USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Due to its central location, position as a railroad hub, and proximity to Midwestern farms, Chicago was ideally situated to become America’s meatpacking capital, especially during the Civil War, when the Union Army needed food, and blockades disrupted old trade routes.

Detailed explanation-2: -By 1880, with an average of over 1, 500 men on the payroll at any given time and as many as 4, 000 during the peak season to process $17.5 million worth of meat, Armour was Chicago’s leading industrial enterprise and employer.

Detailed explanation-3: -Chicago played the role of the slaughterhouse, meatpacker, and distributor in the beef industry. Since Chicago was connected to so many regions of farmland and ranches by the railroad, farmers would pay for their cattle to be shipping to Chicago.

Detailed explanation-4: -The industry operated with low wages, long hours, brutal treatment, and sometimes deadly exploitation of mostly immigrant workers. Meatpacking companies had equal contempt for public health. Upton Sinclair’s classic 1906 novel The Jungle exposed real-life conditions in meatpacking plants to a horrified public.