Horses at WorkHorses at Work

New industrial machines and power sources, far from eliminating work animals from nineteenth-century America, required millions of horses to supply the energy necessary for industrial development. Horses were ubiquitous in cities and on farms, providing power for transportation, construction, manufacturing, and agriculture. Mechanization actually increased the need for horsepower by expanding the range of tasks requiring it. 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.--From publisher description.