Gallery Tour: The Pull of Horses on National and Local Histories and Identities

Welcome to this tour that we’re providing you on video of this gallery exhibit in the Main Library on the University of Iowa campus. The name of the exhibit is The Pull of Horses on National and Local Histories and Identities. I’m Kim Marra, I’m a professor of Theatre Arts and American Studies here at the University and I co-curated this exhibit with Mark Anderson, digital collections librarian in the Digital Scholarship and Publishing Studio, whom you’ll be meeting very shortly. I wanted to create this exhibit because I’m a theatre and performance historian who happens to also be a passionate horse person. I grew up with horses, I’ve loved them all my life, but they’ve always remained kind of to one side of my professional life.

So at this point in my career I was inspired to try to bring my two passions together - my 01:11 - love of performance history and my love of horses - by studying New York City circa 1900, at which time the golden age of Broadway and the golden age of the horse intersected. And in exploring that intersection and what it meant for the theatre world but also for the larger society, I was very interested in the question of, first of all, just the enormous number of horses that were in the city that historians have generally looked past because they’re not horse people - so they don’t necessarily key into it but, of course, I do. And so I kind of kept track over the years as I was working on other projects. But with this one, I really wanted to put them at the center and think about what it meant to be in the City in the theatrical capital at a time when, on a daily basis, there were 130,000 horses moving and working among about 1.8 million people. So what did it mean in terms of the embodied sensation of just moving in the city and what impact did the horses have on society, on the performance scene, and on people’s embodied experience of life at the time? I was also very interested in the whole question of how I could bring this story - bring this study - to people who, unlike myself, aren’t necessarily horse people.

How could I really express what those sensations were, 02:56 - and the impact that they had? So I started trying to write a book - that was my usual medium, the usual scholar’s medium - and I was really struggling, because I just had this experience of the horses running off the page or leaping away from what I could capture in words. So, if you will, the horses were quite literally pulling me, and they pulled me right into digital media, which I didn’t know anything about, but I’m very fortunate to have the digital scholarship and publishing studio available. Actually, right next door to where we are now. So it was that move that then inspired what you see going on behind me, which is an original documentary film, and I was drawn to this medium because I had a lot of visual material. Circa 1900 was a time of burgeoning magazines. There was a whole national industry of magazines that circulated, bringing the the trendsetting social phenomena in New York City to the nation.

So I had been collecting some 04:12 - of those periodicals. There was also a lot of early cinema reality footage that we could get out of copyright from the Library of Congress website that documented horses moving in the city. The moving picture camera being fascinated with horses because they were what moved. And then there was my own personal experience of dealing with horses, and a much smaller proportion of the population that still deals with horses today, oftentimes in ways that are very similar to what happened 150 years ago. So the digital medium of the video allowed us to bring all of that together into a single medium, and it was very important in trying to convey this sense of what it was like when when all these equine and human bodies were moving together.

05:11 - It was very important that the film play at scale, and that we could blow these these visuals up. So, hence the 9 by 16 foot screen. The video brings a great deal of the movement into into this room - into the exhibit and into the experience - but of course it’s still two-dimensional. So the other move for the exhibit was to combine the motion of the film with actual three-dimensional artifacts and objects, which led to the creation here of Big Fred, who is a scale model that Mark and I made with analog tools - the digital librarian also being very skilled with analog it turns out. And Fred is built to the scale of a tall but fairly light boned trotting horse. These are still used today by the Amish for going up and down the road because they can trot very quickly.

06:18 - Many of them, in fact, are ex-standard bred race horses, and so Fred here is 16 two hands high, and he’s wearing a harness that was made by local Amish people, and he’s pulling a vintage cart that would have been commonly used as a runabout circa 1900. The cart also made by the Amish on historical models. So it’s kind of the dynamic, then, between the two-dimensionality of the film, the three-dimensionality of the objects in the exhibit, and really trying to put visitors to the exhibit in touch with with the scale. So Fred and the other objects add that built dimensionality while the film provides the motion that was, of course, fundamental to the reality of humans and horses interacting in the City. I’m Mark Anderson. I’m a digital scholarship and collections librarian in the Digital Scholarship and Publishing Studio here at the University of Iowa Libraries.

I work with a variety of digital materials, including the 07:32 - development of the Iowa Digital Llibrary, which includes resources from the Special Collections and University Archives, as well as the Iowa Women’s Archives. And I also work on a variety of scholarly digital editions with faculty here on campus, and at the beginning of the collaboration with Kim, we had envisioned how this uh this film would be presented to the public. We had a couple of showings of the incomplete film, both in more theatre situations where the viewers could not directly interact with the screen. And so we’re very excited to have this film being shown in the exhibit in this way, which requires rear projection so that people can walk up to the screen and not be blocked by the projection. We also wanted to have surround sound so that the sound effects of the film could be more immersive.

And so we were very 08:57 - fortunate to also collaborate with Wade Hampton, a 2018 Bachelor of Arts graduate in theatre arts who did not only the surround sound effects and Foley art, but also did much of the video editing of this film. The focus of the film is on New York City at the beginning of the 20th century, and so in order to bring that to a more local audience, the exhibit includes materials about Iowa, and Iowa City in particular. So we’re going to be giving you this tour as though you were coming through the doors and starting your tour here at the at the local side. We knew from the beginning as we were putting this exhibit together that understanding the pull of horses on national and local histories and identities had to include recognition of human use of horses as vehicles of both location and dislocation. Bringing horses with them from the old country, European immigrants used equines to carve settlements out of the prairie, fight battles, and remove Native Americans.

So as we turn to human 10:18 - horse histories in Iowa City, I’d like to read the following acknowledgement of land and sovereignty by our colleague, professor Jacki Rand in the department of history and the Native American and Indigenous studies program. Quote: “The University of Iowa is located on the homelands of the Ioway, Meskwaki, Ho-Chunk, and Ponca peoples. Many others have left their footprint on this territory now called Iowa. Although the Mesquaki people are the only ones with a permanent settlement in Iowa, others who have been forced out as a result of settler pressures, agricultural interests, and United States Indian removal policies remain attached to this land culturally, politically, and socially. Through this land acknowledgement, we aim to reverse the historical erasure that has compounded disregard for Native people and Native issues, and to affirm the Tribes’ ongoing attachments to this land, whether they now reside in Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, or the Plains.” End quote.

Accounts of when and how Native Americans acquired horses 11:35 - vary, but by the 18th century, numerous tribes were already acquiring them and putting them to their own purposes - namely transportation, hunting, and fighting. Different kinds of horses and horsemanship became part of different Native American cultural identities. Johnathan L. Buffalo, historical preservation director for the Mesquaki Nation - the only federally recognized Indian tribe in Iowa - reports that his people received horses after settling in Iowa in 1735. Over the years the Meskwaki bred certain ponies to serve the tribe’s purposes. Buffalo describes this breed of ponies as being similar to Appaloosas but unique to the tribe and different from other lines of American Indian ponies.

