Art for Animals: Visual Culture and Animal Advocacy, 1870–1914 9780271081632

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ART FOR ANIMALS

ANIMALIBUS VOL. 12

    Nigel Rothfels, General Editor Advisory Board: Steve Baker (University of Central Lancashire) Susan McHugh (University of New England) Garry Marvin (Roehampton University) Kari Weil (Wesleyan University) Books in the Animalibus series share a fascination with the status and the role of animals in human life. Crossing the humanities and the social sciences to include work in history, anthropology, social and cultural geography, environmental studies, and literary and art criticism, these books ask what thinking about nonhuman animals can teach us about human cultures, about what it means to be human, and about how that meaning might shift across times and places. Other titles in the series: Rachel Poliquin, The Breathless Zoo: Taxidermy and the Cultures of Longing Joan B. Landes, Paula Young Lee, and Paul Youngquist, eds., Gorgeous Beasts: Animal Bodies in Historical Perspective Liv Emma Thorsen, Karen A. Rader, and Adam Dodd, eds., Animals on Display: The Creaturely in Museums, Zoos, and Natural History Ann-​Janine Morey, Picturing Dogs, Seeing Ourselves: Vintage American Photographs Mary Sanders Pollock, Storytelling Apes: Primatology Narratives Past and Future Ingrid H. Tague, Animal Companions: Pets and Social Change in Eighteenth-​Century Britain Dick Blau and Nigel Rothfels, Elephant House Marcus Baynes-​Rock, Among the Bone Eaters: Encounters with Hyenas in Harar Monica Mattfeld, Becoming Centaur: Eighteenth-​Century Masculinity and English Horsemanship Heather Swan, Where Honeybees Thrive: Stories from the Field Karen Raber and Monica Mattfeld, eds., Performing Animals: History, Agency, Theater

ART FOR

ANIMALS Visual Culture and Animal Advocacy, 1870–1914 J. K E RI C RONIN

The Pennsylvania State University Press University Park, Pennsylvania

Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data Names: Cronin, J. Keri (Jennifer Keri), 1973–  author. Title: Art for animals : visual culture and animal advocacy, 1870–1914 / J. Keri Cronin. Other titles: Animalibus. Description: University Park, Pennsylvania : The Pennsylvania State University Press, [2018] | Series: Animalibus: of animals and cultures | Includes bibliographical references and index. Summary: “Explores the ways in which visual imagery was used for animal advocacy campaigns in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the ways in which these images were created, circulated, and consumed in a wide range of cultural contexts”—Provided by publisher. Identifiers: lccn 2017044690 | isbn 9780271080093 (cloth : alk. paper) Subjects: lcsh: Animal welfare—History—19th century. | Animal welfare—History—20th century. | Visual communication—History—19th century. | Visual communication—History—20th century. | Animals in art. Classification: lcc hv4705 .c76 2018 | ddc 179​/​ .309034—dc23 lc record available at https://​lccn​.loc​.gov​/2017044690 Copyright © 2018 J. Keri Cronin All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, PA 16802–1003 The Pennsylvania State University Press is a member of the Association of University Presses. It is the policy of The Pennsylvania State University Press to use acid-​free paper. Publications on uncoated stock satisfy the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Material, ansi z39.48–1992.

For those we choose not to see.

