Horses at Work: Harnessing Power in Industrial America

by Ann Norton Greene

Overview

Historians have long assumed that new industrial machines and power sources eliminated work animals from nineteenth-century America, yet a bird’s-eye view of nineteenth-century society would show millions of horses supplying the energy necessary for industrial development. Horses were ubiquitous in cities and on farms, providing power for transportation, construction, manufacturing, and agriculture. On Civil War battlefields, thousands of horses labored and died for the Union and the Confederacy hauling wagons and mechanized weaponry.

The innovations that brought machinery to the forefront of American society made horses the prime movers of these machines for most of the nineteenth century. Mechanization actually increased the need for horsepower by expanding the range of tasks requiring it. Indeed, the single most significant energy transition of the antebellum era may have been the dramatic expansion in the use of living, breathing horses as a power technology in the development of industrial America.

Ann Greene argues for recognition of horses’ critical contribution to the history of American energy and the rise of American industrial power, and a new understanding of the reasons for their replacement as prime movers. Rather than a result of “inevitable” technological change, it was Americans’ social and political choices about power consumption that sealed this animal’s fate. The rise and fall of the workhorse was defined by the kinds of choices that Americans made and would continue to make—choices that emphasized individual mobility and autonomy, and assumed, above all, abundant energy resources.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674031296
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	11/30/2008
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	8.52(w) x 5.82(h) x 0.93(d)

About the Author

Ann Norton Greene is a Lecturer and Administrator in the Department of History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

• List of Illustrations
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1. Why Horses
• 2. A Landscape for Horses
• 3. Remaking Horses
• 4. Civil War Horses
• 5. Horses as Industrial Workers
• 6. Studying Horses
• 7. From Horse Powered to Horseless
• Epilogue
• Appendix: Horse Population and Power
• Notes
• Index

What People are Saying About This

Horses At Work is an important contribution to the histories of both urban and rural America. Greene's deep understanding of the animals themselves adds a crucial dimension to the fascinating story she tells.

Katherine C. Grier

Horses At Work is an important contribution to the histories of both urban and rural America. Greene's deep understanding of the animals themselves adds a crucial dimension to the fascinating story she tells.

— Katherine C. Grier, University of Delaware

Susan D. Jones

A lively parade of horses and the people who worked with them fills this rich portrait of living things functioning as machines. By focusing on horsepower and horse culture as energy technologies, Greene tells a fresh and fascinating story.
— Susan D. Jones, University of Minnesota

Joel A. Tarr

An exceptional book that helps us understand the full dimensions of the working horse's contributions to American society.
— Joel A. Tarr, co-author, The Horse in the City: Living Machines in the 19th Century

Editorial Reviews

A lively parade of horses and the people who worked with them fills this rich portrait of living things functioning as machines. By focusing on horsepower and horse culture as energy technologies, Greene tells a fresh and fascinating story.

Susan D. Jones

Horses At Work is an important contribution to the histories of both urban and rural America. Greene's deep understanding of the animals themselves adds a crucial dimension to the fascinating story she tells.

Katherine C. Grier

Greene explains the paradoxical thriving of the 19th-century horse with a pleasing balance of narrative analysis and colorful detail.

Caleb Crain

An exceptional book that helps us understand the full dimensions of the working horse's contributions to American society.

Joel A. Tarr

Greene explains the paradoxical thriving of the 19th-century horse with a pleasing balance of narrative analysis and colorful detail.
— Caleb Crain

New York Times Book Review