Quarter of America's Horse Population Died in 1872

We Americans are all a bit concerned about our dependence on foreign oil. In most cities, we are dependent on this commodity for living, working, or just getting around.

But think we have it bad? For Americans in the Victorian age, life was already hard--with the unjust labor laws, lack of bathrooms, and incurable diseases. To make matters worse, a disease in 1872 killed nearly a quarter of the country's horses.

I have been reading Thomas J. Schlereth's "Victorian America," which gives details:

The great epizootics of the nineteenth century emphasize how vital horses and mules were to everyday life. The animal counterparts to epidemics that afflict people, the epizootic of the 1872 claimed almost a quarter of the nation's horses (over 4 million) and brought the country to a virtual standstill for three months before the winter killed the mosquitoes that transmitted its virus. By that time the financial losses suffered helped bring on the Panic of 1873. In many cities, teams of men pulled carts and wagons as homes went without fuel deliveries, fires blazed unfought, and garbage remained uncollected.

There were 246 million cars in the United States at the end of 2009, and this was after "Cash for Clunkers," mind you. I try to imagine what this country would be like if 61.5 million of them had died.

Victorians couldn't breed new horses on the assembly line, however. I'm no economist, but I imagine it would be hard for the average American family, many of whom depend on more than one car for day-to-day happenings. It would truly bail out the American car companies.

In 100 years, it will be interesting to see what we do with all these relics of gas-powered automobiles, assuming a more popular energy source will have been implemented back then. Hundreds of millions of automobiles are not easy to clean up.