Figure 1.--Here we see a great goat and cart. And dad has conviently added the date like an auto tag so we know the photofraph was taken in 1923. Richmond may mean Virginia, but there are other towns named Richmond. The children in the cart look to be about 3-4 tears old. The older by standing may be about 6 uears old. It is alittle difficult to tell waht they are weaing, but I think the older oy is wearing coveralls.

We are not sure when these carts first appeared, largely because before the advent of photographt there is little evidence of them. We supect that before the 19th century, not that much attention was given to entertaining children. There could have been some wealthy families on plantations which may have had them, but we have not yet found any evidence in paintings. This appraently changed in the 19th century as different attitudes toward children and child care became standard in the Victorian era. Early photography was mostly limited to the studio, so we do not begin to see many photographs until the late-19th century. Once the family snapshot appeared after the turn-f-the 20th century we see quite a large number of these animal cart photographs. This continue into the 1920s, but subsequently we see far fewer images. We have found only a few such images in the 1930s. We are not entirely sure why. The declining farm population and smaller families may be part of the reason. Another factor may be the popularity of trikes that younger children could play with which were probably more fun for the kids as they could go faster and stear and prople with ease without all kinds os close adult involvement. A goat cart meant that you had to wrangkle the goat, get out the cart, put the haress on, and closely and then reverse the process. It is a lot easier to just lket the lids run around with their trikes and scooters.

Created: 1:38 AM 6/7/2019
Last updated: 1:38 AM 6/7/2019