CONTENTS

ix

List of Illustrations xi

Acknowledgments 1

Introduction 27

1  Educate Them Artistically 70

2  Bearing Witness 100

3  Imaginative Leaps 130

4  In the Public Eye 167

5  Advocacy at Home 190

Conclusion: What Might Be 197

Notes 217

Bibliography 243

Index

ILLUSTR ATIONS

1. Jo-​Anne McArthur / We Animals, Pig on Transport Truck, Toronto, Ontario  2 2. Cover of Light in Dark Places  4 3. John Singer Sargent, The Misses Hunter  11 4. George Cruikshank, The Knackers Yard, or The Horses Last Home!  13 5. Sir Francis Burdett and His Little Girl  28 6. Sir Edwin Landseer, The Old Shepherd’s Chief Mourner  34 7. Sir Edwin Landseer, A Distinguished Member of the Humane Society  35 8. Samuel Cousins, print of Sir Edwin Landseer’s Saved!  35 9. Marianne Stokes, A Parting  41 10. Thomas Sidney Cooper, The Old Smithfield Market  44 11. A Night View of Smithfield Market  46 12. Charles John Tomkins, print of John McLure Hamilton’s Vivisection— The Last Appeal  48 13. Kindness to Sheep on a Cattle-​Train  51 14. William Henry Simons, print of Sir Edwin Landseer’s The Sick Monkey  57 15. Robert Morley, The Shadow of the Knife  64 16. Edward G. Fairholme, Landing Horses at Antwerp  72 17. H. W. Koekkoek, The Incoming Ship of Death  74 18. Kurt Peiser, Suffering’s End (The Death of the Old White Horse)  76 19. Reenactment of the Brown Dog Experiment  86 20. A. H. E. Mattingley, Starveling Egrets (Parents Shot for Their Plumes)  88 21. A. H. E. Mattingley, The Dying Nestlings (Parents Shot for Their Plumes)  89 22. MSPCA / Francis H. Rowley, For the Sake of a Veal Cutlet  93 23. W. W. Keen, Mouth gag as used in operations about the mouth   96 24. George Frederic Watts, A Dedication  101 25. W. L. Duntley, Why Not?  111 26. Robert Morley, Christ in the Laboratory  113 27. Is Turn About Fair-​Play?  114 28. Birds Robbing Child’s Nests  115 29. W. T. Smedley, Poor Little Doggie  118

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Illustrations

30. W. T. Smedley, They Discussed and Experimented  119 31. Walter Crane, Resolution. Anti-​Vivisection  121 32. Walter Crane, Victims of the Pot and Pan  122 33. Cover of Voices of the Dumb Creation  124 34. Linley Sambourne, A Bird of Prey  126 35. Linley Sambourne, The “Extinction” of Species, or The Fashion-​Plate Lady Without Mercy and the Egrets  127 36. Bernard Partridge, The Outcast  128 37. Harrison Weir, The Old Horse’s Appeal  132 38. Thomas Bewick, Waiting for Death  133 39. Joseph Whitehead, Brown Dog Memorial  142 40. Harris & Ewing, Mrs. Clinton Pichney Farrell, Mrs. L. B. Henderson, Mrs. Florence Pell Waring, Mrs. Caroline E. White, Miss Lind af Hageby, Mrs. R. G. Ingersol Gathered in Washington for the 1913 International Anti-​Vivisection Congress  149 41. British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection shop campaign in Bristol   152 42. American Anti-​Vivisection Society exhibit in Philadelphia, spring 1909 (Chestnut Street)  153 43. Delegates from the Fourth Triennial International Congress gather in Trafalgar Square after protest   163 44. National insurance bill protest   164 45. National insurance bill protest   165 46. Michael Joseph Holzapfl after Gabriel von Max, Der Vivisector  168 47. Underwood & Underwood, A Carnivorous Animal and Her Prey  176 48. Bessie and Her Pets  179 49. Mother and Child  180 50. Two Happy Mothers  181 51. Harrison Weir, The Mother’s Nine  182 52. “To Every Lover of a Dog”   186 53. Print of J. Yates Carrington’s The Orphans  188

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The visual culture of early animal advocacy has fascinated me for years, and certainly a project such as this could not be completed without the encouragement, support, and assistance of many people along the way. I received financial assistance for this project from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Humanities Research Institute and Office of Research Services at Brock University, and I am grateful for this support. I also wish to thank both the staff at Penn State University Press and the two anonymous peer reviewers for their assistance in bringing this book to fruition. I am also grateful to Nigel Rothfels, the general editor of the Animalibus series, for his support of this project. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the librarians, archivists, and reference staff at Queen’s University, the University of Alberta, Brock University, Library and Archives Canada, the British Library, the Wellcome Library, Hull History Centre, and the New York Public Library, who not only assisted me with various aspects of this project, but also care for the collections of research material. I am especially grateful for the assistance and kindness of Jan Holmquist, who oversees the archives at the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Boston, for all her help with this research. I also want to thank Lesley Bell, Brittany Brooks, Sonya de Lazzer, and Elysia French for helping out with my research at various stages of this project. Brock University has a wonderful community of scholars working on critical animal studies and human-​animal studies topics, and my conversations and friendships with Lauren Corman, Kendra Coulter, and Barbara Seeber have certainly sharpened my thinking about the intersection of animal advocacy and visual culture, for which I am truly grateful. I also owe a debt of gratitude to Carol J. Adams, Steve Baker, Diana Donald, Hilda Kean, and Harriet Ritvo for their groundbreaking work, which was so instrumental in my development as a scholar—in sum, these writers opened my eyes to the many ways in which animals, history, and culture are intertwined. I also want

