Rural History Roundtable
Photograph: Large group eating meal after raising barn, Stephen Sylvester Main collection, University of Guelph Library, Archives, and Special Collections, Agricultural History (XA1 MS A230 #214)
The Rural History Roundtable is a speaker series that has been in operation since 2002. It hosts scholars of international repute and provides a venue for graduate students to present their latest research. It is vertically intergrated drawing into its fold undergraduates, graduates, post-docs, faculty, archivists, alumni, and other members of the public.
All are welcome to attend!
Our third and final roundtable of Winter 2026 will take place virtually on Thursday, March 12 from 3:30-5:00pm EST over Zoom. To view the Zoom presentation, please register here: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/goats-in-america-from-the-poor-mans-cow-to-urban-icon-tickets-1980396227427?aff=oddtdtcreator. Attendees are encouraged to register at least two hours before the event's start time to ensure the Zoom link is received before the event starts.
Presenter: Tami Parr (Author and Historian)
Title: "Goats in America: From the Poor Man’s Cow to Urban Icon"
Description: The role of goats in American history has gone mostly unexamined, yet their story is compelling. For centuries, Americans dismissed goats as the “poor man’s cow,” and associated the animals with poverty and degenerate behavior. But by the turn of the twentieth century, these entrenched negative perceptions of goats began to shift. As cow’s milk contamination scandals dominated the headlines, the general public embraced goat’s milk, which was believed (erroneously) to be pure and untainted. Suddenly, goats were widely praised as humanity’s saviors. Over a century later, the business of goat dairy products production is a multi-billion dollar industry in the United States. The reputation of goats has also expanded in new and surprising ways. Goat keeping in cities has spread as a popular form of urban homesteading. And who could have predicted the advent of goat yoga as a worldwide cultural phenomenon? Ultimately the evolving reputation of goats in American history says more about human anxieties and cultural change than it does goats themselves.
Questions? Please contact:
Dr. Ben Bradley
ben.bradley@uoguelph.ca
Dr. Rebecca Beausaert
rbeausae@uoguelph.ca
For a list of past Rural History Roundtable speakers, see here.