These horses remained with the tribe during their removal to Kansas 12:34 - and came back with them to Iowa when the tribe returned. But by 1900, in an attempt to stop the tribe from roaming the state, the U.S. government shot and killed most of the herd. This 1905 photograph at the beginning here of the exhibit shows Mesquaki youths mounted on two of the remaining ponies. By World War II, notes Buffalo, the last Meskwaki ponies and horses were gone, while white European-bred horses of course continued to multiply. This wall introduces the Iowa City life section of the exhibit through the use of Sanborn Company fire insurance maps.

And although functional in nature, they are very much works of art. What we have done is include about 30 blocks of downtown Iowa City. And what’s amazing about these maps is they show just how many businesses were devoted to the requirements of horses. There are nearly 190 stables and blacksmith shops that would need to hand forge horseshoes such as this one. Additionally, this map shows the location of a fountain that was used for watering horses and taking care of their bodily needs.

14:05 - There is also pointed out the location of the firehouse of the Alert Hose Company that was the home of Snowball and Highball, Iowa City’s celebrity fire horses, which we’ll be talking more about later. This first case next to the Sanborn maps includes some of the earliest photographs of Iowa City, and especially showing the changes along Clinton Street from the mid-1800s to the late 1800s. There’s even a photograph of the county fair taking place on the Pentacrest outside of the Old Capitol before the county fair was moved just to the east of town. There’s also a photograph showing an Iowa City parade fire wagon with an African-American coachman on Clinton Street in 1893. The African-American coachman driving this ladder wagon was one of the very few people of color - less than 1% of the population - working in Iowa circa 1900.

Many worked not in agriculture, but in cities and towns of a thousand people or more. The occupational category in the non-agricultural horse industry from which most men worked their way to coachmen consisted of draymen, horsemen, teamsters, etc. Draymen were single horse carters, horsemen were grooms and hustlers or stable workers, and teamsters were drivers of two or more horses pulling wagons. The African-American coachman was a relatively conspicuous figure in this period, as several drove carriages for presidents in Washington, DC, including Albert Hawkins, who drove Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, Chester A. Arthur, and Grover Cleveland; William Willis, who drove for Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison; and Charlie Lee, who became Theodore Roosevelt’s coachman for 30 years, spanning both his years in office and retirement to New York State.

The job carried certain prestige and provided a good 16:15 - livelihood. At the same time, it made the coachman a highly visible servant of the carriage owner, whether the U.S. president, a wealthy private citizen, or the local fire company. In all cases, success in the position demanded keen knowledge of the horses and a high level of skill at the reins. This case takes us a little further into uses of horses in the local economy, and this beautiful picture up top here is depicting the Waterloo Artificial Ice Company.

16:48 - Among the services that horses had to provide were those deliveries, and of course ice was necessary for refrigeration at this time, so that was actually a fairly major delivery service. And you can see that it’s a matched pair of horses pulling that ice wagon. Ice being very heavy, people who use draft horses like to have a pair that are related because they tend to look alike and therefore are built alike and can pull more evenly and therefore work together more efficiently. Also notice that these horses are both covered with the version of fly netting that existed at the time. You could actually purchase this in one of the several harness shops in downtown Iowa City.

Those were necessary because, while horses are big strong animals, 17:44 - they’re actually also very sensitive. A horse can feel a fly landing anywhere on its body. So to keep the horses happy and working well and not expending energy trying to swat flies off, their handlers would put these fly nets on them. The other great thing about horses is that they’re herd animals and therefore can be trained to work well together drawing on their herd instincts. So they can be taught to pull well in teams which, again, is helped by them being of similar physical stature.

They will also take direction from humans because they associate humans with their heard 18:31 - leaders, and are conditioned to to follow their leader. That’s a big key to how humans got all this work out of horses for millennia. Also notice the the size of the feet of these two draft horses here, and you can see that they’ve got some pretty substantial shoes on. Part of what was keeping the blacksmiths busy at the time. Now, down below, we have a whole set of photographs that came to us care of the Iowa Women’s Archives.

This is from the family collection of Nancy Pacha, 19:08 - an Iowa City resident to whom we’re very grateful. And these are depicting some scenes of people driving horses and buggies, which were common vehicles to take to town at the time. And Nancy’s family was in the livery stable business. She has a relative who ran the largest livery stable in town, so that’s depicted here in this larger photograph as well as down here. It was the the Graham & Son Livery Stable. The livery stable was a pretty crucial phenomenon in the period. It served a number of functions. There were people who didn’t want to own horses themselves, being that that’s a fairly large responsibility, so a livery stable was a place where you could rent a horse for a certain amount of time. You could even rent a horse and carriage. As importantly, the livery stable also provided a place for horse owners to put their horses when they came to town. So if you if you lived around Iowa City and needed to drive your buggy to town, what were you going to do with your horse and carriage while you shopped or did business for several hours? It’s not like a car. You can’t just pull it into a parking space and expect it to stand there all that time, so you could take take it to the livery stable.

You could pay by the hour, or even keep your horse 20:41 - and vehicle there overnight and your horse would be taken care of and fed and watered and so on. Downtown Iowa City had about 8 livery stables in 1900. That’s how necessary they were. Again, the Graham business being the largest. And then down here in the corner is a laundry truck. This also is is from the Pacha collection, and this was the the C.O.D. Laundry. That business was located on Washington Street in in the spot where the Blue Moose Tavern is now in Iowa City, but notice that the horses have sheets over them. Horses, too, needed clothing, and also needed laundry. So horses, you know, having to stand around, whether in the hot sun or in the cold, need clothing. Horse clothing was as significant a commodity as human clothing in the period. In these two cases we are featuring some diaries from a prominent Iowa City family. Both are in the Iowa Women’s Archives.

They’re in these adjoining cases - one here and one here. These are the diaries of members of the Byington family. Those of you who know Iowa City might also be familiar with Byington Road, which runs just on the near west side of town. It comes into Grand Avenue near the the Hillcrest dorm. Well, that was the road that went into the Byington farm. The farmhouse was about three quarters of a mile from downtown. The Byingtons farmed. They also worked as attorneys in town - at least the men of the family did - and part of what’s interesting about these diaries is they give us kind of the gendered view of life with horses for a fairly well-to-do white middle to upper-class family of the time period. So the sister, Iowa Byington Reed (she married William Reed), kept her diary extensively. We have some 21 volumes of decades of Iowa Byington Reed’s chronicles of her daily life, which is a real treasure trove for all sorts of information about life in the period. But she also makes reference to the animals on the farm.

23:24 - She helped out when necessary, although her primary occupation was as a seamstress and a homemaker. But she would record what was going on with some of the animals, especially the horses, and especially the mares who were giving birth to foals every year. So, for example, an entry for Sunday, April 3rd, 1892. Iowa Byington Reed writes: “I was busy about the seamstress work all the forenoon. Then I had one of my spells with my stomach in the afternoon. The Whetstones were over and Hattie and Edith stayed and helped mother get supper. Will found Old Pat had a nice little colt when he went to the barn this morning.” And then she writes on Tuesday, September 13th that same year: “I hurried through with part of the work this forenoon” - by work she means her sewing - “and walked to town, then paid for a ride to the fairground and back to enter mother’s bread. Will went up in the country this morning for another colt to break. After dinner mother and I went out to Woolfs and did not find them at home. We stopped at Folsoms on our way back. Will was out to the fairground awhile. I read in the evening.