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Acknowledgments

to thank Carolyn Merino Mullin, co-​founder and former executive director of the Animal Museum, for all the work she has done to highlight the importance of preserving and understanding the history of human-​animal relationships. Susie Coston and Siobhan Poole have taught me so much about kindness, caring, and compassion for all species, and those lessons have fueled my drive to understand how visual representations can have very real and important consequences for animals. Likewise, Mary Shannon Johnstone, Isa Leshko, and Jo-​Anne McArthur have inspired me through their work in many important ways. Thank you to Gregory and Lisa Betts, Alisa Cunnington, Amy Friend, Leah Knight, Fiona McDonald, Nikki Pinder, Maria Power, Kirsty Robertson, Linda Steer, Donna Szoke, and Kimberly Wahl for your friendship, kindness, and willingness to chat about art, animals, and advocacy over a pint of beer or a cup of tea. You have all helped with this book more than you could know. Likewise, I deeply appreciate the support and encouragement of my parents, Ruthie and Bill Casey, over the years. And, finally, to my partner, Laurie Morrison, and the wonderful furry friends with whom we share our home (Jill the house rabbit and Jenny, Tom, Ollie, and Ernie the cats)—thank you so very much for everything. This book would not be possible without you.

INTRODUCTION

On a cold, blustery autumn day, a small group of activists gather on a cement island in the middle of a busy road in Toronto, Ontario. Some hold illustrated placards and banners, while others hand out leaflets to motorists stopped at traffic lights. All are aware of the enormity of their task; they are here to bear witness, to watch transport trucks carrying pigs arriving at Quality Meat Packers, a slaughterhouse in downtown Toronto. This is a landscape that has, in many ways, been shaped by the slaughter of pigs. Toronto’s nickname, “Hogtown,” reflects the long-​standing history of this industry—from the nineteenth century onward, companies like the William Davis Company “processed” thousands upon thousands of pigs to satisfy the growing demand for pork in North America. On this day, just like most other days in the history of this industry in Toronto, the pigs are packed tightly inside the trucks, their fear, panic, and confusion clearly visible to anyone who looks inside. Very few do look inside, and this is why the members of Toronto Pig Save, a grassroots activist organization, repeatedly make the trek to this location. The members of Toronto Pig Save are here to bear witness, to hold vigils for the animals inside these trucks who are on their way to their death, to insist that these animals be seen and not forgotten. This scene was regularly repeated in this location until Quality Meat Packers closed its doors in the spring of 2014.1 Often, photographs were taken at these vigils, perhaps a close-​up shot of a pig peering through one of the oval holes in the metal sides of the transport truck (fig. 1). In the instant of taking the photograph, an exchange took place

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Art for Animals

Fig. 1  Jo-​Anne McArthur / We Animals, Pig on Transport Truck, Toronto, Ontario, 2011. Image © Jo-​Anne McArthur / We Animals.

and eye contact was made. The photograph asks viewers to take a second look, to realize that this animal is not a commodity but a living being on the way to her death. She has been seen, and her photograph has been taken. By the time her photo was circulated online on the Toronto Pig Save website and Facebook page, she was no longer alive. This image stands as a testament to the material reality of a once-​living being. Who will see her now? This use of visual techniques to call attention to the plight of the animals being transported to the slaughterhouse echoes actions taken by those who lobbied on behalf of animals in previous eras. There are countless examples in the history of animal advocacy, though most are forgotten now. For instance, in the spring of 1916 a group of concerned citizens in Cincinnati placed signs bearing the message “Be Kind to Animals” on the sides of railcars carrying cattle to slaughter. What was the reaction of those who witnessed these animals in these particular railcars? Did the addition of this poster give passersby occasion to pause and reflect on the treatment of nonhuman animals in modern society? The sight of cattle loaded in railcars was so common in this part of the United States at the time that few people probably even noticed it. Did the addition of this sign cause those accustomed to this

