The library is proudly partnering with Illinois Humanities to host Illinois Road Scholar, Cynthia Clampitt. She will be discussing “Wild Boar to Baconfest: Pigs in History and Popular Culture.”

In this talk, Cynthia Clampitt presents the history of pigs and pork to examine the impact these animals had worldwide. Clampitt will focus on the Midwest, including why poet Carl Sandburg would call Chicago “Hog Butcher for the World.”

Pigs were the first food animals to be domesticated, so their history with humans dates back more than 12,000 years. However, antiquity is just one of the reasons why pork is the most eaten meat in the world. This odd, paradoxical animal offers a great range of advantages when it comes to feeding large populations—especially urban populations—though, historically, it has also offered several disadvantages. Once pigs were introduced to the Americas, they became an almost instant success, raised by settlers but also valued by Native Americans. As the Midwest opened, pigs moved west and numbers grew rapidly. From Cincinnati, known in the early 1800s as Porkopolis, the center of pork culture moved to Chicago.

Pigs offer culinary delight and potential medical advances, but also create some challenges. Join Clampitt in exploring the topic of pigs, which is as far-ranging as pigs themselves.