” So they’re getting around to all these places visiting with their various 24:52 - horse-drawn vehicles. Now Robert Byington’s diary here is much shorter. He only kept a diary in the last year of his life. Sadly, he died at age 30 from an illness. But up until he became fatally ill, in that year he kept a close chronicle of his daily doings, both working at the office and working on the farm. So he writes on Friday, June 22nd, 1883: “Today is the seventh anniversary of my graduation from the academic department of the University. I did the milking this morning and spent the forenoon in the garden cleaning up our early potatoes.

Auntie Walker and Sally Hart 25:40 - were here to visit, and then Otto and I rode over to town in the phaeton” - that’s the fancy family carriage - “after dinner, driving John D.” That’s one of the horses he bred on the farm. “I did some running around. I spent the balance of the afternoon in the office conversing with Mr. Price, Alice Holson, and Almia Nelson, and then we took tea. I then did some measuring in the yard. I then saddled my horse, Jim, for the first time and rode him over to town to have the horse doctor see him.” So you can see from these entries how intricately the horses are interwoven into the lives of these people and into their respectively gendered activities.

26:32 - In keeping with our approach to the exhibit of combining digital with actual material objects, and interspersing those throughout to keep those material dimensions present, we have here in this case displayed along with the diaries some antique bits that would have been used on the driving horses. So when Rob Byington went and harnessed up his horse to drive to town, he would have used bits similar to those that you see there in the case. And next to the bits we have a leather nose band that was part of a horse bridle. And one of the wonderful aspects of leather is that it becomes more beautiful with age as it absorbs skin oils and sweat from the interaction of human and equine bodies. So this is an older noseband, and definitely carries those traces of human and horse interactions.

Now 27:38 - these Byingtons would have grown up with horses, obviously, so, you know, it was kind of a natural extension of what they were used to to breed them and train them from youngsters to mature horses. And you can see here in this photograph that we’ve put in in an oval frame a young boy of the period already practicing some of the horsemanship skills that were necessary to maintain horses with a toy horse there in in the background of the photograph. And just below it is a picture of a gentleman driving a buggy with a team of two horses, and he was a local salesman who went around to Iowa City and other towns selling a medicine for horse galls. Those were sores that horses could get when a harness rubbed on them, so remedy remedies that purported to be good cures for those sores were much in demand, and this gentleman could make his livelihood mixing up this gall medicine and driving around and selling it to local people like the Byingtons and others. This final case in the Iowa City life section is devoted to Snowball and Highball.

who were 29:06 - Iowa City’s fire horses for nearly 15 years. They were housed at the Alert Hose Company Number 2, which is identified on the maps as being the current location of Oasis Falafel. Snowball and Highball were very much documented during their time working for the hose company and so we’re fortunate to have a number of photographs from the State Historical Society of Iowa of Snowball and Highball in action running to the scene of a fire, standing still while a fire is actually being put out what we think is over on Rochester Avenue, and also out at the fairgrounds. From Special Collections we have a writing that was a part of a WPA project during the Great Depression documenting the lives of Snowball and Highball. Snowball and Highball retired from service in 1925 and and sadly after one died the other died soon after, but we’re very fortunate to be able to show these two beautifully matched white horses who did so much work for the city of Iowa City.

This bit of folklore was written by Mae Christensen 30:46 - in 1936 and describes Snowball and Highball. It reads: “Snowball and Highball were a beautiful snow white team of horses owned by the Alert Hose Company of Iowa City. These horses were famous in the community for their sagacity or, in other words, good horse sense. Whenever a fire call came into the station they were ready for the run as soon as the harness dropped on them and the word was given. Then away they would dash to the fire, and no matter how long it lasted, they could be trusted not to leave the spot where the firemen had left them until the fire was out and their driver headed them homeward.

Their beauty made them very attractive and their splendid speed and 31:29 - patience enabled the firemen to save much valuable property about the city, so everyone in the community had a kind word and thought for Snowball and Highball and became much attached to them. Sometimes the firemen entered this team in races at fireman’s tournaments and they never failed to win the prize money and came to be known as Iowa’s most beautiful fire team. In 1928, to meet the growth of the city, the Alert Hose Co. discontinued the use of the hose team and replaced them with a motor fire truck. Snowball and Highball were then retired to a farm to spend their last days in ease.

It is to be feared, however, that they were not treated with the same 32:12 - care and kindness they had been used to and so richly deserved. But be this as it may, in about two years Snowball died of old age and shortly after Highball also passed on to his final rest. For after searching everywhere for his lost mate and whinnying at every white horse he saw thinking it might be Snowball again, he evidently died from grief and a broken heart.” So this corner of the exhibit is devoted to Iowa’s role in draft horse production, and we start with a beautiful large chromolithograph that the State Historical Society of Iowa loaned for this exhibit. And it depicts the Holbert horse importing company in Greeley in Delaware County, Iowa (so, up near Manchester) and it shows on all the buildings particular breeds that they imported: Percherons, Belgians, and English Shires.

33:18 - And really with a number of horses shows how large and important a business this was to draft horse production in Iowa. Between 1870 and 1945, the State of Iowa, with its favorable climate and available grass hay and grain, became a leading producer of heavy draft horses for farming and urban labor. While lighter horses such as Morgans and Standardbreds were needed for common carriage driving, larger animals were required to power heavier machinery. Among immigrants from other countries, many of Eastern Iowa’s settler humans came from Germany and Bohemia, part of the modern day Czech Republic. The favored draft horse breeds came from France, Belgium, England, and Scotland. Each breed is distinctively colored.

Percherons from France are usually dark 34:12 - gray to white as they age. Belgians are a golden chestnut color. Shires from England are black with white lower legs, and Clydesdales from Ccotland are bay or dark brown with white lower legs. The first Percheron stallion, named Duke of Normandy, was imported to Iowa in 1869 by A.W. Cook of Charles City. Percherons became the most popular American draft breed. Iowa City’s W.H. Jordan was a pioneer importer of, and breeder of, shire horses.

By 1900, 34:47 - Iowa surpassed Illinois as the top draft horse producing state. The peak years of draft horse breeding, when the number of horses on Iowa farms exceeded 1.5 million and the farm value per head rose to 120 dollars, were 1910-1915. Iowa’s iconic farmland was carved out of prairie sod and forests by these large horses working alongside humans. Equines bred here were shipped around the country to build and power cities as well as agricultural production, and thousands more were shipped overseas to fight U.S. and foreign wars.

This photograph here from the 35:26 - Library of Congress depicts a class at the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute founded in 1868. The Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute was founded by General Samuel Armstrong to train African-American educators. These educators taught students the knowledge and skills to become gainfully employed and self-supporting as craftsmen or industrial workers. The class of Hampton students pictured here is learning about the features of different horse breeds, from the heavier grey Percheron draft type to the smaller Morgan or Cobb type to the taller, leggier Thoroughbred or Standardbred type. Although standard jobs in the horse industry were still almost exclusively male, female as well as male teachers needed basic equine knowledge and skills to pass on to their students.

