From its first operations in 1822 through much of the 20th century, New York’s Fulton Fish Market was a vital distribution point for seafood in the United States. Jonathan Rees will discuss the history of the market through multiple lenses, including technology, the environment, and the transformation of the urban landscape. Those technological changes involved changing modes of communication, how records were kept and deals made, and how slowness to adopt modern refrigeration technology ultimately caused the market to lose its primacy. The relationship between the fish market and the environment involves pollution, the scourge of overfishing and the interaction between fishmongers and consumers over which fish got eaten in the first place.
Jonathan Rees is the author of The Fulton Fish Market: A History. A professor of history at Colorado State University – Pueblo, his previous books include Refrigeration Nation: A History of Ice, Appliances, and Enterprise in America (2013) and Before the Refrigerator: How We Used to Get Ice, (2018)