For the Prevention of Cruelty: The History and Legacy of Animal Rights Activism in the United StatesAnimal rights. Those two words conjure diverse but powerful images and reactions. Some nod in agreement, while others roll their eyes in contempt. Most people fall somewhat uncomfortably in the middle, between endorsement and rejection, as they struggle with the profound moral, philosophical, and legal questions provoked by the debate. Today, thousands of organizations lobby, agitate, and educate the public on issues concerning the rights and treatment of nonhumans. For the Prevention of Cruelty is the first history of organized advocacy on behalf of animals in the United States to appear in nearly a half century. Diane Beers demonstrates how the cause has shaped and reshaped itself as it has evolved within the broader social context of the shift from an industrial to a postindustrial society. Until now, the legacy of the movement in the United States has not been examined. Few Americans today perceive either the companionship or the consumption of animals in the same manner as did earlier generations. Moreover, powerful and lingering bonds connect the seemingly disparate American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals of the nineteenth century and the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals of today. For the Prevention of Cruelty tells an intriguing and important story that reveals society’s often changing relationship with animals through the lens of those who struggled to shepherd the public toward a greater compassion. |
From inside the book
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... Animal Advocacy Evolves, 1915–45 91 six “Our Most Strenuous Protest” Antivivisection before 1945 119 seven The Road to Liberation The Rise of the Postwar Movement and the Era of Legislation, 1945–75 147 Epilogue 197 Notes 203 ...
... animal activists and society as a whole have inherited from their mostly ... Liberation, the movement experienced a veritable organizational explosion ... animal welfarists, protectionists, zoophilists, humanitarians, rightists, and, most ...
... Liberation ideology emerged mostly after 1975 and thus falls beyond the scope of this study, but it simply presents the most radical, uncompromising articulation of animal rights by demanding an immediate end to the speciesism (a ...
... animal advocacy movement from 1865 to 1975, the year when Peter Singer's book signaled a shift in the cause toward liberation ideology. Rejecting many of the accepted interpretations, I contend that this cause has been far more ...
... animal advocacy movement planted a firm foot in society. And by 1975, humanitarians had constructed an impressive framework of legal and cultural precedents on which the next generation of radicals would build animal liberation. And so ...
Contents
1 | |
19 | |
39 | |
59 | |
5 Reaching Out to the Mainstream | 91 |
6 Our Most Strenuous Protest | 119 |
7 The Road to Liberation | 147 |
Epilogue | 197 |
Notes | 203 |
Bibliography | 267 |
Index | 295 |