Horses in Society: A Story of Animal Breeding and Market Culture, 1800–1920 (review)

Any chain bookstore carries a plethora of horse books in the Animals section, but a person searching for equine history in the History section will generally come up empty-handed. Few historians have seen horses as a serious topic. Margaret Derry’s book redresses this situation, tackles the misconception and mythologizing that often surround horse breeding, and shows that horses provide insight into larger issues of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

As technological changes created a rising demand for horses, new breeding theories and strategies aimed to create the horses needed in an industrializing world. A ‘scientific/cultural/animal breeding’ (24) culture emerged where breeding traditions mingled with the new science of genetics and with market demand. Derry skilfully explicates the complex relationship between horse breeding, science, and the political economies of North America and Europe, focusing on three areas: the development of heavy horses, the international horse market and its relationship to military remount, and governmental attempts to regulate breeding and produce better horses.

The development of the heavy horse, in response to urban industrial demand, illustrates the interaction of horse breeding, market demand, and scientific knowledge. The notion of breed shaped and was shaped by international markets. An American emphasis on purebred heavy horses affected the structure and practice of horse breeding in Britain, Canada, and Europe. The problem of army ‘remounts’ in the Crimean War, Boer War, and First World War reveals the workings of the international market. After losses and shortages during the Boer War, the British government paid attention to assuring there was adequate quantity and quality. The United States and Canada became sources for remounts needed by British and European armies.

As governments attempted to embody ideas about what constituted a ‘good horse’ or a ‘sound horse’ into law, or to register and regulate stallions, it became clear not only the extent to which genetic science was accepted or could explain horse breeding, but the ambiguities around trying to define and diagnose soundness in horses, establish specifications, and relate pedigree to quality.

In addition to breeding, markets, military demand, and government legislation, Derry examines other aspects of horse culture: stallion ownership and legislation, the development of veterinary medicine and a humanitarian movement, and changes in appreciation for working horses reflected in literature and art. She brings the story of modern horse breeding up to the twenty-first century to show its origins in nineteenth-century practices and markets, and to underscore her larger point, that ‘between 1850 and 1920, horses influenced and were influenced by the whole fabric of the industrial world’ (247).

This is an account of producers, rather than users. Derry focuses on the discourse of breeding found in government documents and periodicals. This often consisted of people exhorting and haranguing farmers to change their practices and products, but to what extent it reflected actual practices and production is unclear. I also wish that Derry had addressed the problem of market elasticity. Including a gestation period of eleven months, it takes three to five years to produce a market-ready horse. Supply is always somewhat inelastic, but demand during warfare can increase abruptly. International trade enabled greater elasticity of supply by increasing the availability of horses from more markets; however, peacetime changes in demand for particular kinds of horses could create the same imbalance.

I wish that Derry’s reading of her sources reflected more attention to social and cultural context, especially regarding her use of periodicals and paintings. Though she shows the relationship between horse use, horse breeds, and technological change, she takes a deterministic view of technological change that I feel uncomfortable with. These are minor quibbles. Researching equine history is difficult because of the absence of some kinds of sources and the nature of other kinds. Derry has done an excellent job defining and telling this story. This is an extremely valuable book that brings the history of science to...