Animal Labor

Animal Labor

• animals have been vital to human economies across time

• they provided transport, power, and production

• labor shaped human-animal relationships

Draft animals

oxen(plow culture), horses, mules

• turn soil, plant staple cereal grains, and sustain settled civilization

Transport animals

camels, donkeys, elephants

Industrial labor

pit ponies, urban delivery horses

Camels

• caravan culture and trade routes

  • a major long-distance trade system connecting West Africa to the Mediterranean world across the Sahara Desert

• empires and warfare

• colonialism

• African deserts

  • essential because they could travel long distances without water and carry heavy loads

• imperial corps

Pit ponies

• human to pony labor in mines

• a grueling, specialized life working underground in coal mines from the mid-18th century until the late 20th century

• 70,000

• welfare and reform movements

• used underground to haul heavy carts of coal during the Industrial Revolution and the 19th and 20th centuries

• The harsh underground conditions (such as darkness, dampness, and poor air) eventually triggered early animal welfare campaigns and legislative reforms

Raw materials

• animals seen as material

• engines of capital accumulation

• created patterns of trade and labor that directly supported the industrial revolution

Buffalo

• industrial demand for hides

• government and military policy

• consequences for industry and empire

• human and environmental cost

• ex. Dodge City Buffalo Trade

• shifted the North American frontier economy from beaver pelts to bison

Beaver

• industrial demand for hides

• government and military policy

• consequences for industry and empire

• human and environmental cost

• ex. Hudson Bay Trading Company

• ur possessed unique microscopic barbs that interlocked to create a durable, waterproof, and easily shaped felt. This made it the premier material for luxury high-crowned hats worn by Europe's elite

• largely hunted to near-extinction by the 15th and 16th centuries

Mercury caveat

“Mad as a hatter”

• Hatters used mercuric nitrate to treat animal fur

• Chronic inhalation of mercury fumes in poorly ventilated workshops caused mercurial erethism (or "mad hatter's disease"). Symptoms included tremors ("hatter's shakes"), slurred speech, shyness, irritability, and hallucinations—which society interpreted as insanity, even though it was neurotoxicity

Buffalo extermination campaign

• the near-total destruction of the North American bison population between the 1830s and the 1890s

• Massive demand for buffalo leather robes, industrial belts, and meat drew commercial hide hunters into the West in staggering numbers