Black Chicago packinghouse killing-floor workers

CTL-E-1024 · Institution · other · c. 1904-1950s

PROVISIONAL evidence grade of this record

Black workers — many Great Migration migrants from the South — employed on the killing floors and in the processing departments of Chicago's Union Stock Yards meatpacking plants.

Notes

Merged into canonical KG 2026-10-03 from TECH-001; source entity IDs: CTL-DR-TECH-001:TECH-E-008; source research type(s): None.

Sources

'The Chicago stockyards on the eve of the CIO (1936)' (scholarly essay via thefreelibrary)
Review of Halpern, Meatpackers: An Oral History of Black Packinghouse Workers and Their Struggle for Racial and Economic Equality (thefreelibrary) (primary source)
Halpern, Cambridge University Press (peer-reviewed journal)
Current Affairs, 'How Industrial Slaughter Became the Blueprint for Modern Capitalism' (2025)

Record CTL-E-1024 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · evidence grade: PROVISIONAL · 4 sources (1 primary) · CTL research: TECH-001.
Directory: all entity records · the knowledge graph

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Cite as: CultureTechLens, “Black Chicago packinghouse killing-floor workers (CTL-E-1024),” CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph, October 2026. https://culturetechlens.com/graph/entities/ctl-e-1024/

Chicago: CultureTechLens. “Black Chicago packinghouse killing-floor workers (CTL-E-1024).” CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph. Chicago, IL: CultureTechLens, 2026. https://culturetechlens.com/graph/entities/ctl-e-1024/
APA: CultureTechLens. (2026). Black Chicago packinghouse killing-floor workers (CTL-E-1024) [Entity record]. CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph. https://culturetechlens.com/graph/entities/ctl-e-1024/
MLA: CultureTechLens. “Black Chicago packinghouse killing-floor workers (CTL-E-1024).” CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph, 2026, https://culturetechlens.com/graph/entities/ctl-e-1024/

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Black Chicago’s musical record, kept frame by frame. Photographs from the CultureTechLens research record — rights-cleared, credited, and cited like everything else here.

A singer with the band at a South Side tavern, Chicago, 1941Photo: Russell Lee, FSA-OWI, Public Domain, via Library of Congress

Having fun at rollerskating rink of Savoy Ballroom. Chicago, Illinois, Chicago, 1941Photo: Lee, Russell, 1903-1986, FSA-OWI, Public Domain, via Library of Congress

Instructors in roller skating at Savoy Ballroom. Chicago, Illinois, Chicago, 1941Photo: Lee, Russell, 1903-1986, FSA-OWI, Public Domain, via Library of Congress

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