There is a new academic journal worth checking out: Animal History.
It is edited by Thomas Aiello, professor of History and Africana Studies at Valdosta State University; Susan Nance, professor of History and affiliated faculty with the Campbell Centre for the Study of Animal Welfare at the University of Guelph; and Dan Vandersommers, assistant professor of environmental history at the University of Dayton and author of Entangled Encounters at the National Zoo: Stories from the Animal Archive.
In the introduction, the editors write:
Animals possess histories too, and their lives and behaviors matter to human histories. Perhaps even more important, human histories matter to the lives of animals and their dynamic cultures. The full panoply of species is in a state of perpetual entanglements, which the long legacy of historical theory has largely ignored.
One article, by Earl J. Heiss, about horses in the American Civil War, reports that nearly half of all horses in the United States were used in the fighting between North and South — roughly three million, of which an estimate 1.2 million died. Yes, we know the human casualties of this tragic war but other species also suffered greatly at the hands of man.
After the war, a generation of men no doubt looked at horses much differently than they did before.
This parting attitude toward their horses may have carried over in the postwar lives of
some Civil War veterans and helped to spur a rise in animal welfare movements. The
impact of the Civil War, which forced tens of thousands of Northern and Southern men
into a relationship with horses that was more intense and widespread than anything they
experienced in civilian life, could have been a springboard for the expansion of animal
welfare efforts after 1865, although more research is needed to verify that hypothesis.
Sadly, I think only this first issue is freely available. You can download articles here.
In the meantime check out of your local university to see if they stock it.
John is co-author, with Midge Raymond, of the Tasmanian mystery Devils Island. He is also author of the novels The Tourist Trail and Where Oceans Hide Their Dead. Co-founder of Ashland Creek Press and editor of Writing for Animals (also now a writing program).