Feeding Gotham: The Political Economy and Geography of Food in New York City, 1790–1860 by Gergely Baics (review)

In the early nineteenth century, residents of New York City relied primarily on public markets to obtain beef and other food supplies. However, in 1843, the city ended the public markets’ monopoly on beef sales, leading to a rapid privatization of food provisioning in the city. In Feeding Gotham, Baics explores the rise and fall of these markets, concluding that their demise led to deteriorating food access for lower income New Yorkers.

Baics draws from a wide variety of sources and techniques to tell this story. In one chapter, he relies on the diaries of Evert Bancker, Jr., a state politician, and banker John Pintard to analyze the consumption patterns of New Yorkers during the 1820s and 1830s. Historians have long mined Pintard’s diary for his insights about notable political and social developments, but few of them have utilized it to capture the rhythms of daily life. Pintard and, by extension, other New Yorkers patronized public markets three to four times a week. Baics combines Pintard’s observations with public data to trace the seasonal variations in food consumption. Beef was the primary protein source for most New Yorkers, though they also ate poultry, veal, and other meats when they were in abundance. Baics makes a strong argument that city residents enjoyed better access to fresh red meat than did their rural counterparts, who generally relied on preserved supplies. He attributes this urban advantage to numbers: The density of residents in New York ensured a steady supply of livestock into the city, and thus regular access to beef.

Baics’s most valuable contribution consists of the maps that he created to illustrate the role of the public markets in urban life. These detailed maps illuminate many aspects of the city’s geographical and economic structure, including the location of slaughterhouses and the relationship between population and food purveyors. The maps help readers to understand the lived geography of the city and clarify the differential access to food based on income and residential location.

These differences in food access intensified when the public markets’ monopoly on beef sales came to end. After 1843, the public markets atrophied and the number of private food vendors exploded. These changes had a detrimental effect on the quality and quantity of food for many lower-income New Yorkers. Baics argues that increasing disparities in access to high-quality food was the third leg of the stool of urban inequality, along with the more familiar culprits—poor sanitation and inadequate housing. He views this diminishing access to food, particularly meat, during the 1840s and 1850s as a principal cause of what historians have called the antebellum puzzle—the coincidence of increasing economic growth and the deterioration of biological standards of living, such as higher mortality and reduced physical stature.

The antebellum puzzle is only one of the larger historical questions that Baics tackles. He offers a nuanced interpretation of the privatization of food provisioning in New York, counseling that historians should avoid the temptation to view the decision as part of a broader trend toward economic liberalization. On several occasions, Baics mentions the city’s decision to construct a public water system, the first stage of which was completed in 1842, only one year before the city lifted the public markets’ monopoly. He concludes that “the balance of public and private goods was a subject of case-by-case negotiations” (155).

Although Feeding Gotham is a wonderful example of interdisciplinary scholarship—given Baics’ considerable mapping and statistical skills—it is not a particularly readable study. Baics explores the plight of the city’s poor, but he largely fails to include their voices. This top-down work focuses in large part on those at the bottom end of society. Social historians seeking an account that vividly brings to life the warp and woof of urban life should look elsewhere. But those who are interested in...