Prof. Joe Anderson of Mount Royal University will discuss the role of pigs and pork during a lecture, "Pigs and Pork in America." Admission is complimentary and open to the public.
Background: Pigs have been everywhere in America since European colonization. They were a critical food source in every region, sustained many farms and communities, helped displace Native Americans, and were the subject of intensive research to eradicate disease and to change the very nature of the animal.
In Iowa alone there are approximately 23 million pigs, more than seven times the number of humans in the state. Yet their ubiquity on the land and on our tables makes it hard to appreciate changes in the ways they have been part of our lives. Anderson's talk will address how pigs and pork have figured in the economic, social, and political landscape of America over 500 years, with special attention to Iowa, a place that historian Dorothy Schwieder labelled “The Middle Land.”