Name: Tami Parr w/ Fred Brown, GOATS IN AMERICA
Start: 2025-11-07T19:00:00-08:00
End: 2025-11-07T20:00:00-08:00
Location: The Elliott Bay Book Company

$Tami Parr w\/ Fred Brown, GOATS IN AMERICA$

Parr calls attention to these disregarded animals, uncovering the remarkable stories behind everything from goat milk to goat yoga and more
About this Event

Editor and writer Tami Parr visits the store to discuss her book Goats in America: A Cultural History. She is joined by Fred Brown, author of The City if More Than Human: An Animal History of Seattle.

The humble goat has played a surprising and important role throughout the history of the United States. Despite this, goats are often overlooked by many Americans, even if they have strong opinions about these complex creatures. Parr calls attention to these disregarded animals, uncovering the remarkable stories behind everything from goat meat and milk to goat yoga and more.

Since arriving in North America with cattle and other domesticated livestock in the sixteenth century, goats have provided people sustenance and valuable products, including milk, meat, and mohair. But humans did not appreciate the animals, and as a result, throughout much of American history goats were persecuted as public nuisances and symbols of degenerate behavior. Nevertheless, over the centuries the tenacious goat has overcome many of these stereotypes and secured a spot in the hearts and minds of modern Americans, who love goat cheese and embrace goats as social media stars.

Examining key moments and notable developments in goat history and culture, Goats in America outlines the history and evolving role of goats in communities across the country, from San Francisco and New York City to rural Wisconsin and the Navajo Nation. Parr shows that the evolving reputation of goats in American society ultimately reveals more about humans than it does about goats themselves. So, the next time you are enjoying your favorite goat cheese, take a moment to consider the history and role of goats within American culture.

Tami Parr is a developmental editor and author of Artisan Cheese of the Pacific Northwest and Pacific Northwest Cheese: A History (OSU Press). Her writing has appeared in The Oregonian, Edible Portland, and Goat Journal. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

Frederick L. Brown, Ph.D., is an independent scholar and retired National Park Service historian, based in Seattle. His award-winning book, The City is More Than Human: An Animal History of Seattle (University of Washington Press, 2016), considered the role of animals as property, symbols, and friends in the evolving city. He is currently finishing up a new book entitled Birds of Home: A Multispecies History of House Sparrows, European Starlings, and Other Immigrants in North America, forthcoming from UW Press.