digging through poultry trade journals and newspapers and research bulletins piecing together the history of the broiler industry. 

And that didn’t include the separate topic of when and why Americans fell in love with chicken. (Which historians have also ignored.)

That’s the way it’s been for three years: one time-consuming detour after another to conduct substantive research that, by any measure of professionalism, should have at least been started by someone. 

At this point you’re thinking “Wait a sec. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do? You’re writing a book about meat, so, shouldn’t you be doing the research?”

Yes and no. Yes, when I began this book, I expected to spend most of my time conducting primary research on dozens of meat-related topics.

But, again, those topics aren’t relics stashed in the dustbin of history. These are Big Deal issues NOW, right now in contemporary America: Corporate hog farms, the shift to chicken, the use of confinement, “corporate” farms versus the family farm.

These are matters that have generated controversy and legislation and environmental and agricultural policy for more than fifty years.

Because these issues are so controversial and affect us everyday, directly or indirectly, I was right to assume that some historians would have engaged in research that contributes to our understanding of them. Bare minimum, historians who specialize in agricultural history should have been working on this stuff.

Instead: nothing. 

If ever there was a time to say “What the fuck???,” this is it. 

What the fuck are historians DOING with their time (and, often, taxpayers’ money)? What? Tell me. I want to know.

In the meantime, however, historians’ do-nothingness sent me on one lengthy detour after another.

Which is why a) this book has taken sooooo much longer than I expected; and b) why, about a year ago, I decided that the back of the book will include a short essay titled “A Note To Historians,” in which I will pose that question (leaving out the “what the fuck” part).

End of rant. 

Oh, wait! Almost forgot the update: On or before January 15, 2012, I will finish this book, and it’ll show up in print (probably) a year later. 

I’ll be back --- soon.

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*1: The other being the two-year nightmare of dealing with the temporary lack of a right arm and more pain thanI could have imagined possible.

* 2: But---this counts as an update, so I’m not really breaking the rule. 

A Historian At Work: The Stuff of Which Inspiration Is Made

Coming out of the “I MUST finish this new book” cave for a moment to comment on a video I saw via Twitter. (The video clip came to me courtesy of Adam Penenberg.)

The video in question is an unintentionally hilarious clip from a 1994 edition of NBC’s “Today” show. 

My Twitter comment was “Howling”. But even as I zipped off that response, I knew it was glib and short-sighted. In fact, the clip is a historian’s dream. It’s a powerful primary source that would inspire historians interested in the social and cultural history of the internet and the worldwide web. 

Here's the clip:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUs7iG1mNjI]

(At least I hope it's still  there. Some versions of it have been removed from the web.)

[NOTE: the day after I posted this entry, L. A. Lorek posted a Twitter  link to a 1994 article she'd written about the internet. Great companion piece.]

Okay, so yes, it’s funny, right? Hilarious, in fact. “What is the internet anyway?” "Internet is, uh, that massive computer network that's becoming really big now."

But, oh boy! The possibilities for the historian! 

Think about it. The three anchors hosted what was then, and still is, one of the most “popular” news programs on television --- “popular” meaning it commands a huge audience. Every morning, people turn in to get their news from the “Today” show. 

So you’d think these three well-known, well-paid journalists, would be, ya know, clued in on that thing called the internet, the thing that was about to change every. single. thing. about human existence.

And yet --- none of then had the foggiest.

Which means that the creation of the two most powerful technological and social tools in modern history --- the internet and the web --- apparently unfolded completely unbeknownst to what we now call the “mainstream media” (aka MSM). 

(Light bulb! Is this one reason that internet- and web-saturated folks today are so dismissive of said “mainstream media.” Can this clip help historians make sense of the history of that stance?) 

From a historian’s point of view, the three anchors’ ignorance provides a ready-made starting point for a historical assessement of that moment. Certainly it inspires a host of questions a historian would want to answer:

Why were the people who created this profound moment in human history so far off the radar of mainstream journalism? And why was mainstream media so oblivious? (Those are two different questions.) 

