Canids and Humans in Oklahoma: How Rabies Shaped the Interactions Between Humans, Dogs, and Coyotes in Oklahoma between 1870 and 1920

Abstract

Focusing on the period between 1870 and 1920 in Oklahoma, this thesis examines the ways in which rabies and hydrophobia shaped the interactions between humans, dogs, and coyotes, primarily by examining the ways in which these relationships developed among settlers. This paper begins with a general medical history of rabies during this time period before moving to a discussion of false hydrophobia and the debate as to whether or not rabies was a disease. This then leads to the issue of the ways in which rabies manifested as a public spectacle, spreading concerns about the illness. Lastly, the paper discusses how the economic implications of rabies were intertwined with broader understandings of coyotes, rabies, and the success of Oklahoma as a settler state. This thesis involves primarily discussions of medical history and animal history. Animal histories frequently struggle to find traces of animals in archives, and the topic of rabies is one where they have clearly left an impression. Medical histories have examined rabies in the past, although usually in terms of a personal tragedy but an economic insignificance. However, both historiographies have ignored the ways in which settlers in Indian Territory and then Oklahoma, as a relatively rural area and an area that was colonized later than the rest of the United States, would have a very different relationship with dogs, coyotes, and rabies.