Introduction

3

sight to look anew at the scene unfolding in front of them? As one reformer noted, “if this motto could be placed on every car, especially those loaded with cattle, on every day in the year, no one could estimate the suffering that would be spared these poor animals before they are cruelly slaughtered.”2 In other words, it was hoped that the visual association between the words on the sign and the beings inside the railcar would be difficult to overlook. As with the Toronto Pig Save vigils, the specific location of this action was significant. Cincinnati was home to one of the largest slaughterhouse systems in North America in the nineteenth century, earning it the nickname “Porkopolis.” Descriptions of the city regularly noted how this industry shaped the landscape. In her 1832 account of her experiences in Cincinnati, Mrs. Frances Trollope noted that the streams were red with the blood of slaughtered pigs and that the air held an unpleasant odor, “which I heartily hope my readers cannot imagine; our feet that on leaving the city had expected to press the flowery sod, literally got entangled in pigs’ tails and jawbones; and thus the prettiest walk in the neighborhood was interdicted forever.”3  While Chicago eventually surpassed Cincinnati in sheer production, the Cincinnati market still “processed” “livestock” at a competitive rate: between 1875 and 1925, 60 million animals, including 10 million cattle, were “processed” in Cincinnati slaughterhouses.4 Cincinnatians thus had many opportunities to visually encounter animals who were part of this system.5 The placement of “Be Kind to Animals” posters on the cattle cars asked people to see these animals in a new light, as animals, rather than as objects processed in this industrial-​scale system. This process was entirely dependent upon using a visual strategy to interrupt established patterns of seeing animals. The presence of these specific posters in this specific location was an attempt to counter the sense of cultural invisibility that characterized the ways in which these specific animals existed in this landscape. In 1883, Frances Power Cobbe, the founder of the London-​based Victoria Street Society for the Protection of Animals from Vivisection, published an illustrated leaflet called Light in Dark Places (fig. 2). This thirty-​one-​page booklet reproduced scientific images showing both animal bodies being experimented upon and the “tools of the trade” used by those engaged in vivisection. By  using photomechanical reproduction of the various engravings and woodcuts commonly used in physiology textbooks, Cobbe attempted to “convey, in the briefest and simplest form, ocular illustration of the meaning of the much disputed word Vivisection.”6 In 1888, Cobbe helped the Philadelphia-​based American Anti-​Vivisection Society publish a similar

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Art for Animals

Fig. 2  Cover of Light in Dark Places, 1883. Image © The British Library Board.

illustrated pamphlet, this one intended to inspire the American public to join the fight against experimentation on animal bodies in the name of science. “Do Not Refuse to Look at These Pictures!” proclaims the pamphlet, indicating the central role of visual imagery in both the publication and the broader aims of the group.7 Once again, the leaflet contained illustrations of animals bound and being experimented on in laboratory settings. In each of these publications, the images presented a close-​up view of vivisection that few had a chance to witness firsthand. In each of these examples, visual techniques and technologies were used to draw attention to the suffering of nonhuman animals. While temporal and geographical differences separate them—the first is from present-​day Toronto, the second from Cincinnati in the early twentieth century, and the rest from nineteenth-​century London and Philadelphia—in each instance

Introduction

5

visual culture is central to the actions of those working to make the world a kinder, gentler place for nonhuman animals. While there are certainly many important historical and contextual differences between each instance of advocacy listed here, the prominence of visual tactics links them in important ways. The tension between what is seen and what remains hidden from view—what Timothy Pachirat calls the “politics of sight”8—has been at the heart of everything from late nineteenth-​century antivivisection protests to present-​day undercover investigations of “factory farms.”9 Further, in almost all cases, some form of visual culture—photographs, posters, video footage, scientific drawings, works of art—extends the process of visual engagement beyond the initial encounter and allows for multiple readings of these images. Visual culture has played—and certainly continues to play—an important role in the realm of animal advocacy. As W. J. T. Mitchell reminds us, “images are active players in the game of establishing and changing values.”10 How these images were created, circulated, and consumed had a tremendous impact on discourse about the “kind,” “cruel,” and “humane” treatment of nonhuman animals. As Hilda Kean points out, “whether particular aspects of animal cruelty were emphasized or not depended both on current practices toward animals and on wider political campaigns and priorities.”11 These categories, in other words, are not fixed but are historically and culturally contingent. During the nineteenth century, as Kean notes, what was seen, and by whom, underwent some major shifts—“more than ever, what was defined as cruel very much depended on who was doing the watching and what they were looking for.”12 As Jeremy James notes in his discussion of the live-​export trade, “who was to say what constituted cruelty, since there was no specific legal definition of the term.”13 Likewise, Jonathan Burt observes that “humane behavior is not simply a matter of deeds but is also a matter of being seen to behave humanely.”14 Our contemporary understanding of what it means to be “cruel” to animals, or what “humane treatment” actually encompasses, owes much to the visual politics of animal advocacy in previous decades. Visual representations of nonhuman animals have been inextricably linked to the actual lived conditions of those animals, and this continues to be the case today. In other words, the patterns of visual representation and the kinds of images used in advocacy campaigns have a “real-​world” impact on the lives of both human and nonhuman animals.15 As Virginia DeJohn Anderson points out, “how people think about animals influences

