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Swill Milk

About This Item

  • Title: Swill Milk
  • Date: 13 May 1858
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.01283
  • Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 13 May 1858: 2. Our transcription is based on a digital image of a microfilm scan of the original issue. Microfilm of original issue held at Pennsylvania State University Libraries. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the journalism, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: This piece is unsigned, as was the case for most of Whitman's journalism. However, this editorial is part of a series of texts that deal with a coherent theme that has been identified by the Whitman Archive journalism team as likely authored by Whitman. This decision is based on a combination of historical and (auto)biographical accounts, similarity to contemporary Whitman writings, a history of scholarly attribution, extant clippings retained by Whitman, computational stylometric analysis, and, in some cases, manuscript evidence in Whitman’s hand.
  • Contributors to digital file: Kaylen Michaelis Tara Ballard Stephanie Blalock Karie Cobb
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "Swill Milk." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 16 July 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.01283.xml (TEI)
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SWILL MILK.1—

It is well known that the Times has never favored the swilled milk traffic (as indeed how could it?) yet a love of truth compels us to state that the denunciations of Frank Leslie2 are decidedly overdone and his pictures in the main disgusting caricatures. Indeed the milkmen declare that his sallies are harmless because of their patent absurdity. One great point raised against the wholesomeness of swill milk is that the tails of the cows are said to rot off, showing the animal to be diseased, yet the same phenomena are said to attend the retention of a large number of cows in any stable, no matter what their feed. Again, the confinement of the cows is objected invariably perish from disease, yet this known to be totally unfounded in fact. Place two fresh cows side by side, and while one will take sick and die the other will become a fit subject for the butcher's knife, although we would prefer not each such beef. The truth is, that while swill milk is not a desirable commodity and should not admitted into any family while the pure grass fed article can be obtained, yet, as has been remarked of the Adversary it is not half so bad as it has been painted, and will not, we prophesy, be put down. Frank Leslie is simply trying to sell his paper and has probably succeeded.

Notes:

1. "Swill Milk" refers to milk produced under unsanitary conditions, often relying on waste products for cow feed and toxic additives to disguise discolorations and odors. Papers at the time estimated that thousands of children died from swill milk in New York City alone. Whitman appears to allude to this cavalier attitude on food safety in his 1852 novella Jack Engle, in which he describes the benevolent milkman Ephraim as having "a wise way of never getting excited, nor overworking [himself], nor crying over spilt milk#8212;or as Ephraim professionally used to say, sour milk." For context on Whitman’s contemporary theorizing of "robust health," see his "Manly Health and Training." [back]

2.  [back]

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