Whether students pursued professional 36:18 - employment with horses or not, all races and sexes had to coexist with them in their daily lives. This panel and this case feature Magdalena Helen Tylee, an extraordinary woman whose papers are also in the Iowa Women’s Archives. Helen Tylee came from Koblenz, Germany. She came to the United States as as the wife of American soldier Ben Tylee, whom she met in Europe. So they came back together to the U.S. during the occupation of Germany following WWI. They raised their daughter Peggy here and farmed in the Toddville and Springville areas of Marion township in Linn County. Then, when Ben was stationed in Texas and Florida during WWII, Helen ably ran the family farm like many women did who were left at home, and who proved they could indeed do traditional men’s work, including handling draft horses, as you can see her masterfully doing on that panel.

Now, whether wearing her farm overalls, 37:30 - as she is in that photograph and the one below it in the stable where she’s feeding the horses, or here in in a dress petting one of the draft horses who’s out to pasture with its head over the fence, you can see her affection for and comfort for these animals. She also left us this album, which is in the Iowa Women’s Archives, and in it she has a number of newspaper clippings and photographs. She at one point was interviewed by the Waterloo, Iowa radio station about her experiences as a German immigrant coming to Iowa. She compared Iowa with Germany which, of course, was also a very horsey place during much of this history, and she talked a great deal about how she managed to handle the farm without her husband. In 1942, the Cedar Rapids Gazette came out to her farm, and that’s how we have a number of these pictures of her doing chores.

38:37 - They published a piece about her entitled “She’s a Soldier Too,” meaning the work she was doing at home on the farm with the horses while her husband was away was supporting these these war efforts. Because horses were so important to life and the economy in this time period that we’re talking about, it was a matter of state concern, the quality of the breeding stock. So the Iowa Department of Agriculture published these registration books annually in order to put out their record of which stallions were approved for breeding and also, significantly, which were not, to ensure that people went to the approved stock in order to keep keep the breed standards going. The tables of contents of these volumes are are pretty interesting. They talk a great deal about the the management of the stallion: the housing and care, the grooming, and so on.

And this is a leather halter and the sort of chain lead that is sometimes used in order to 39:56 - handle stallions. This doesn’t hurt the horse; it’s just a little extra control, like you would for a large rambunctious dog. And oftentimes the name of the horse would be inscribed on a brass plate on the halter. These folks who handled these breeding stallions were very proud of them. There was a certain amount of identification between the stallion’s owner and the horse itself. Both very proud of their potency and their being touted in the registry as exemplary specimens. So here we are showcasing Iowa native Phil Stong, who became a very well-known author and published a number of novels, including State Fair in 1932, and Strangers Return in 1933. These are novels which help perpetuate the mythology of the quintessentially American farm life in Iowa. His book State Fair also became the subject of a Hollywood film. But, in addition to those novels, he also wrote non-fiction.

And in this book, Horses and Americans, he chronicles how horses, 41:18 - together with the farmland, were fundamental to American national identity from the turn [and] into the 20th century, as we’re talking about. This is a beautiful first edition of this non-fiction work called Horses and Americans, and it’s got some artwork inside it that we’re showcasing here, which is a painting by John Steuart Curry of some Belgian horses famously bred in Wisconsin, along with Percherons. As Mark mentioned earlier, the Belgians were very popular draft horses and continue to be favorites at the Iowa State Fair to this day. This freestanding case is devoted to horses in agriculture and industry in Iowa, showing some pretty amazing work that could be done with a team of horses. There’s a photograph of horses moving a house, and horses in the winter doing work that required them to be wearing horseshoes that often had attachments and cleats that allowed them to work in snow and ice.

Horses were critical 42:46 - to the success of Iowa’s farms and local industry. They pulled plows, delivered goods, and hauled materials, and allowed for faster travel and more. The selection and reproduction photographs from the State Historical Society of Iowa are seen in this case. While these photos are not available to view online, the State Historical Society of Iowa has an excellent collection of images by A.M. Wettach and others, which give an authentic depiction of rural and industrial life in Iowa.

43:18 - This case brings us back to Iowa City, and the campus in particular. Horses were present when the University of Iowa was being built, and assisted with moving building materials and with the construction itself. 120 years ago, horses powered the winches and cranes that erected the hall of liberal arts and sciences, now known as Schaeffer Hall. In addition, horses played an important role in parades. They provided a mode of transportation, but they were also stately and impressive.

Horses were not only workers, but also actors, as in this photo of a Greek temple that 44:00 - was built for some kind of a theatrical production in lower City Park. And if you look closely among the actors in their white robes, you can see a horse standing in front of that temple. This case, which is devoted to women’s riding circa 1900, in this exhibit contains many of the archival materials that first inspired the the film that’s at the center of this exhibit, including a number of items that I personally collected on eBay and actually some that came to me from my maternal horse owning family. Specifically my family that bred thoroughbred horses and participated in both horse racing and upper level horse sports. So I’m somebody who comes from that world and that culture, which directly connected me to some of these activities that are displayed here in this case that went on in New York City in the period that we’re talking about.

So I mentioned in introducing the exhibit that I did have a lot of visual material, 45:19 - much of it coming from these periodicals that you see represented here, Harper’s Weekly being a premier periodical that circulated at the time. And you can look at that very detailed, beautiful engraving and you see a woman riding sidesaddle. So notice that both her legs are crossed over on one side of the horse. Well, in the period that we’re talking about - in fact, throughout the 19th century up until 1915 - it was considered de rigueur for respectable women who rode to ride sidesaddle, the aim being to protect women’s chastity. Supposedly, by preventing them from spreading their legs over the horse.

Now, as someone who’s ridden all my life astride, 46:12 - it’s rather mind-boggling to contemplate riding sidesaddle. Though, I did have to try it, and I can tell you that it’s very challenging and feels very unnatural and asymmetrical. But, remarkably, the women in the period that we’re talking about who were required to ride that way to retain their respectability became really good at it, because it turns out, as you can see nicely illustrated in that Harper’s picture, you can see how much of that woman’s lower body is in contact with the horse. Sidesaddle actually gives you more square inches of your seat, which is a critical area for riding a horse to put in contact with the saddle and to communicate with the horse powerfully through your lower body. The women figured this out and became very adept as sidesaddle riders, competing with men in different horse sports and, of course, riding out socially and looking very fashionable in their sidesaddle attire.

47:23 - Horseback riding took off as a popular sport for women amid a burgeoning physical culture movement at the turn [and] into the 20th century that was also connected to women moving into higher education and into professions. More generally, they also wanted to be more in their bodies, and riding horses was considered healthful exercise. Of course, there were detractors who were convinced that if women rode horses even sidesaddle that somehow it would un-sex them and ruin their femininity, potentially disable them from having children - which, of course, was not true, but nevertheless that was that was what some people feared. Well, by the 1880s there are enough women riding and enough people concerned about their riding that we get the publication of the first manual written by an American woman for American women about the prescribed mode of horsemanship. And that’s the volume featured here that’s open.