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Art for Animals

how they interact with them.”16 When it comes to the visual culture of animal advocacy, representations play an important role in shaping dominant ideas about and attitudes toward nonhuman animals. This book explores the ways in which art and visual culture were used in animal advocacy efforts in Britain and North American at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. Imagery was a central component of these campaigns, shaping discourses of what was “kind,” “humane,” and “cruel,” and these pictures were not peripheral illustrations of arguments articulated in written texts or impassioned speeches. Rather, visual culture played an important role in defining campaign goals, recruiting membership, raising funds, and, ultimately, sustaining and challenging dominant ideas about nonhuman animals. Ideas about animal welfare, animal rights, humane education, and (anti)vivisection were shaped largely through visual means. Although the intersection of imagery and advocacy undoubtedly had much to do with advances in visual technologies that enabled images to be shared with a wider audience, it also related to shifting understandings of visuality and how images functioned within the realm of modern life. As Kean observes, “the changes that would take place in the treatment of animals relied not merely on philosophical, religious or political stances but the way in which animals were literally and metaphorically seen.”17 Related to this is the way in which imagery has the potential to draw attention to that which is culturally invisible. What is seen, what is hidden, and what we as a society choose to look past matters a great deal when it comes to animal advocacy and other social justice issues. In the preface to his 1913 volume The Under Dog, Sidney Trist wrote that the essays in the volume “justify this effort to expose to the eyes of humanity the naked horrors which abound in their midst, and to which they are either blind or indifferent.”18 In much the same way, many of the sources I consider in this book used visual tactics to ask people to stop and take a second look, to rethink assumptions about the nonhuman animals all around them. Reformers also used visual culture to counter dominant ideologies and popular sentiment when it came to the treatment of nonhuman animals. For example, as Bert Hansen has demonstrated in the context of science and medicine, imagery went a long way toward shaping popular opinion about and enthusiasm for what were hailed as medical breakthroughs. In particular, images reproduced in the popular press lauded medical victories and created excitement about science.19 If images could popularize medical science, much of which depended on experimentation on animal bodies, then

Introduction

7

it should come as no surprise that those attempting to stop these activities also drew upon visual culture. Antivivisection activists, it would seem, had little choice but to fight picture with picture.

T HE V ISUAL CULT URE OF ANIM AL ADVOC AC Y

Animal advocacy is and always has been informed by visual culture. As Jonathan Burt notes, “there has always been a strong visual component to animal ethics and notions of humane treatment.”20 This sentiment is echoed by Diana Donald, who notes that debates about the ways in which nonhuman animals were treated were “often represented in imagery of remarkable force and interest.”21 Organizations such as the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (MSPCA) understood the importance of “motion pictures, slides, illustrated booklets, the newspapers and other forms of publicity” in drawing attention to things like “good and bad conditions of animal housing, harnessing, use and slaughter.”22 It is important to note, however, that animal advocacy is not a static or monolithic movement. To lobby for better treatment of animals has meant different things at different times, and such efforts have collectively been defined by a variety of approaches and tactics. Even decisions about which animals should be the focus of reform campaigns have shifted throughout history. For example, as Diane Beers notes, in the early days of organized animal advocacy in the United States, much of the focus was on animals who could be characterized as “wildlife,” but these efforts quickly faded when reformers “criticized sporting clubs for their hunting activities,” as these campaigns “antagonized a nascent but increasingly powerful conservation movement.”23 Further, as cities expanded and middle-​class suburbs arose, different ways of engaging with animals (visual or otherwise) came to define daily life in these spaces and consequently affected how and why animal advocates organized themselves. The plight of the cart horse and the proper treatment of “pet” cats and dogs, for example, dominated much literature produced by animal advocacy groups in the late nineteenth century. Shifts in technology also dictated the focus of those who worked to make the world a better place for animals. For example, as motorized vehicles replaced horses on city streets, campaigns shifted from the plight of working horses to other, more current issues. Likewise, as advances in both transportation and refrigeration brought tremendous changes in terms of the production

