Rascher's birds eye view of the Chicago packing houses & union stock yards

Image file

Rascher’s bird’s-eye view of the Chicago packing houses and Union Stock Yards

Caption

Chicago packing houses and Union Stock Yards, 1890. Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division.

Catalog notes

Chicago’s stockyards become a sprawling landscape of connected buildings in Charles Rascher’s hand-colored view. Packing houses, livestock pens and railway tracks show the concentration and circulation that made this industrial district work. The image provides a spatial record of the meatpacking industry and the large physical setting in which its workers labored. Its elevated viewpoint allows buildings and transport connections to be examined together rather than as isolated landmarks.

Original catalog record, source and attribution