Tt was called The American Horsewoman, by Elizabeth Platt Karr. And we were fortunate, through interlibrary loan, to get an original first edition that’s on display. And you can see that Karr has drawn a picture from the rear of the proper ladies seat, sidesaddle. You can see the erect posture, you can see how both legs are over on the left side of the horse, and she conveniently includes another drawing here that shows you just exactly how the lady is holding on to the horse while seated in this fashion: by means of these two pummels that are protruding out of the saddle that she can hook her knees into. So, essentially, she’s crossing her right leg over the the front of the saddle and hooking her knee around that pummel, and then the left knee is coming up underneath it so that instead of gripping the horse itself, she’s actually gripping those two pummels between her thighs in order to stay on.

But, again, she’s 49:44 - got all that surface area of her seat in contact with the horse to use, and she has the use of her left leg on the horse. So part of the art of sidesaddle is compensating for the absence of the right leg, usually by carrying a crop on that side and using it as as though it were your right leg. Now, part of why sidesaddle was required for women was not only this whole thing about protecting chastity, but also it kind of elevated women into this elegant pose that men liked looking at. So it showed off women’s bodies in in a way that was pleasing to men, and it was also thought to keep women dependent on men. And Karr includes an extensive description of the choreography, and she’s got a drawing here on this page of what it took for a gentleman to assist a lady rider side addle for getting on the horse.

And it’s kind of a bizarre exercise, and it’s very intricate. It’s sort of akin to a man having a part to play in leading a woman in ballroom dancing. I mean, that’s the kind of choreography we’re talking about here for how to help her get on the horse. Now, significantly, women figured out how to mount all by themselves, which, you know, you have to do by actually throwing your right leg all the way over the horse and then bringing it over to cross it over the front of the saddle. And that, of course, defeated the whole purpose of sidesaddle to have to spread your legs to get on the horse before crossing it over. That was to be avoided, wrote Karr.

But, again, women figured out how to do it, and did do it, and became very independent 51:39 - riding sidesaddle. One thing that Karr advocates in her book is that women should not leave all of the care of the horse to servants. That to ride a horse well, you need to have a good relationship with the horse on the ground. That’s, of course, part of a horsemanship ethic that’s been handed on through the ages. And here we have a vintage horse grooming brush that’s leather backed and bears those wonderful body oils that burnish into the leather. That’s used for grooming.

That’s 52:20 - an item that I actually grew up with and has groomed many, many of my family horses. Now, as a result of these practices of becoming intimate with their horses, grooming them, and becoming very adept riders sidesaddle - which kind of mystified men because, again, if you’ve been riding astride, to contemplate riding sidesaddle requires a leap of the imagination. And for a man to try to do it himself would be akin to cross- dressing, so - you know, no doubt that went on somewhere, but I haven’t yet found any pictures of it from the period. But, at any rate, the men were mystified watching these women become so good, even able to to jump and do all kinds of things with horses sidesaddle, that the humor magazine Puck - and that’s what this page in in color here is showing us; that’s an original from Puck - is showing the woman’s body actually having merged with the horse’s body as they become centaurs, so adept were they and and so sensitive to these horses and communicating with them through their bodies, that the two merged as one, much to men’s consternation at the time. Continuing the display here of women’s riding circa 1900, we focus here on the National Horse Show at Madison Square Garden that became an annual event starting in 1883 for a week in the fall, usually October to November, and it was thought to mark the beginning of the “indoor season” as the wealthy families came back from their summer retreats and attended the horse show.

And 54:20 - many of their prize horse stock were shown in the various classes at the show, so it was all about demonstrating not only riding skill, but also the animals themselves and the finely bred ones. All of whom were originally imported. And among the featured breeds at the show was the English Thoroughbred, so it was an institution that definitely promoted anglophilic standards of of equine beauty and equine riding styles and management. And this, of course, is going on at a time when there’s huge waves of immigration from southern and eastern Europe coming in, so the need to promote that Anglo-American breeding was a big impulse out of fear that somehow, you know, whiteness would be would be detracted from amid all of that immigration. And the horse show participated in that. But, from the beginning, women were competing in the horse show and riding along with men. And of course they’re doing it still sidesaddle from the 1880s until 1915, when the National Horse Show authorities finally agreed that, yes, women it’s okay if you want to ride sidesaddle [or astride].

And 55:48 - the National Horse Show was so prestigious that when those authorities decided it was okay, that’s really seen as the kind of benchmark for making it okay. That’s why that’s a historical marker. This engraving here on the wall is, again, from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. This is, in fact, the edition documenting the the first horse show in in 1883 at Madison Square Garden. You can see that woman boldly leaping the fence sidesaddle, and if you look closely on the rail there watching her, somewhat agape, are some of those men who who were quite fascinated by, and a little worried about, just how how it was that women were able to do that. She is framed by - at the top there you can see - men examining a draft horse and looking carefully at its confirmation, examining the the solidity of its feet, its teeth, and so on, making sure that the horse will genuinely be able to do what what they might want to buy it for.

And then down here we have young 57:03 - children learning some pointers about horsemanship at the horse show. Here is a cover of Harper’s Weekly during horse show week, this one from the 1890s, and you can see there on the front a woman having won an equitation class, actually having beaten some men in that competition. Now, as equestrianism for women became more popular as a sport in this period, there were manufactured a whole array of kind of high-end equestrian themed consumer goods. Because equestrianism was not only a sport for women, but also a lifestyle. So, for example, you see here a sterling silver - this is a salt and pepper set, where we’ve got the cut crystal containers there for the salt and pepper, topped with jockey hats in sterling silver.

And next to 58:07 - that, a little cut silver cup that was used by ladies for drinking shots of whiskey. So, you know…might not be too ladylike to to swill whiskey, but if you drank it out of a little shot glass like that after having been energized by your horse riding, you know, that was considered okay. So these are some examples of the antique high-end equestrian themed goods that circulated in women’s houses. Now, anybody who rides will tell you that, while the ideal might be to look like you’re not doing much on the horse, that ideally you should be still with good posture and so on, it is a lot of physical exercise. You’re really working your core and and your lower body in communicating with the horse. But, of course, ladies are not supposed to sweat.

59:04 - What to do? Well, you were supposed to wear a Canfield Dress Shield in your armpits to prevent the sweat stains from coming through your finer riding habits. So we have here a newspaper ad for the Canfield Dress Shield. And here in the front is an example of the longer ladies’ riding crop that was used to compensate for the absence of the leg on the right side while riding sidesaddle Along with the National Horse Show, the opening of Central Park provided a huge impetus for growth in the sport of riding, especially for women in this time period. So in this case, we’re featuring, again, some of these very detailed, beautiful periodical engravings showing some of these practices. And up at the top you can see a fold-out art supplement to Appleton’s Journal, another nationally circulating magazine at the time, showing in minute detail the grand drive at Central Park where the moneyed people in Manhattan would show off their fancy carriages and fancy carriage horses.

