Talk:Great horse manure crisis of 1894

I am suggesting the following edits, but wanted a chance for editors to comment before doing so:

The Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894 (GHMC) is an internet myth put forward by Stephen Davies in an article posted online in Sept, 2004 [1]. No online references to the GHMC can be found prior to this date. While horse manure was a problem in major cities[citation needed], the GHMC makes three major claims:

1. The Times of London predicted that in 50 years the streets of London would be covered in 9 feet of manure. This claim is contradicted by the London Times, who has no record of publishing this quote [19]. 2. The first international conference on urban planning was stymied because there was no solution to the most urgent problem of manure disposal. No name or date is ascribed to this conference and there does not appear to be any records of it. Multiple sources cite America’s first urban planning conference as the First National Conference on City Planning help on May 21-22, 1909 in Washington, DC [2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 14]. Britain’s first urban planning conference was the Town Planning Conference, held from October 10-15, 1910 in London [6, 7]. Proceedings or transactions for both can be found online [15, 16]. Neither mention an 1898 conference nor list manure as a discussion topic. 3. The advent of the automobile caught the contemporary experts unawares. There is no evidence for this claim, and articles refuting this claim have been published [20, 21].

As for the crisis, manure was a real problem, but government action could help. For example, New York City hired George E. Waring Jr in 1895 to clean up the streets, which he largely accomplished by 1896 [17].

History of the GHMC: The first reference to the GHMC appears to be in Davies’ article in Sep 2009 [1]. The next large exposure appeared in Access Magazine when Eric Morris include a version of it in a school publication [8]. The Access Magazine version was then picked up by Levitt and Dubner in their best-selling book SuperFreakonomics [9]. Since then, other sites repeating the story include Elizabeth Kolbert’s critique of SuperFreakonomics in The New Yorker [10], Levitt and Dubner’s BytesDailty blog [11], Amanda Erickson’s article on the history of urban planning [12], and an oft-cited article from Historic UK, an online tourist web site [13]. There are now over 200,000 references to the GHMC online.

No version of the GHMC provide a primary, contemporary source. Many are unsourced, and those that are sourced lead back to Davies. As is typical with urban legend, the details change as the story is retold. Nine feet of manure in London becomes thirty feet in New York and so on. None can be verified. The New York Times provides an online tool [18] allowing users to search the archives from 1851 to present time. Using this tool there is no evidence of manure as a crisis level topic in 1894, nor evidence of a major international conference hosted by the city in 1898.

References: 1. Stephen Davies, “The Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894,” 1 Sep 2004, 2. Mel Scott, American City Planning Since 1890, University of California Press, 10 February 1972. 3. John W. Reps, The Making of Urban America. A History of City Planning in the United States. Princeton University Press, 15 June 1992. 4. Jon A. Peterson, The Birth of City Planning in the United States, 1840-1917 (Creating the North American Landscape). Johns Hopkins University Press, 6 August 2003. 5. Susann S. Fainstein, “Urban Planning,” in Encyclopedia Britannica, 6. 7. Richard LeGates, Early Urban Planning V 9. Routledge, 11 November 2004. 8. Eric Morris, “From Horse Power to Horse Power,” Access, Number 30, Spring 2007, 9. Stephen D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, Super Freakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance, William Morrow, 20 October 2009. 10. Elizabeth Kolbert, “Hosed is there a quick fix for the climate?” New Yorker, 16 November 2009. 11. “The Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894”, Bytesdaily online blog, 16 July 2011. 12. Amanda Erickson, “A Brief History of the Birth of Urban Planning,” from The Atlantic Citylab, 24 August 2012, 13. Ben Johnson, “Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894,” January 2015. 14. Jon A. Peterson, “The Birth of Organized City Planning in the United States, 1909-1910.” Journal of the American Planning Association, Vol. 75, No. 2, Spring 2009. 15. Proceedings of the First National Conference on City Planning 16. Town Planning Conference, October 10-15, 1910, Transactions 17. Wikipedia -- George Waring Biography https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/George_E._Waring_Jr. 18. New York Times Search Tool. 19. 20. 21. Kgarfield2019 (talk) 03:32, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

References

I think I would be fine with this.--Ymblanter (talk) 06:49, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

I actually didn't read here (as I should have) before working on the article. Ymblanter thanked me for my edits, so I guess I didn't do too badly. I wouldn't call the GMHC "an internet myth put forward by Stephen Davies"; it was simply the title of his article that then sort of became an internet myth. I've contacted Steve on LinkedIn and discussed this with him, and he's working on trying to clear up the history. I've suggested that he either post here or send me text with his approval to post it. Dicklyon (talk) 01:41, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Great, thanks.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:18, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Hi here is the text of my correspondence with Dick on LinkedIn

"Hi Dick, I'm glad to hear you're doing this as I'm in the process of trying to sort this out myself. When I wrote the original column the point of it was to critique the idea that you can predict the future by extrapolating current trends on an "If this goes on" basis. In those days the internet was in its infancy and unfortunately I messed up in using it. The fact that horses and their by products were a major challenge for urban authorities in the late 19th century is well known - FML Thompson has several essays on the centrality of the horse for transport at the time and the problems this created. I used a website (based in the US) that no longer exists for the reference to the conference in the US and the allusion to the Times but to my shame I didn't actually check this. The website is long defunct, so long in fact that you can't find it on any of the recovery devices that are around - I've tried and no success. I obviously realised that both of those references are wrong (even though the overall thesis is correct) so I'm now trying to sort this out. I suspect that the reference to The Times was simply wrong as regards the date as it seems to have been a few years before then that concern about the challenge of street cleansing was at its height. The conference is more of a puzzle because the site I used was actually quite detailed about it, with quotes which I paid no attention to because I was only looking for an illustration of my main point. I think it may have been about one of the early Municipal League conferences but the most likely one is Indianapolis. So I'd like it if you could clear this up by saying that I actually repudiate parts of my piece, not the general argument, which I think is actually correct - the number of horses and their by product was a major problem in late nineteenth century cities as Thompson and others point out - but those specific references. I'm actually researching a book now on this very topic, to be called 'The Passing of the Horse' and looking at how horses went from a central position in economy and society to a marginal one in a very short time. One of my goals is to clear up those two references once and for all!"

I'd add to what Dick said that this column (one of many that I wrote for The Freeman) didn't attract any attention until a few years ago when it seems to have suddenly become an internet myth and at that point I started getting queries about it. the problem was that the source I had used had been taken taken down not long after I wrote the piece so I couldn't check the references readily. I am now doing this however as part of the work on the book. Steve — Preceding unsigned comment added by CrumpsallSteve (talk • contribs) 12:33, 1 June 2019 (UTC)