Risk: Negotiating Safety in American Society

Chapter 4. Animal Risk for a Modern Age

4 Animal Risk for a Modern Age Animals think for themselves. Like us, they have their own individual emotions, drives,andinterpretationsoftheworld.Domesticationcapturedthisqualityfor humanuse.1 Inchoosingtoliveandworksidebysidewithanimals,humanbeings notonlyturnedanimalsintotechnologybutalsocreatedanimportantsourceof risk in everyday life.2 Although the seeming unpredictability of fire sometimes prompted early Americans to talk as if it were a living entity, most understood the fundamental differences between animate and inanimate risk. Animals are aware of and, if properly trained, cooperative with humans. But animals can also make choices that confound human expectations. Sometimes those choices benefit humans. Unlike a machine, an animal might choose to save a human life atitsownperil.Itmightalsopanic,lashingoutinanunexpectedefforttodefend itself, resulting in disaster for all involved. Frequent encounters with domesticated animals were the norm in early America.Peopleacceptedthatacertainamountofrisknecessarilyresultedfrom using animals for food and work. This acceptance began to wane in the middle decades of the nineteenth century. New laws banned garbage-eating pigs from city streets and prohibited drovers from moving their flocks on public roads. Cheaper forms of fencing made it economical to confine grazing animals. Railroads made it dangerous not to do so.3 Gradually, most kinds of animals were segregated from people who were not their owners or handlers and banished from public spaces. Horsesprovedthenotableexception.Thenumberofdraftandridinganimals 70 r i s k s f r o m n a t u r e on America’s roads and especially in cities increased until the century’s end.4 The results were predictable: crashes, collisions, small children and grown men kicked and run over.5 Because these animals played a key role in linking together a developing transportation system, restricting their movements to control risk was untenable. Instead, decision making was largely left up to the individual. While a few laws, some dating back to colonial times, restricted street racing and other dangerous practices, to a remarkable degree people could do whatever they liked—drive down the middle of the street, hand the reins to a child— without formal qualification or oversight.6 The ways Americans dealt with the dangers of horses demonstrate how vernacular practices around one particular kind of risk evolved in the context of industrialization and urbanization. At the center of this process stood a body of knowledge and skill about how to interpret and direct the behavior of another species. True to the innovative and entrepreneurial spirit of the nineteenth century , inventors and professional horse trainers touted a wide array of devices and techniques, which they promised would make training and using horses significantly easier and safer. In reality, very little of what they had to offer wastrulynew.Allofthebasictechniquesforbalancingtheutilityanddangerousness of horses, such as breeding, restraint, and training, predated industrialization .IfthespreadofEnlightenmentandscientificideashadaneffectatall,itwas in propagating a philosophy of kindness toward animals, which made it safer to be a horse and perhaps indirectly helped humans by lessening the population of abused horses that might behave in dangerous ways.7 Instead, changes in the way Americans managed horse-related risk grew out of the values and divisions of a capitalist society. The collective societal decision to allow virtually unrestrained use of horses in public spaces prioritized speed and convenience over safety and health. An enormous market for horserelated labor encouraged specialization of knowledge. Willingness to accept risk also became commodified. Working-class men filled the ranks of people who took on the dangerous job of training young horses. They were paid for their willingness to assume risk and, less importantly, for their skill. Tradesmen and members of the middle class aspired to be knowledgeable consumers and users of already-broke horses. They turned to the mechanisms of the law and the market to limit their physical and financial risk. In a society that admired skillful handling of potentially dangerous horses, wealthy (and not so wealthy) hobbyists gained social status while having fun driving fast horses on city streets. a n i m a l r i s k f o r a m o d e r n a g e 71 The Characteristics of Horse-Related Risk In a horse-dependent society, even non-riders and drivers had strong awareness of the risks and rewards of using these animals. Part of that knowledge came from sharing public and private spaces with animals that could weigh half a ton or more. Many people had struggled to control a horse or observed someone elsedoingso.Theyknewthedamagethatcouldbecausedbya“runaway”thatdecidedtotakeo ffdownacrowdedstreetwithawagonwhippingaroundbehindit.8 Humankind’slongassociationwithhorseshasmadeussomewhatimmuneto how remarkable it is...