Men, of course, traditionally 00:28 - had driven these carriages, either themselves or through the services of hired coachmen, but many chose to do it themselves for the sport. And women, likewise, got into carriage driving and would do some of that in shows and on the park drives. Now, all around Central Park which, as you probably know, is comprised of some 840 acres in a long, narrow rectangle in the middle of Manhattan - so, all around the perimeter of the park you had various horse businesses set up. Horse clothing stores, horse equipment emporiums, and riding stables, and riding academies. So women, in particular, were flocking into these academies - middle and upper-class white women - to take riding lessons.

This illustration down here 01:33 - gives us a glimpse inside one of those academies, and this is called “Ladies’ Riding School.” And it shows us the progression from the young girl on the right side of the illustration, who’s there on a pony. Notice that she is riding astride. Okay, so the idea of the progression here is that to learn to manage a horse, you you start out astride as a small girl, and then as you advance in age and mature, you learn the arts of sidesaddle. And until you become, as it were, a proper lady sitting sidesaddle. So you can see sort of the stages of that development drawn there in the illustration.

The young girl is assisted with her pony by the 02:24 - African-American stable worker, so that is an area where African- Americans were working, many having come up from the south, having acquired horse skills from agriculture, but bringing those skills into the city and finding work in in the stables. And then as as this girl gets older, according to this progression in this illustration, she’s going to work her way up and finally there will be a a white male bowler- hatted instructor schooling her in the proper ways of correct form as a lady riding sidesaddle. Many of those white male instructors were actually military men who learned riding in the cavalry and then brought their military authority to disciplining women into the proper ladylike riding style. So this illustration is a drawing about a progression of gender as well as a progression of whitening. And, of course, in becoming a lady, you are performing a particular image of social class.

03:41 - Now, in this case, we wanted to try to show some of the things that were going on somewhat underneath the surface that might not have been fully according to the discipline that social propriety might have dictated. So we have juxtaposed some items here, and one of the things that went on in Central Park on horseback was courting. And we did have an illustration of a man and a woman courting on horseback in Central Park on the cover of Appleton’s, and that one’s kind of fun, because while the man is attempting to impress the woman, the expression on the faces of the two horses is telling us that, you know, maybe she shouldn’t take a liking to him. And the woman is probably more likely to listen to her horse than him at this point. But also in this other illustration here, we can see that it was not only heterosexual courting that went on on horseback, but that there were some allusions to some same-sex attraction here between women mediated by horses.

And, significantly, 04:59 - that illustration is titled “La Mode Parisienne.” So the way of riding of the lady on the horse is English sidesaddle, but but the implied mode of intimacy between the two is French. Occasionally the horse got unruly in the course of the exercise and the riding in Central Park, and that’s what we’re seeing over here, where this this horse has taken off with its lady rider. Horses being fundamentally unpredictable animals and, while usually well-mannered if properly trained, they’re still horses, and if they’ve been cooped up for a long time and feel frisky or something spooks them, they can certainly run. As prey animals, that’s their major mode of defense.

05:55 - But part of what’s fun about this illustration is that that horse is running like crazy and the lady looks remarkably calm, and it’s the policeman who’s trying to chase her down in order to catch the horse and stop it. It actually was a major occupation of mounted police in this time period to chase down runaways and bring them under control, both of riders and of carriages, where the whole team of horses could bolt with a carriage, which is even more frightening. Horses are providing power and they’re beautiful animals to show, and if you’ve got a fancy rig, it’s a great showcase of your wealth and social status. But it could quickly go the other direction if that unpredictable nature of the horse kicked in. Now, one of the things about riding side saddle is that it’s not only, you know, asymmetrical as we’ve discussed, but it’s also - there’s a danger to it, because, with your legs hooked over those pummels, it’s hard to break away from the horse should the horse fall.

And some women actually got caught on the horse and very badly hurt in 07:22 - those sorts of circumstances, and sometimes when their body did come away from the saddle, their foot could become caught in the stirrup so that when the horse got up and took off because it was scared, the lady could be dragged. And that was usually a pretty fatal occurrence. So some folks devised what you see here in the case, which is a safety stirrup for sidesaddle. And this allows for the foot to go in from this side, and the lower arch of that stirrup prevents the foot from slipping all the way through, which is how you would get dragged. And then if you do fall off, if you look at that drawing that we’ve excerpted from the book next to it, you can see how that lower arch of the stirrup came apart and broke away to release the foot so that the lady would would not be dragged. And we’ve included in the case a piece of leather horse equipment. This is known as a martingale. It was a fairly common item to put on a horse.

The reins thread 08:38 - through it and it helps you in guiding the horse and keeping the horse going straight and not throwing its head up. And we included it here because this lady in the picture, down on the bottom there, actually has one on her horse. So you can look at the item itself and then see how it’s fitted on the horse. This is actually a lady riding sidesaddle in Iowa, it’s a wonderful picture because, while her saddle is English, some of the details of the horse’s bridle are actually western, so it’s a great kind of mix of English and western riding styles in sidesaddle, which kind of makes sense for the middle of the country as Iowa women tried to take up some of these these riding trends that were coming out of New York through these nationally circulating magazines. So we wanted to show in this case that, while much riding did go on in New York City - and you can see again on the cover of Harper’s there, Sunday morning on riverside drive you can see those ladies out for a morning canter in the park - the riding also went on outside of the city, as some of these ladies would would head for their country homes on weekends and do things like fox hunt.

Which they also did sidesaddle, 10:14 - and which was another very sort of fashionable, as well as sporting, activity that had its own kind of array of high-end consumer goods that they could acquire to show off this lifestyle. And so you see this lady here on the left - this is a picture by Howard Chandler Christy, who was one of the most famous illustrators of the time - there in her fox hunting attire with her dogs. And notice that the man in the back there - he’s the one who’s bringing the horse to her while she while she waits. Down here we have a a soup ladle that’s sterling silver in the form of a hunt cap and a fox hunting whip on the handle. So the actual fox hunting whip is is laid here on on the floor of the case, and this was something that both men and women carried in the fox hunting field.

And you learn to throw the thong out and smack, make it give it a crack, 11:26 - when you bring the the thong back towards you. You never use it to hit anybody, but sometimes if the hounds get too close to your horse’s back legs and you don’t want the the horse to get upset or the hounds to get kicked, you would flick this whip and the crack of it would would make the hounds move away. But you wouldn’t either hit them or the horse. But still it’s a pretty powerful thing to carry and wield on horseback, especially if you’re a woman, and it was kind of a power move you could do even while sitting in that lady-like mode of sidesaddle. In the case here on the floor, we have folded a horse blanket. This is indicative of the wide array of horse clothing that people acquired.

Tt actually does have a practical function, 12:19 - because horses, of course, are athletes, too, they sweat. This type of blanket you would put on a horse that was hot after a workout to help them cool off. And often these blankets were made with the particular stable colors that signaled the identity of the farm and the the people who owned the farm where the horse came from. So it’s a practical item, but it’s also meant for show, and often they had the monogram of the owner and the farm embroidered on the blanket as well. Being that the year of this exhibit is 2020, and being that this is the 100th anniversary of the women’s suffrage movement, which reached its culmination during the age of horsepower, we thought it was a given that we needed to include at least some portion of the exhibit dedicated to women’s suffrage.