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Art for Animals

and consumption of meat, the treatment of “livestock” became more central to organized animal advocacy.24 Changes in visual technologies also ushered in new concerns about the treatment of animals—the rise of the motion picture industry, for example, raised new concerns about how animal “actors” were treated and represented.25 In sum, there are important differences in the various reform efforts that get subsumed under the umbrella term “animal advocacy,” and we must consider the specific context of a given campaign. One thing that remains remarkably consistent across the board, however, is the central role of visual culture in animal advocacy. In her study of political imagery in American visual culture, Patricia Johnston emphasizes that visual culture comprises “complex, ambiguous representations,” and that different types of images are in dialogue with each other. Popular and fine arts can be seen as mutually reinforcing in the construction of social values.26 Art for Animals is premised on the same point. I consider a wide range of images in my analysis of the use of imagery in animal advocacy. The distinction between “high” and “low” forms of art collapses in this context, as different kinds of images work in conjunction with one another and with broader debates about the role of nonhuman animals in modern society. So, for example, when an oil painting by a royal academician was reproduced on the cover of a small black-​and-​white antivivisection leaflet, my interest is not in the tension between the “high” art of the painting, exhibited in a gallery setting, and the “low” art of the illustrated leaflet. Rather, I am interested in how these vastly divergent ways of visually experiencing this same picture combine to generate, challenge, and question dominant assumptions about the ways in which nonhuman animals should be treated. Further, I am interested in both patterns of viewing and the spaces between the gallery and the leaflet, the social spaces in which discussion about both the specific animal and what he or she comes to stand for takes place. These spaces are messy, ambiguous, and difficult to pin down, but they are absolutely essential when we consider the ways in which images relate to the real, material, lived experiences of animals—both human and nonhuman. Art for Animals differs from most art-​historical writing in that it is not focused on one style or type of image. That kind of narrow focus would exclude a significant portion of the visual culture of animal advocacy. As we shall see, those fighting for a particular cause or issue may have employed prints, drawings, film, paintings, and photographs, and all of these images were designed to speak to one another and articulate a larger narrative.

Introduction

9

To isolate one kind of image for the sake of methodological simplicity would tell only part of the story. As the art historian Lynda Nead reminds us, different kinds of images need to be considered alongside one another. To separate images into discrete studies, bodies of knowledge, publications, and academic departments is, according to Nead, “to prevent a broader, intermedial understanding of how visual culture develops within a given historical time span.”27 Therefore, this study considers a range of visual techniques taken up by reformers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This is not, then, a history of any particular type of image, nor is it an in-​depth history of any specific advocacy campaign. Rather, the book considers how visual culture (in the most general sense) functioned in these early efforts to make the world a better place for nonhuman animals. So how did the reformers involved in animal welfare, animal rights, antivivisection, and humane education during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries conceive of images working? How did members of the public respond to the images these reformers used to advance their cause? Answering these questions can present some challenges, as we can never know for certain how a given image would be read and understood by an individual viewer. Engaging with visual culture is not something that happens in isolation—each viewer brings his or her own experiences, understandings, and ideas to the viewing process, and the intended meaning of an image is not always the one that is received. Further, the context in which an image is viewed plays an important role in shaping how it is understood. That said, we can draw upon newspaper articles, exhibition reviews, and animal advocacy publications for clues about how those who worked with these images thought they might best work. As W. J. T. Mitchell notes in What Do Pictures Want? The Lives and Loves of Images, we need to be attuned to such questions as “Who or what is the target of the demand/desire/need expressed by the picture?” We also need to consider what is left out of an image. As Mitchell puts it, “what does its angle of representation prevent us from seeing, and prevent it from showing? What does it need or demand from the beholder to complete its work?”28 Mitchell’s questions remind us that viewers of visual culture are not passive consumers but play an active role in the creation and contestation of its meaning. In much the same way that different kinds of images were used in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-​century animal advocacy, the work of a wide variety of artists was also incorporated. In some cases, the artists were well known—Sir Edwin Landseer’s work was of particular interest in this

