Horse Power

So for all you horse lovers out there looking for equine related books, be sure to check out my advisor's new book, reviewed this past Sunday in the New York Times Book Review. Horses at Work by Ann Norton Greene, refutes the notion that the steam engine brought the era of the literal work horse to an end. In fact, according to Greene, the country's dependence on the horse grew simultaneously with its dependence on steam.

What prompted this revelation, according to Greene, was the Great Epizootic, an event that occurred in the Fall of 1872. Almost all of the horses in the country came down with the flu and cities came to a standstill. As Greene writes of Philadelphia: "Streetcar companies suspended service; undelivered freight accumulated at wharves and railroad depots; consumers lacked milk, ice, and groceries; saloons lacked beer; work halted at construction sites, brickyards and factories; and city governments curtailed fire protection and garbage collection." In short, without horse power, "modern" life came to a screeching halt.

Greene's argument runs counter to our perception that the usefulness of the horse died with the birth of the steam engine, but as she points out, between 1840 and 1910, even as America was becoming industrialized and burning more fossil fuels, the horse and mule population grew twice as fast as the human population. In addition, as she notes, "the states with the most railroad miles also had the greatest increases in the horse population."

Why? Often to pull those trains the last length of the journey since trains were not welcome in cities proper in case they threw off sparks. In addition, trains went as far as the depot and that was it. If you needed to change trains or go into the country, a horse and wagon was your only option. Horses also pulled streetcars as well as plows on farms. The also propelled the earliest threshing machines and pulled the wagon that delivered milk to your door.

In short, the birth of the steam engine simply gave the horse another job until the loads that he was asked to bear simply became too large. By 1888, horses were no longer pulling streetcars and were on their way to becoming obsolete. It was not the steam engine that made them so; it was ultimately the automobile that promised cheaper, quieter and more efficient mode of transportation.

The irony of course is that we see where that has left us. In fact I saw a bumper sticker the other day that read: Stop pollution. Get a horse.

The more things change....