So we, in fact, refer to this whole corner as suffrage corner, and we’re very 13:26 - grateful to both the Iowa Women’s Archives and the State Historical Society of Iowa, as well as all the material on the Library of Congress website for giving us the items that you see here in these cases. So we start out here by emphasizing the historical timing of the suffrage movement during these peak decades of horsepower and, of course, the need for mobility to marshal the campaign. And this was a famous suffragist. This is Elizabeth Freeman, and she is participating, speaking of mobility, in an organized suffrage hike from New York City to Washington, DC for the big 1913 suffrage parade. And there you can see her leading the horse, who is pulling what became known as the iconic suffrage wagon that was inscribed with “votes for women” slogans. And inside the wagon is a human co-worker bearing pamphlets that were meant to be distributed along the way and when they got to the suffrage event.

So this this type of suffrage wagon, horse-drawn, 14:49 - became iconic and very indicative of the motion, the mobility, the advancement of the campaign, which could not have been waged without horses. So it was horses and women together who advocated for suffrage. We include with a national figure like Elizabeth Freeman some artifacts here from from our our local collections. So we’ve got a pamphlet here coming out of one of the local Iowa suffrage clubs: the Iowa Equal Suffrage Association. And then some of the literature that came from the national American Woman Suffrage Association out of New York, but that circulated in Iowa.

More than transportation, horses also provided 15:45 - iconic stature and presence in these suffrage events, especially in parades. So parading became a type of performance that was instrumental in the suffrage campaign. And we found here some information about a local Iowa woman who, at the age of 90, still insisted that she was going to ride in the suffrage campaign. Recognizing that this was an important move for women’s rights, and also recognizing the power of women being on horseback and marching for suffrage, literally taking the power of horses that, for millennia, had been the domain of men in military campaigns and now turning it to the purpose of advancing women’s cause. So at 90, indeed she did ride in in the suffrage parade in Waterloo.

And we accompany her article with some more memorabilia 16:53 - from the suffrage campaign. We’ve got some of the buttons here that were distributed and worn, and here’s another a program from the Iowa Equal Suffrage Association, this one from the 48th annual convention in 1919. The iconic yellow “votes for women” badge and ribbon and, of course, a horseshoe, because the horses had to be shod if they were marching in parades, often on paved streets. That was the whole point of horseshoes, was to protect the feet of working horses. And they were doing a vital job in these suffrage parades.

17:41 - We feature in this case documentation of the first recorded suffrage parade in Iowa, which took place in the town of Boone in 1908. And this is the only photograph that we have from this event, so it’s been widely reproduced. And when you first look at it, you think that, well, there aren’t any horses in this picture - it’s just humans marching for suffrage. But, actually, if you look a little more closely, you see that there are, in fact, two horse-drawn vehicles behind. It’s hard to tell exactly what they are, but, you know, there are definitely horses pulling them.

You can see the dust coming up off the dirt road there and, even more tellingly, if you 18:28 - look closely in the foreground you can see that there are horse droppings on the road - obviously evidence of the horses having gone before. So I would argue that horses were participating in this milestone Iowa suffrage event as well, and that’s why we included a bit from a horse’s bridle in this case to further signify their presence, and are also displaying again some of the national literature from the suffrage campaign. The flyer from the National American Woman’s Suffrage Association that has the headline “woman suffrage co-equal with man suffrage.” This was perhaps the single most visible icon of the American women’s suffrage campaign. This is Inez Milholland riding on the horse Gray Dawn in that famous Washington, DC suffrage parade that was held in March of 1913 on the eve of the inauguration of president Woodrow Wilson.

So on this very striking white 19:45 - horse she cuts a most impressive figure. The horse himself is gorgeous; look at the beautiful eye and expression and ears on this horse. And we happen to have a bridle that’s very similar to the one that she’s using on Gray Dawn here so you get a sense of the actual tactile quality of the leather. And this soft metal in the horse’s mouth that she’s using. Now mind you, this is a very spirited animal, and she was quite a talented equestrian.

To be able to manage a horse like 20:26 - this on the street in all the chaos of the parade was quite an equestrian feat. And notice that she is sitting astride. And that was a very potent symbolic move given everything we’ve talked about in terms of the the social requirement about women riding sidesaddle. That, in 1913, it was still de rigueur for women to do. We haven’t gotten to that declaration yet from the National Horse Show Association that it was okay for them to ride astride. So she’s very much on this white horse, which many military male generals also rode for visibility, to be able to see the commander in front on the white horse.

That’s what she’s doing here on Gray Dawn, riding astride just like 21:22 - a military commander. Part of the inspiration for this iconography came from Joan of Arc, the the medieval woman who, of course, was one of the great female generals of all time, who also wrote astride on a white horse. So just as Joan of Arc led the battalion at Orleans, so Inez Milholland leads it on Gray Dawn in this striking picture. Now, we took this image from the Library of Congress, and we wanted to display it at life size. Again, continuing our ideas about the importance of scale in trying to give audiences today some sense of the power and presence of these animals and what they could do for human power and identity in this period.

22:21 - Back here in “suffrage corner” we’ve got a few more images, out of necessity having to be at smaller scale for the display, but but meant to amplify your sense of what these suffrage parades were like. So here is Inez Milholland. You’ve got a little more information about her. Now, she sadly passed away very young at age 30 after this very brilliant career as as a college woman who then became an attorney, advocated on behalf of women’s rights and African-American rights, but she suffered from anemia and was actually on her way to lead another suffrage campaign when she was stricken and and passed away at the age of 30. So the movement lost a great leader, but we do have quite a number of photographs of her because she was such a striking figure out in public. She not only rode Gray Dawn in the parades that she participated in, but also this beautiful chestnut horse here in a parade in New York City.

And here is an illustration of Joan of Arc on the white horse 23:48 - advertising the suffrage parade. And then, of course, Milholland performed that iconography when she rode the white horse Gray Dawn in DC on March 3rd, 1913. Here are some other pictures from that parade, and you can see here a whole phalanx of women who would then have come behind Milholland, all seated resolutely astride with the capitol building behind them, advocating for suffrage. Now, part of the iconography, of course, of Milholland on the white horse like Joan of Arc was its whiteness. So among its other symbolic dimensions, it also indicates the whiteness of the American women’s suffrage campaign.

And a number of the leaders of the campaign, in fact, 24:51 - chose to emphasize whiteness in order to curry favor with southern politicians in order to get their support. As a result of that, Black women’s participation in the women’s suffrage campaign was curtailed, and so Black women had to advocate even harder to try to have their rightful place and voice in the campaign. One of the Black women who did find a place in this suffrage parade was Ida B. Wells. Like white women, Black women combined their advocacy for suffrage with other causes. But they also had to combat racial discrimination in the predominantly white national women’s suffrage campaign and in the country at large.