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Art for Animals

context. Other artists were not well known, and there is little in the historical record about them. Much of the visual culture in these campaigns was produced by amateur artists, people who wanted to support the cause but had little or no professional training. Some of the images discussed in this book were made specifically for the purpose of animal advocacy and can be considered early examples of what Nato Thompson calls “art-​activism.”29 But many of the images used in animal advocacy during this period were not originally intended for this purpose. Landseer’s paintings, for example, were frequently appropriated and recontexualized for animal welfare, animal rights, antivivisection, and humane education campaigns in the decades after his death. Animal advocates thought about the imagery used in these campaigns in a number of ways. In some instances, they considered images a way of “bearing witness,” a seemingly transparent window through which to view cruelties taking place in other locations. Representations were treated as if they were truthful, unmediated documents, although, as I argue, the politics of representation informing these images generated many meanings that disrupted and challenged this sense of veracity. In other instances, images were seen as imaginative spaces, sites of fantasy in which human and nonhuman animals switched roles, or in which such “otherworldly” characters as angels swooped in to rescue animals from impending cruelty. This fact/ fiction binary was an important aspect of early animal advocacy, and sometimes both types of images were used in tandem. The use of images was also considered an important aspect of making the world a kinder, gentler place for all species. Some reformers felt that children should learn to make art because this would make them more sensitive and therefore more likely to be kind and compassionate to other species. Those working to make the world a kinder, gentler place for all animals in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries took images seriously and often went to considerable effort and expense to include illustrated material in their campaigns, a testament to the relative importance they placed on the ability of visual material to persuade people to change how they thought about and treated nonhuman animals. Frances Anne (Fanny) Kemble, a celebrated nineteenth-​century British actor and friend of Frances Power Cobbe, was struck by the importance Cobbe placed on visual culture as part of her antivivisection activism. “I go to see her at her office sometimes,” Kemble wrote, “and find the table strewed with pictorial appeals to the national humanity—portraits of dogs and horses, etc., by famous masters, coarsely

Introduction

11

Fig. 3  John Singer Sargent, The Misses Hunter, 1902. Image © Tate, London 2017.

reproduced in common prints, with, ‘Is this the creature to torture?’ printed above them.”30 The link between animal advocacy and visual culture was so important and obvious that it was even taken up by the editors of Punch in 1902. The satirical magazine poked fun at many aspects of modern life, and the advocacy work of groups like the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) was no exception. In a humorous article titled “Artists at Bow Street,” Punch reported on alleged (although entirely fabricated for the purposes of satire) charges of animal cruelty levied against the artist John Singer Sargent for the representation of the dog in the foreground of his triple portrait, The Misses Hunter (fig. 3). A black-​and-​white dog, presumably a family pet, accompanies the three women in the portrait. The dog lies on his side on top of the long skirt of the woman in the center of the portrait. He is clearly a beloved, well-​cared-​for animal who is considered part of the family. In the satirical Punch article, however, concern is expressed over his safety and well-​being, as he is in danger of falling right out of the painting! “The position of the dog in the foreground was not only unsafe but dangerous, as the strain imposed on the thyroid ganglia of the unfortunate animal, in order to prevent itself from rolling out of the picture, was heart-​rending to contemplate.” The article then reported on the “evidence” given by leading animal advocates, including Cobbe. Mr. Stephen Paget, a leading supporter of vivisection, “replied for the defence” by calling to the witness stand the

