The Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894

Best To Not Be Eating Lunch While Reading This (Day 62)

Sometimes, I run across a note or phrase or reference to something that just makes me sit up and go, “What’s that now?”

Case in point - a mention by a horse-loving friend on social media of the Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894.

So, I had to look it up. I hope you’re not having lunch, as here’s an amalgamation of what I found based on some articles and other sources, primarily (supposedly) a 1894 newspaper article from the Time of London that predicted in 50 years, “every street in London will be buried under nine feet of manure.”

New York, which at the time was estimated to be the home of 150,000 horses, was targeted as well. The 15 to 30 pounds of manure produced daily by each horse multiplied by the number of horses in New York city resulted in more than three million pounds of horse manure per day that somehow needed to be disposed of. That’s not to mention the daily 40,000 gallons of horse urine.

A new money making gig popped up. Urban streets were manure minefields so crossing sweepers stood on street corners and for a fee they’d clear a path for pedestrians. Wet weather turned the streets into manure rivers, but dry weather turned the manure into dust, which was then whipped up by the wind, choking pedestrians and coating buildings.

Early in the century, farmers were thrilled to pay good money for the manure but by the end of the 1800s stable owners had to pay to have it carted off. As a result of this glut, vacant lots in cities across America were used to pile manure. Supposedly, New York had 40 to 60 foot mountains of the stuff.

And of course, excess manure led to disease, in particular, outbreaks of typhoid and “infant diarrhea, diseases can be traced to spikes in the fly population.

Finally, one article compares fatalities associated with horse-related accidents in 1916 Chicago versus automobile accidents in 1997, and concludes that people were killed nearly seven times more often back then thanks to the skittishness of horses adding a dangerous level of unpredictability to nineteenth-century transportation.

And how, ultimately, was the Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894 resolved? Well, it wasn’t. Urban planners worked for years to come up with an effective cleaning method, but basically cities just lived with the filth until motorized vehicles, electric trams and buses solved the problem on its own. (One could argue that this created another problem that we’re still dealing with today.)

What I also didn’t realize is that the Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894 is, even to this day, used as an analogy for how new technologies can solved problems that appear unsolvable. The flip side of that being that it also gives people who don’t want to address a problem a crutch to just assume that some new IT is going to come along and fix things.

Here’s a fun final twist - the whole Manure Crisis could have been manufactured by - you guessed it - early car companies to sell more cars! Here’s a link to a fun article from Reader’s Digest that attempts to debunk the whole thing: Crisis or Conspiracy

Isn’t history fun!

CITATIONS: First, a shout out to my friend Teri Heatherington who shared a post from McGee Equine & Livestock Farrier Service, Rescue, and Rehabilitation that started me down this rabbit hole, or is it manure hole?

Here’s a couple more interesting articles you can link to should you have an interest in horse manure: Historic UK, Utrecht University

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Housekeeping: Ok, day two of 2024. How’s it going for you? We’ll be back tomorrow with a list of the books you all recommended and which one’s I decided to tackle this year. Thank you all so much for your suggestions!

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As always, thanks for being here. On we go!