Nevertheless, Black women persisted 25:48 - by organizing on their own and taking part in some white-led suffrage events. Prominent anti-lynching activist and suffragist Ida B. Wells-Barnett, representing the Chicago-based Alpha Suffrage Club, was asked to march at the rear of the 1913 DC suffrage parade with other Black suffragists. Asserting her rightful place, she stepped into line with the white Illinois delegation. No Black women, however, gained the privilege of riding horseback in the parade.

26:22 - So, opposite the photograph of Inez Milholland, the Iron-Jawed Angel on horseback, we have another life-size photograph reproduction - this, of an unidentified African-American soldier on horseback. He is shown wearing a holstered pistol and also an overseas cap, so we believe that he was serving in Europe, and likely in France, sometime in either 1917 or 1918. With the photograph, which is from the Library of Congress, enlarged, we can see that the horse’s legs are kept shaggy to protect them, whereas the rest of the horse’s hair is cut short. From his chevrons on his sleeve it appears that he is a non- commissioned officer, likely a sergeant, and so whether or not he was trained there, it’s likely that his superior officers were trained at Fort Des Moines in Iowa. The 4 African-American soldiers pictured here are at Fort Des Moines.

27:52 - Built in 1901 and dedicated as a cavalry post in 1909, Fort Des Moines became the designated federal training camp for Black officers beginning in May 1917, after the U.S. entered the war. And the NAACP lobbied for more Black men to be able to lead their compatriots in battle, according to the Des Moines Register. On June 17th, 1917, 1,200 Black soldiers were sworn into the provisional army officer training school by Colonel Charles C. Ballou. On October 15th, the fort graduated 639 men, including 106 captains, 329 first lieutenants, and 204 second lieutenants. Commanded by officers from Fort Des Moines, the 92nd Division went into action against the German offensive after just 8 weeks of training and was a force in the fierce battles in France until the armistice.

Historical records show 28:52 - at least 7 of the officers were cited for bravery and awarded medals. From the national cavalry, training at Fort Des Moines, and parading in Iowa City, we turned back to women’s equestrian ventures with these two Iowa-born sisters of the early 20th century: Marie Rumble and her younger sister Pearl. who were 2 of the 8 children of Clarence Rumble and Pearl Dodge, all raised on a horse-powered farm near Mount Vernon, Iowa. Their joint horsey adventures gave rise to this volume in our display here. This book, called Homestead on the Range: A Tender Foot Girl in Wyoming, which was authored by Pearl under her married name Mirich and published in 1994.

29:46 - So, in this book, Pearl gives a fictionalized account, but one rooted in a very detailed way in her experience in the early 20th century with her sister Marie. Because what happened with Marie was that she had to leave an abusive marriage in Iowa, move west with her firstborn daughter, to start a new life on a 640 acre homestead near Cheyenne, Wyoming. Rumble’s youngest sister, Pearl, who was only a few years older than Rumble’s own daughter, spent summers visiting the homestead. The two sisters together broke ponies and rode calves in Cheyenne’s annual rodeo. Pearl eventually returned to Iowa and retired from a long teaching career at Roosevelt Junior High in Cedar Rapids and then at Kirkwood Community College.

Her sister’s letters, 30:47 - as well as the manuscript of this book and Pearl’s other writings, are contained in the Marie Rumble papers in the Iowa Women’s Archives. Among those writings is also her handwritten account of their brother Earl’s death in 1918 from the flu pandemic. Also included in this case is an autographed book of Gwendolyn Johnson Hein from the Iowa Women’s Archives, and it’s a nice story about young people and their horses. Gwendolyn Johnson Hein was a basketball player, seed store operator, and farm woman, and was born in 1911. One of 4 children of William and Emma Johnson of Newhall, Iowa, along with her friend Luella Gardeman Boddicker, she joined the school basketball team.

And after the 1924 State girls high school school championship tournament, 31:47 - the Iowa High School Athletic Association announced that they were eliminating the State tournament for girls’ basketball. Gwen Johnson and Luella Gardeman rode horses from farm to farm to convince neighbors to support the continuation of the girls’ basketball tournaments. Before the next year, school officials founded the Iowa Girls’ High School Athletic Union that sponsored the 1925 tournament. Newspaper accounts of Newhall’s victory in the 1927 State tournament are located in the collection. Several photographs and documents in this case represent how horseback riding was offered by the University of Iowa Women’s Athletics as a club sport in the late 1950s.

University women riders were bussed to Wind’s Reach Farm 32:36 - off of Kotts Lane in the northeast of Iowa City. The proprietor and instructor was Betsy Coester, a European trained expert in dressage and jumping, who was herself a UI graduate and founder of the Rapid Creek Pony Club with her husband Fritz Coester, a longtime faculty member at the University of Iowa in theoretical physics. Betsy had 6 children whom she also trained in horsemanship, and a couple of whom still work the farm and teach riding out there at Wind’s Reach. These photographs show the university women learning to ride through the various gates. Note that all are riding astride, hence the pair of stirrups in the case, unlike the single safety stirrup we saw over there for the sidesaddle.

33:32 - We’ve also included a release form that the women had to sign in order to get on the horses out at Wind’s Reach, because horseback riding, for all of its benefits, does carry inherent risk, as well as some of the mimeograph - that was the technology then in the 50s - mimeographed information sheets for the women to study. And then a mimeographed multiple choice test that the women had to take. And these are quite fun to look at. For example, on a multiple choice question, Betsy Coester asks: “The blacksmith should check a horse’s foot often because hooves grow like fingernails. Why should shoes be reset every four to six weeks, and barefoot horses’ hooves trimmed? A) It improves the action and gives the horse a neater appearance, which is important in show work. B) It keeps the foot from cracking up or becoming deformed and prevents faulty action resulting from neglect.

C) It prevents thrush, which is a disease of the frog caused by neglect. D) It improves action and keeps the sole from wearing.” Those are the options on the test. Well, these mimeograph tests require that the women master a certain amount of book knowledge of equine anatomy, health, and equipment, but primarily in learning to ride they were learning a certain physical discipline and way of being in their bodies with horses. The 1950s was a socially conservative time for women, like the suffrage era. For those who were privileged enough to take up horse riding, especially in the context of a college education, the embodied experience of horsepower and learning successful communication with these huge, sensitive creatures built confidence for pursuing careers and advancing women’s rights and other social justice causes.

35:42 - I was a toddler when these pictures were taken, and I was soon to feel what these women were feeling in the saddle and working around horses. So, for me, they provide a kind of bridge back to the era before the internal combustion engine when horses were both essential and ubiquitous. So we hope that this exhibit has helped give you a greater understanding of how the presence of horses shaped society and human identities. We hope you’ve been inspired to think historically about what coexisting and moving with all these equine bodies felt like in and around the city, and how all those cross-species physical interactions affected people’s bodies and lives. And we hope that the multi-dimensionality of the exhibit, combining objects with texts and images, and inviting you to consider the scale and mobility of horses, has opened up your historical imaginations as well.

Perhaps in the process, as we have, you, 36:47 - too, have been inspired to think about, and even retrace, the paths that so many horses once trod in Iowa City and New York City and your own cities. Through horses we can connect not only with the past, but also more deeply with our sense of place and how we physically inhabit it. .