America’s First Energy Crisis— The Great Horse Flu of 1872

Ernie Freeberg, Distinguished Professor of Humanities and head of the UT History Department, will present “America’s First Energy Crisis— The Great Horse Flu of 1872,” Friday, October 2 via Zoom.

In the fall of 1872 an epidemic spread through the horse and mule population of North America, debilitating these animals from Toronto to Nicaragua. The year-long plague stopped the economy in its tracks, revealing how essential horse power was to American life in the late 19th century. The epidemic appeared just when new sources of mechanical and electrical power were being developed, producing a change in the human relationship to animals in the 20th century that some scholars have called “the Great Separation."