Favorite Archival Object: "Cutlet Curfew"

1965 Seattleites chopped up the "Cutlet Curfew"

3/25/20242:17

The "Favorite Archival Object" series is a monthly installment featuring archivists from Seattle Municipal Archives highlighting some of our favorite items from the collections. In this installment, Seattle Municipal Archives' Processing Archivist Julie Kerssen details the "Cutlet Curfew", an old law that prohibited the sale of red meat after 6:00pm in Seattle stores until 1965.

SMA MATERIAL CITATIONS
– Comptroller File 252480 (Petition of Seattle Junior Chamber of Commerce for amendment of meat ordinance to permit sales of meat after 6 p.m. without a licensed meat cutter being on duty.), 1965
– Comptroller File 249680 (Petition of KIRO-Radio for sale of fresh meat after 6:00 p.m.), 1963-1964
– Comptroller File 252611 (Petition of Mayor for favorable action on the Seattle Junior Chamber of Commerce petition regarding sale of meat after 6 p.m.), 1965
– Comptroller File 252953 (Petition of Wm. McKinley, Special Committee, submitting proposed amendment to the Seattle Meat Ordinance to allow the sale of fresh meat between 6 and 9 p.m.), 1965
– Ordinance 93816 (AN ORDINANCE relating to the sale of prepackaged meats for human consumption between 6 p. m. and 9 p. m. and amending Section 16-1 of Ordinance 61098.), 1965
– Linda Manewall Slides [meat vendor], March 1978, Item 37953, Record Series 1628-02: Pike Place Market Visual Images and Audiotapes
– A meat department at an Albertson supermarket, along with employee [CF 226341 Approval of property owners versus rezoning at E. 65th and 25th N.E.], February 21, 1955, Item 168285, Record Series 1802-0P: Comptroller/Clerk File photographs
– Sales counter and live poultry in same room. [CF 194834 Poultry, Fish, & Rabbit Establishments Inspections], 1947, Item 77030, Record Series 1802-0P: Comptroller/Clerk File photographs
– Rabbits; killing and preparation. Small poorly arranged, all operations carried on in same room. Equipment wooden, rough and unclean. Rat infested. [CF 194834 Poultry, Fish, & Rabbit Establishments Inspections], 1947, Item 77045, Record Series 1802-0P: Comptroller/Clerk File photographs
– Postcards in support of amending Meat Ordinance, 1963, Record Series 9901-01: Postcard Collection
– Petition Regarding Ease of Meat Purchases after Six PM, 1956, Box 3/Folder 9, Record Series 1802-B8: Initiatives, 1906-1994

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
– Price Vowell Filmmakers. Meat Buying: A Time of Decision. 1968. Fredrick Stare Papers. Fredrick J Stare Papers - H MS c499; Harvard Countway Library of Medicine, Center for the History of Medicine. https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/docs/xhbd0233
– Stock vector rabbit cuts diagram in the style of handmade graphics, ID 112019312 © Fedor Novykh | Dreamstime.com
– Stock vector fish cuts diagram in the style of handmade graphics, ID 112019234 © Fedor Novykh | Dreamstime.com
– Stock vector chicken cuts diagram in the style of handmade graph, ID 111409480 © Fedor Novykh | Dreamstime.com

All of the videos from the "Favorite Archival Object" series feature the following:
– Footage in introduction titles: Seattle Channel, Item cs_112119_3071924V
– Music: "The Plan's Working" by Cooper Cannellis from YouTube's Audio Library (Creative Commons)

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