Thirsty horses and trolley cars

Photo of a downtown fountain for thirsty horses via Boston Public Library’s Flickr stream.

Would take one of these for people right about now.

The ASPCA, founded in 1866 spread to many American cities, and lobbied on behalf of draft horses.This scene was already on the wane in the 1920s. Horses were superseded by electric trolley lines through expanding cities (What’s that off in the background? A stretch of elevated railway). This mode of transport first proved commercially viable…in Boston. From “The decline of the urban horse in American cities“:

Henry Whitney, a Boston land speculator, and Charles Francis Adams, Jr (scion of the famous Adams family) built a trolley line to connect their suburban landholdings in Brookline with downtown Boston. Reports on the windfall profits that Whitney made on his property led to the rapid adoption of electric trolleys in other cities. The 1890 census estimated that trolley operation cost only $38,000 per mile, compared with $50,000 for horse cars.

As or more importantly, the automobile also made headway in cities after 1900. More from the same academic publication:

Between 1742, when horses were taxed for the first time, and 1841 there were roughly forty humans for each horse. By 1880 the ratio had dropped to twenty-five, although it was back up to forty in 1900 after the electrification of street railways…by 1920 Boston had fewer horses than in 1820.

Interestingly, Atlantic Ave, where this fountain for parched draft animals is set up has seen a lot of clearance and reconstruction. The streetscape looks nothing like this today. This 1922 photo is another by Leslie Jones, Herald-Traveler staff photographer.