The Horse in the City. Living Machines in the Nineteenth Century

Professor Clay McShane in collaboration with Joel A. Tarr has recently published The Horse in the City. Living Machines in the Nineteenth Century (John Hopkins Univ. Press, 2007). Professors McShane and Tarr explore the critical role that the horse played in the growing nineteenth-century metropolis. Using such diverse sources as veterinary manuals, stable periodicals, teamster magazines, city newspapers, and agricultural yearbooks, they examine how the horses were housed and fed and how workers bred, trained, marketed, and employed their four-legged assets. Not omitting the problems of waste removal and corpse disposal, they touch on the municipal challenges of maintaining a safe and productive living environment for both horses and people and the rise of organizations like the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.