From Horse Power to Horsepower

In the 19th century, transportation was a problem. Horse pollution was like the modern pollution we face with cars. Yet everyone relied on equines for their basic needs and for transportation. Living standards skyrocketed from 1800 to 1900. US per capita GDP rose from $1,100 to $4,600 (in 2000 dollars). This meant greater trade, and virtually all goods were, at some point in their journey, transported by horse. In ten major US cities, the number of teamsters rose by a whopping 328 percent between 1870 and 1900, while the human population as a whole rose only 105 percent. So everyone relied on horses, but the pollution was becoming unbearable.

One aspect of horse pollution that contributed to the growing need for a new system was manure. Experts from that time estimated that each horse produced between fifteen and thirty pounds of manure per day. New York and Brooklyn had a combined horse population of between 150,000 and 175,000 horses in 1880. Between three and four million pounds of manure were deposited on city streets and in city stables every day. Each horse also produced about a quart of urine daily, which added up to around 40,000 gallons per day for New York and Brooklyn. Vacant lots across the US were piled high with manure. In New York these sometimes rose to forty and even sixty feet.

Flies were another problem that came with horses. Manure is a favorite breeding ground for flies. It is estimated that three billion flies hatched in horse manure per day in US cities in the year 1900. Flies spread disease and filth. Studies have shown that outbreaks of deadly infectious diseases like typhoid and infant diarrheal diseases in the nineteenth century can be attributed to growth in the fly population.

Horses also are prey animals. Busy city streets provided many opportunities for horses to spook and scare at things. Stampedes and scared horses killed a substantial amount of people. Horse-drawn vehicles were far more fatal than their modern counterparts. In New York in 1900, 200 people were killed by horse-drawn vehicles and horses. This contrasts with 344 automobile deaths in New York in 2003. The fatality rate per capita in the horse era was roughly 75 percent higher than today. Data from Chicago shows that in 1916 there were 16 horse-related fatalities for each 10,000 horse-drawn vehicles; this is nearly seven times the city’s fatality rate per car in 1997.

So horses posed a big problem for the cities of that time. The invention or the automobile could have been said to save the people from the horrible pollution that was crowding the streets of cities. The car was actually not something that caught on very quickly. Like the electric car of today, people thought that horseless carriages were fad, and would pass with time. People would say “get a horse!’ and cartoons depicting people jumping out or the way of horseless carriages started appearing. Maybe we just need another solution like the car to help us overcome our modern day global warming and car smog problems. Our growing world needs growing ideas, so maybe the world’s next big solution could be right around the corner.

Sources:

"From Horses to Horsepower: A Rocky Transition." MNN. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Jan. 2016.

"Introduction: The Ostrich And The Eagle." America at the Dawn of a Global Age Promise and Peril (n.d.): 1-21. Web.

Morris, By Eric. "From Horse Power to Horsepower." From Horse Power to Horsepower (n.d.): n. pag. Web.

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