Join us for a special History Café hosted on the historic Virginia V steamship. The Virginia V is docked directly behind MOHAI at Lake Union Park.

Animals of all sorts, especially domestic ones, have had a surprisingly important role in the making and remaking of Seattle and other major cities. Animals were property, symbols, and friends.

Cows were among the most important—providing milk, labor, meat, and companionship, and standing as symbols of progress or backwardness. They were never far from people’s minds as they struggled over the land that is now Seattle, regulated urban spaces, defined neighborhoods, strove for a better life, and debated what it meant to be city-dwellers.

Join historian Frederick L. Brown as he explores the hidden history of Seattle’s animal past, and how it may help us think about our animal present.

Frederick L. Brown is a Seattle-based historian, book indexer, and author of The City is More Than Human: An Animal History of Seattle(University of Washington Press, 2016). He received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Washington in 2010.

Location: Virginia V Steamship, Lake Union Park

Cost: Free