On February 4, 1919, physicians and public-health officials documented what is widely regarded as the first confirmed foodborne botulism outbreak in the United States associated with home-canned meat. The outbreak occurred amid widespread home food preservation during and after World War I, when families commonly canned vegetables, fruits, and meats for winter use. Several members of a household who ate home-canned pork developed progressive cranial nerve palsies, descending paralysis, and severe gastrointestinal symptoms, clinical signs consistent with botulism. At the time, the bacterium Clostridium botulinum and its potent neurotoxin were not fully understood by the general public, though bacteriologists had identified similar toxin-mediated paralytic illnesses in previous decades. The 1919 cluster drew attention because clinicians recognized a common dietary exposure and reported the cases to public-health authorities. Laboratory methods for isolating toxins were rudimentary compared with today, but clinicians relied on clinical presentation, epidemiologic linkage among cases, and exclusion of other diagnoses to conclude a foodborne source. Public-health responses focused on educating the public about safe canning practices and discouraging consumption of improperly preserved foods. The outbreak contributed to growing awareness among physicians and health departments that improperly processed home-canned meats and low-acid foods could create anaerobic environments favorable to C. botulinum growth and toxin production. Over subsequent decades, advances in bacteriology, toxin assays, and food-safety regulation—along with the development of commercial canning standards and home-canning guidelines—reduced the incidence of such outbreaks. Historians and public-health researchers note that documentation from 1919 lacks the laboratory confirmation standards used today (for example, isolation of C. botulinum or detection of botulinum toxin in food or patient serum). Therefore, descriptions of the event rely on contemporaneous clinical reports, local public-health records, and retrospective analysis. While the 1919 outbreak is commonly cited in historical summaries as the first confirmed U.S. foodborne botulism incident, some earlier, smaller clusters or isolated cases with suggestive symptoms have been reported in scholarly literature; those accounts are often less well documented and do not always meet later diagnostic criteria. The 1919 event had practical consequences: it helped prompt distribution of safer home-canning instructions, advisories against canning certain low-acid foods without proper pressure-canning techniques, and increased vigilance by public-health officials investigating foodborne illness. These lessons informed later public-health campaigns and the development of regulatory frameworks for commercial canning and food inspection. In short, the February 1919 outbreak stands as an important early episode in the recognition of foodborne botulism in the United States. It illustrates how clinical observation and epidemiologic linkage prompted public-health action long before modern laboratory confirmation methods were available, and it contributed to evolving practices that have since reduced the risk of botulism from preserved foods.