How, if at all, did MSM’s ignorance of the “revolution shape the early history of the internet-and-web? Did MSM's obliviousness enable those pioneers to capitalize, literally and figuratively, on internet/web potential free of the influence of mainstream corporate America? Did that obliviousness shape internet/web pioneers’ “information wants to be free” paradigm? 

When, how, and why did Gumbel, Couric, and other journalist powerhouses finally catch on? Who or what tipped them off? How did they, as journalists, then “shape” the story? How did their mainstream “story” differ from the narrative put forth by the internet/web pioneers?

I could rattle off questions indefinitely, but I’m not planning to research or write about any of this, so I’ll stop. 

But you see what I mean: This is how historians work. We look back at the past; find an interesting/worthwhile “question”; ask more questions; and then try to find the answers.

The result, eventually, is a historical narrative: a recounting of “what happened.”

And inspiration comes from odd places, even a seemingly trivial-bordering-on-silly YouTube video, which in this case serves as a truly powerful primary document. 

So. There you go.

And here I go, back to the cave, where I'm reading  up on agricultural policy during the Truman era and learning why many ag experts believed that producing more meat seemed the happy answer to the otherwise vexing “agricultural problem.” See ya!

Bah . . .

And humbug. No, I did not finish the manuscript. Not even close. Which, okay, I knew would be the case back in October. But I gave it a good shot. 

The new deadline date (chosen by my editor, who apparently has an absurd amount of faith in me) is June 1. Now that I think I can manage.

So what does this mean? Well, alas and alack, the book won't come out in 2011. Which means, ugh, it will come out during an election year, which is precisely what I was trying to avoid.

(Because elections function as media sponges, absorbing every. last. bit. of media attention there is to be had. Leaving people like me out in the cold. Which, okay, is where I'd be anyway because I'm neither Famous nor Important so my books, which are neither Sexy, nor Groovy, and contain neither sex nor vampires, get little attention.)

But I'm one of those stupidly optimistic people for whom hope springs eternal, so hey, I'm gonna give all this my best shot. My 150%, all-in, all-out, pedal-to-the-metal shot at both a June 1 completion and a reasonably successful publishing experience. (Do me a favor: don't ask me to define a "reasonably successful" publishing experience. The reality is too damn depressing.)

So. I'm going to post some recipes (been cookin' up a stormy heaven in my new kitchen), and then create another hiatus post in which I shall bid you, dear friends, farewell for another six months.

And yes, I have missed blogging to an extent that I'm embarrassed to admit. 

And Speaking of Vanishing Summers . . .

Which I was in that previous entry: an update of sorts from my end. (Translation: am I EVER gonna get back to the blogging thing? Answer: Yes, I am.)

I am still on my self-imposed blogging hiatus. Really, it's the only way I'm going to get this book finished by December 31. (Which, again, I plan to do or die trying. I prefer the former option, thankyouverymuch.)

More specifically, I'm going to finish writing the current chapter (number five of what will likely be eight) and then spend six weeks or so polishing those five chapters so I can send to my editor so she can take a look and see that, yes, we'll be ready to publish in the fall of 2011.

And while I polish, I will also be researching the rest of the book (because, like Barack Obama, I can do more than one thing at a time.) (*1)

So: I have a full brain at the moment. I would love to be back at my manic pace of blogging, especially because I've got so many juicy tidbits (no pun intended) of historical info concerning meat in the U.S. to share. And of course a host of snarky commentary on this, that, and the other that's just dying to flow from my fingertips.

Alas, all that juiciness and snark will have to wait another month or two. So, back to work.

_________________

*1: Did I mention that I also volunteered to organize my next high school reunion? I did. Don't ask me why, 'cause I don't know. Oh. Right. Now I remember. There was alcohol involved on the evening I stepped forward with my offer.