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Meatpacking giant Armour & Co. faced national backlash when its canned meat caused thousands of casualties during the 1889 Spanish-American War.
In what became known as the “Embalmed Beef Scandal,” disease traced directly to the canned beef shipped from Chicago to Puerto Rico for soldiers’ meals led to nine times more deaths than the actual combat.
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“The beef I examined arriving on the transports from the United States ... looked well, but had an odor similar to that of a dead human body after being injected with formaldehyde, and it tasted when first cooked like decomposed boric acid.”[Chief Surgeon of US Volunteers William H. Daly. Food History Almanac.] |
[ New York Times. The Army Meat Scandal. 1 Feb. 1899.]
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[Jugend. Embalmed Beef. 1899.]
Although a court of inquiry held regarding the tainted beef ultimately took no legal action, this highly publicized scandal brought national attention to meat product quality.
Other food safety media campaigns throughout the early 1900s highlighted the public’s right to know what went into their food and set the stage for new types of advocacy.
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[Labeling cans of the "Veribest" products in Armour's Packing Plant, Chicago, U.S.A. 1909.]
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[Charles R. Barnes. The Embalmed Muse. The Evening World, 9 Jun. 1906.]
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