Philip Homan to Present Paper

Oboler Library Professor Philip Homan will present a paper, “Moving Horses: War Horses from the American West to the South African War, 1899-1902,” at the “Horses, moving” Conference in Stavanger, Norway, September 25-27, 2018. Sponsored by the Arkeologisk museum, Universitetet i Stavanger, and Høgskulen for landbruk og bygdeutvikling, the cross-disciplinary conference on horses in human societies throughout history applies motion studies to horses in order to study the human-horse relationship from the perspective of movement.

More horses were sent to the South African War from the United States than the UK and the Commonwealth combined. Most came from the American West, 7% from a single ranch in Idaho. It was one of the largest and longest movements of horses in history. Homan’s paper will look at the experience of the South African War horse along the entire trajectory from Idaho to the Transvaal through the prism of the mobility, mobilization, movements, and emotions of these horses.

Of the 27 papers, from Scandinavia, Continental Europe, the UK and Ireland, Central Asia, New Zealand, and Canada, Homan’s paper will be one of only four from the USA.