Wow, DT reader Sara either turned her kids loose in the street for the afternoon, or the whole clan has mad Googlin' skillz, because after Benjamin Harris's grandchildren's goat wagon, she sent a veritable parade of crazy animals pulling kids in wagons of yore:
The Turkey Wagons are just the start [below, unidentified, via laughgenerator]
This kid is even rocking' Farmer Gram's hat [via Wisconsin Historical Society, c.1910]
Here's an ostrich racing cart, but that dapper lad at the reins looks a bit old for this photo collection. [via solarnavigator.com]
No problem, here's an ostrich pulling a cartful of kids at a zoo in 1929 [via messybeast.com]
And here's a pig cart from 1910, clearly a banner year for exotic kids' draught animals. [via messybeast.com]
They're not strictly carts, so I'll leave it to you to visit messybeast.com and see the Laplander kid riding in the reindeer basket, and the dad with his kids on the yak. With the ostriches and the zebras on the same page, the whole thing feels like the Swiss Family Robinson.
Sheep cart pulling [a?] Yap Yap in ancient New South Wales makes me think Babe was not 100% documentary-accurate in its depiction of sheep/dog tensions. [via state library of nsw's flickr]
The craziest thing about this 1930 photo? Not that it's the only entry on the "Dogcarts & Lioncarts" page [via messybeast.com]. Or the warning: "Once it is fully grown, it would not be safe to harness a lion to give cart rides to children."
It's that Jackie from Luna Park Zoo, who was trained from 2 months old by Melvin Koontz, grew up to be the original MGM Lion. [thanks again to DT reader Sara]
my kids are OK...and someday will understand the sacrifice of quality family time we made for Daddytypes.
I think at least some of these may be from "tall tale" postcard genre:
http://museum.msu.edu/museum/tes/talltale/postcards.html
that's it; I no longer have any excuses to answer my daughter's incessant cries for a cart pulled by wild pheasants.
Tim,
I think the ostrich one is real at least. I have a picture of my great-grandmother in a faux ostrich cart, this looks waaay better.
I'm going to see if I can make a harness for those marmots out in the yard....
Heh,heh. And then there's the type pulled by human animals.
I'm pretty sure the Jackalope is real, though. Just went extinct after the Dust Bowl.
This is exactly what I was talking about in my latest post (http://dad.blogs.giggle.com/2010/04/14/get-out-outside-that-is/). Great way to get the kids outside!