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The Nature of Sal: Mules and Environments on the Erie Canal
Ann N. Greene, University of Pennsylvania

   The mules of the Erie Canal are iconic, immortalized in the 1905 song “Low Bridge” about a mule “whose name was Sal.” Yet a thick crust of myth surrounds them, making it difficult to locate the historical mules. As hybrid animals mules inspire everything from affection to discomfort and contempt; they are blank slates for human projections.

   This paper looks at mules within the environment of the Erie Canal. From its construction in 1817, the Erie Canal transformed landscapes and was itself a new environment. Mules were hybrid inhabitants of this hybrid landscape. Canal boats were pulled by “horses” but how many of those were actually mules, why were mules chosen for use, how did the use of mules change over time, and how did mules come to symbolize the Erie Canal? What difference did it make when the mules largely disappeared after the rebuilding of the Canal into the Barge Canal in 1917?

   This paper explores how mules shaped and were shaped by the Erie Canal environment. It traces the larger network of knowledge, breeding, commerce, and use that surrounded mules, and how and why it intersected with the human-built network of the Erie Canal. It is part of a larger project on the environmental history of the Erie Canal that looks at the domesticated and wild animals in and around the Canal, at the engineering of the Canal, and at the role of the Canal in the emergence of ideas about nature in the 19th century.

Ann N. Greene is the author of Horses at Work: Harnessing Power in Industrial America