Acknowledgments

The subject of this book came to me quite serendipitously. I was poking around on the internet one day reading about animal welfare in contemporary Poland when I stumbled across Peggy Reiff Miller’s Seagoing Cowboys website and blog. The site chronicles the remarkable story of American cattle and horses that were delivered as humanitarian aid in the years immediately following World War II. My curiosity was piqued. This book is the result.

My first thanks go to Peggy Reiff Miller. Peggy’s grandfather, Abraham Reiff, traveled to Poland on SS Pierre Victory in 1946 as a Brethren seagoing cowboy. Peggy translated this direct and personal connection to the history of the seagoing cowboys into an impressive research project that has spanned more than two decades. Over the years Peggy has interviewed dozens of cowboys. She has recorded their stories and has assembled the world’s largest private collection of photographs related to cowboy history. In my work I have relied on Peggy’s deep expertise on the subject of the seagoing cowboys and the Heifer Project, and I have benefited greatly from her meticulousness and attention to detail. I thank Peggy for her careful reading of my manuscript and for her willingness to provide follow-up elaborations, corrections, and clarifications. Peggy and I have never met in person, but we evidently share a deep respect for some of the ideals that shaped mid-century humanitarian aid programs. It would seem that the heifers and horses that are the subject of this book continue to bring people together in unexpected ways.

A few graduate students from Wilfrid Laurier University played a small but important role in this project’s earliest phase. Thank you to Stephanie Plante, Matthew Morden, and especially Rafal Stolarz (now Dr. Stolarz). Joanna Dobrowolska, a PhD student at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has been my research assistant since 2022. I am grateful to Joanna (and to her advisor, Keely Stauter-Halsted, who introduced us) for visiting Polish and American archives on my behalf during the COVID-19 pandemic and for being unfailingly professional, methodical, diligent, patient, and flexible over the few years that we have worked together. I could not have asked for a more talented and committed RA. I offer my thanks to Yelena Abdullayeva as well for an early reading of the manuscript and for the many conversations we have had over the years; these always leave me a little better informed. Thanks to Piotr Wróbel, too, for steady background encouragement, and to my terrific colleagues in the History Department at Wilfrid Laurier University. I would also very much like to thank the manuscript peer reviewers; I appreciate their enthusiasm, generous comments, and good questions.

A number of archivists and librarians facilitated access to the materials needed for this book, but a few stand out for going above and beyond: Jen Houser and Allison Snyder from the Brethren Historical Library and Archives in Elgin, Illinois; Wendy Chmielewski and Anne Yoder of Pennsylvania’s Swarthmore College Peace Collection; Jason Kauffman and Eva Lapp at the Mennonite Church Archives in Elkhart, Indiana; and Annabella Irvine of the Slavic Reference Service at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The staff at the Library and Archives Reference Desk from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum facilitated digital access to material from the United Nations Archives when travel was not possible; this was a big help. Amy Menary at Wilfrid Laurier’s Inter-Library Loans department has worked for years fulfilling one challenging request after another for me. I extend general thanks to the staff at the United Nations Archives in New York City as well as to the staff at the Archive of Modern Documents in Warsaw, Poland. Thanks to Amy Farranto, senior acquisitions editor, Northern Illinois University Press, and to Christine Worobec, series editor, Northern Illinois University Press Series in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, for their early interest in this subject. Thanks to Ellen Labbate of Cornell University Press for her work on the photographs. I would also like to thank Michelle Dusek Izaguirre, Vice President of Resource Development Operations at Heifer Project International, for the stimulating conversation and support.

I am grateful to my friends and to the different parts of my family in Kitchener-Waterloo, Toronto, and Ottawa for their love, support, and wit. Most of all I thank my husband Bob and our son Townes—both for asking about my book and for ignoring it. You make me keep things in perspective, always. What a privilege it is to spend my days with you.

Research for this book was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

The title of the book is taken from an article titled “Heifers—Relief on the Hoof.” This article appeared in The Weekly Processor on July 15, 1946. The Weekly Processor was published by the United Church Service Center in New Windsor, Maryland.