Our Kindred Creatures

Starred review from February 12, 2024
A colorful menagerie of characters fills this radiant history of the tumultuous first three decades (1866–1896) of America’s animal welfare movement. Wasik, editorial director of the New York Times Magazine, and veterinarian Murphy (coauthors of 2012’s Rabid) describe how after the Civil War, many antislavery activists turned their focus to animal cruelty. Their numbers included abolitionist lawyer George Thorndike Angell, who in 1868 founded the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. In New York City, Henry Bergh’s activism helped pass municipal legislation in 1866 outlawing animal abuse, after which Bergh personally arrested carriage drivers, dog fighters, and even a sea captain transporting turtles under inhumane conditions. Other notable crusaders included Caroline Earle White, who in 1871 opened the first dog shelter, and ornithologist Florence Merriam Bailey, whose contributions to Audubon Magazine turned public opinion against massacring birds to collect feathers for fashion accessories. Wasik and Murphy’s multilayered narrative teases out how the era’s animal and human rights causes often intersected (the U.S. military’s mission to subjugate Native American tribes by exterminating the buffalo on which they depended drew reprimands from humanitarians and ASPCA members alike), and the profiles breathe life into the legal and moral campaigns. The result is a scintillating overview of how animals earned legal rights and moral sympathy in the latter half of the 19th century. Photos. Agent: Elyse Cheney, Cheney Agency.

March 1, 2024
In today's world, it's pretty common for pets to be regarded as treasured family members and for zoos and circuses to come under close scrutiny regarding their animal-treatment practices. In early nineteenth-century America, these same animals were considered commodities and were often ill-used and exploited. This extensively researched account from the authors of Rabid takes a deep dive into how attitudes changed during the years following the Civil War, thanks to the efforts of advocates such as publisher George Angell, who brought Black Beauty to American audiences, ASPCA founder Henry Bergh, and others who campaigned against medical experimentation and food-production abuses. Wasik, an editorial director at the New York Times Magazine, and veterinarian Murphy effectively document the often bizarre moral stances and confounding social campaigns of late-1800s America, citing editorials and speeches while showcasing reproductions and period illustrations along with references to figures (and occasional adversaries) such as P. T. Barnum. Of obvious appeal to animal lovers, this engaging account will also resonate with readers who enjoy in-depth looks at the history and shaping of contemporary American values.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

March 1, 2024
The authors of Rabid return with an examination of the historical shift in attitudes of Americans toward animals. Wasik, editorial director of the New York Times Magazine, and Murphy, a veterinarian, focus on the mid to late 1800s, when "America was collectively waking up to animal suffering....It was as if, in the span of little more than a decade, animals had gone from being seen as objects, mere things that humans were justified in treating however they might like, to being creatures whose joys and sufferings had to be taken into consideration." However, this social movement did not occur without resistance. Horses carrying heavy loads down increasingly busy streets were frequently treated cruelly, dogfighting was a common form of entertainment, and live rabbits were used by medical schools for demonstrations. This era also saw the rapid decrease in the bison population as white settlers expanded into the frontier, and countless American birds were "being slaughtered wholesale for the cause of fashion." Wasik and Murphy explore all of these topics compassionately. Central to the discussion is Henry Bergh, who founded the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in 1866. The authors describe the "unexpected" and sometimes contentious relationship between Bergh and showman P.T. Barnum, and they report how the "grim, poorly ventilated" slaughterhouses in Chicago were initially met by the public with "a strange sort of fascination." Wasik and Murphy share the contributions of other activists that "propelled the anti-cruelty cause forward," including Philadelphian Caroline Earle White and Bostonian Emily Appleton, who were successful in establishing local chapters of the ASPCA, and George T. Angell, editor of Our Dumb Animals, an unusually named publication that ran for more than 80 years, advocating for their humane treatment. A well-researched account that strikes a nice balance between description and analysis.

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