Horse and buggy
Encyclopedia
British English
British English, or English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere...
and American English
American English
American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....
) refers to a light, simple, two-person carriage
Carriage
A carriage is a wheeled vehicle for people, usually horse-drawn; litters and sedan chairs are excluded, since they are wheelless vehicles. The carriage is especially designed for private passenger use and for comfort or elegance, though some are also used to transport goods. It may be light,...
of the late 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries, drawn usually by one or sometimes by two horse
Horse
The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...
s. Also called a roadster, it was made with two wheels in England and the United States, and with four wheels in the United States as well. It had a folding or falling top.
About
A Concord buggy, first made in Concord, New HampshireConcord, New Hampshire
The city of Concord is the capital of the state of New Hampshire in the United States. It is also the county seat of Merrimack County. As of the 2010 census, its population was 42,695....
, had a body with low sides and side-spring suspension
Suspension (vehicle)
Suspension is the term given to the system of springs, shock absorbers and linkages that connects a vehicle to its wheels. Suspension systems serve a dual purpose — contributing to the car's roadholding/handling and braking for good active safety and driving pleasure, and keeping vehicle occupants...
. A buggy having two seats was a double buggy. A buggy called a stanhope
Stanhope (carriage)
The stanhope was a gig, buggy or light phaeton, typically having a high seat and closed back. It was named after Captain Hon. Henry FitzRoy Stanhope The stanhope was a gig, buggy or light phaeton, typically having a high seat and closed back. It was named after Captain Hon. Henry FitzRoy Stanhope...
typically had a high seat and closed back.
The bodies of buggies were sometimes suspended on a pair of longitudinal elastic wooden bars called sidebars. A buggy whip had a small, usually tasseled tip called a snapper.
In countries such as the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, it was a primary mode of short-distance personal transportation, especially between 1815 and 1915. At that time, horseback riding
Equestrianism
Equestrianism more often known as riding, horseback riding or horse riding refers to the skill of riding, driving, or vaulting with horses...
in towns and rural areas was less common and required more specific skills than driving a buggy. Horsemanship, tended to be an aristocratic skill of larger American and British landowners, and North American western pioneers, the military and scouts. Buggies required at least crudely graded main roadways, where horses could go almost anywhere. The growing use of
buggies for local travel expanded, along with stage lines and railroads for longer trips. In cities, and towns, horse drawn railed vehicles, gave carriage to poor, workers, and the lower middle class. The upper-middle class used buggies,as did farmers, while the rich had the more elegant 4 wheel carriages for local use. In the late 19th century bicycles became another factor in urban personal transport.
Therefore, until mass production of the automobile
Automobile
An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...
brought its price within the reach of the working class
Working class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...
, horse-drawn conveyances were the most common means of local transport
Transport
Transport or transportation is the movement of people, cattle, animals and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, rail, road, water, cable, pipeline, and space. The field can be divided into infrastructure, vehicles, and operations...
in towns and nearby countryside. Buggies cost as little as $25 to $50, and could easily be hitched and driven by untrained men women or children. In the United States, hundreds of small companies produced buggies, and their wide use helped to encourage the grading and graveling of main rural roads, and actual paving in towns. This provided all-weather passage within and between larger towns.
During the 1930s, unemployment due to the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
and high gasoline
Gasoline
Gasoline , or petrol , is a toxic, translucent, petroleum-derived liquid that is primarily used as a fuel in internal combustion engines. It consists mostly of organic compounds obtained by the fractional distillation of petroleum, enhanced with a variety of additives. Some gasolines also contain...
prices meant many car owners in the U.S. and Canada could no longer afford to drive. The Bennett buggy
Bennett buggy
A Bennett buggy was a term used in Canada during the Great Depression to describe a car which had its engine and windows taken out and was pulled by a horse...
(in Canada) or Hoover wagon (in the U.S.) was an automobile converted to be pulled by horses.
By the early 1910s, the number of automobile
Automobile
An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...
s had surpassed the number of buggies, but their used continued well into the 1920s in out of the way places. Even in the 21st Century, the buggy is still used by the Amish
Amish
The Amish , sometimes referred to as Amish Mennonites, are a group of Christian church fellowships that form a subgroup of the Mennonite churches...
and other groups within various Anabaptist
Anabaptist
Anabaptists are Protestant Christians of the Radical Reformation of 16th-century Europe, and their direct descendants, particularly the Amish, Brethren, Hutterites, and Mennonites....
faith traditions as a religiously compliant, non-motorized form of basic transportation.
Today, the term "horse and buggy" is often used in reference to the era before the advent of the automobile and other socially revolutionizing major inventions. By extension, it has come to mean clinging to outworn attitudes or ideas, and hopelessly outmoded, old-fashioned, non-modern, or obsolete.
See also
- Buckeye Manufacturing CompanyBuckeye Manufacturing CompanyThe Buckeye Manufacturing Company was a company originally formed to manufacture horse and buggy parts. It was started in the later part of the nineteenth century and by the early part of the twentieth century was making parts and materials for the Buckeye gasoline buggy automobile as well as for...
- "A Double Buggy at Lahey CreekA Double Buggy at Lahey Creek"A Double Buggy at Lahey Creek" is a short story written by iconic Australian writer and poet Henry Lawson. It was Lawson's second story to include the character of Joe Wilson, however, chronologically, it is fourth and final in the Joe Wilson series....
", short story by Henry LawsonHenry LawsonHenry Lawson was an Australian writer and poet. Along with his contemporary Banjo Paterson, Lawson is among the best-known Australian poets and fiction writers of the colonial period and is often called Australia's "greatest writer"... - Driving (horse)Driving (horse)Driving, when applied to horses, ponies, mules, or donkeys, is a broad term for hitching equines to a wagon, carriage, cart, sleigh, or other horse-drawn vehicle by means of a harness and working them in this way...
- Equestrian use of roadwaysEquestrian use of roadwaysEquestrian use of roadways was routine historically, and continues to be routine in many parts of the world today. It is subject to a wide variety of regulatory, policy, management, and technical issues.-Direction of travel:...
- Horse harnessHorse harnessA horse harness is a type of horse tack that allows a horse or other equine to pull various horse-drawn vehicles such as a carriage, wagon or sleigh. Harnesses may also be used to hitch animals to other loads such as a plow or canal boat....
External links
- Calisphere - A World of Digital Resources Search buggy. University of CaliforniaUniversity of CaliforniaThe University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...
. Many photos - Buggy Clipart Concord buggy Clipart Horse Drawn Buggy Clipart Educational Technology Clearinghouse, University of South FloridaUniversity of South FloridaThe University of South Florida, also known as USF, is a member institution of the State University System of Florida, one of the state's three flagship universities for public research, and is located in Tampa, Florida, USA...
. Sketches - Degenstein Gallery - Buggies: The Development of the Horse-Drawn Light Carriage in Central Pennsylvania Susquehanna UniversitySusquehanna UniversitySusquehanna University is a liberal arts college in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, United States, north of the state capital, Harrisburg.-Academics:...
, Selinsgrove, PennsylvaniaSelinsgrove, PennsylvaniaSelinsgrove is a borough in Snyder County, Pennsylvania, United States. It was founded in 1787 by Captain Anthony Selin, who fought with Washington in the Revolutionary War.... - Articles about Horse-drawn Carriages