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Art for Animals

dog, who proceeded to shower Sargent with affection.31 This is typical of Punch humor and is obviously not a serious call to action in terms of animal advocacy. And yet Punch’s connection between art and animal advocacy is significant, and perhaps unintentionally underscores important connections between representation and the lived realities of nonhuman animals. The use of visual culture in animal welfare advocacy during this period was so widespread, in fact, that later reformers lamented the decline in the use of image-​based tactics. In 1918, for example, Ed H. Packard, a field agent for the MSPCA, regretted the loss of the more visual tactics employed by early reformers like MSPCA founder George  T. Angell, and stressed the importance of “pictorial publicity” as a way to “correct the existing injustice to animals.” He argued in particular that antivivisection efforts needed both “a vigorous press and pictorial exposure that will stir the people to abolish or humanely regulate it.”32 Packard’s frustration with the lack of “effective publicity” emphasizes the degree to which imagery and visual tactics were considered beneficial from the early days of animal advocacy. Like today’s animal rights advocates, early reformers sought to strike a balance between images that would appeal to people’s compassion and those that would repel people and turn them away from the cause. As early as 1831, this concern surfaced in relation to animal advocacy in a review in the London Literary Gazette that complained profusely about the use of graphic images in the Voice of Humanity, an early animal welfare periodical published in Britain.33 The reviewer took particular issue with an etching of the “knackers yard” by George Cruikshank, an image that the artist hoped would call attention to the appalling fate of many old, unwanted horses (fig. 4). In this etching, the viewer is confronted with the disturbing image of a horse being beaten by the driver of a cart that is pulling the remains of another dead or dying animal to the knacker’s yard.34 On the right, the supervisor of the yard callously watches his charges without any regard for their condition. One starving horse is gnawing on the mane of another, and scattered throughout the scene are animals in their final agonizing hours, too weak even to stand up. “We acknowledge that the evil is disgraceful and disgusting,” wrote the Literary Gazette, “but this sort of exposure of it is in bad taste,” and reformers should be mindful of “offending public feeling.”35 While this review predates the period covered in this book, I include it here because it illustrates the point that this concern about graphic imagery has a long history. This is, in other words, not an issue unique to our social-​media-​driven twenty-​first-​ century society.

Introduction

13

Fig. 4  George Cruikshank, The Knackers Yard, or The Horses Last Home! Published in the Voice of Humanity, 1830. Image © The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved.

CIRCUL AT ION OF IM AGE S

In their introduction to Sensible Politics: The Visual Culture of Nongovernmental Activism, Meg McLagan and Yates McKee argue that when considering the role of imagery in reform movements, it is important to look beyond a single image and consider what they refer to as the “image complex,” to think critically about “the channels of circulation along which cultural forms travel, the nature of the campaigns that frame them, and the discursive platforms that display and encode them in specific truth modes.”36 McLagan and McKee are writing about political images in the twenty-​first century, but this notion of the “image complex” also holds true for pictures made and circulated in previous historical eras. No single image (or set of images) contains an inherent, indisputable meaning. The meaning of any given image is malleable, and we must attend to the processes by which an image is created, circulated, consumed, and contested when considering the visual culture of social reform. Certain kinds of images, and indeed particular pictures, were repeated over and over again in animal advocacy in the late nineteenth and early

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Art for Animals

twentieth centuries. Animal advocates in Britain and North America would have encountered many of the same images more than once, often in different contexts, and this sense of repetition built up an iconography of animal advocacy. Julia Thomas has written about the “inter-​pictoriality” that happens with repetition of particular images in social justice efforts, and she notes that this repetition serves “to reinforce the significance” of these visual narratives.37 This was certainly the case with animal advocacy at the turn of the twentieth century. For example, reproductions of paintings by Edwin Landseer became a standard visual trope in these advocacy efforts. Only a handful of Landseer pictures were used in this way, namely, those focusing on relationships between human and nonhuman animals through the lens of domesticated dogs or horses. Landseer’s well-​known “wildlife” images rarely made an appearance in these campaigns. As is the case today, reformers in previous eras adopted the latest visual technologies in their fight to make the world a more just place for all species. For example, the move away from wood engraving and toward photomechanical reproduction in the late nineteenth century “hastened the development of illustration as a popular art.”38 Prints created photomechanically were very popular in the context of animal advocacy. Likewise, as photography and film became viable commercial media, they were adopted by those working in the fields of animal welfare, animal rights, antivivisection, and humane education. Written text originally accompanied most of the images I focus on in this study. This is not to say that an image’s meaning or function is incomplete without text—far from it. But animal advocates during this period deliberately used text and image together in educational and reform campaigns. The text and image did not always generate the same kinds of meanings or understandings. In Pictorial Victorians, Thomas argues that when we examine visual culture from previous eras we need to keep in mind that “the relation between text and images” creates meanings that are “unstable and undecidable,” and that “this is a relation that is always in process, renegotiated from one picture and historical moment to the next.” As Thomas notes, the meaning-​making process depends on the “interaction between word, image, and viewer, and it is this interaction that allows for multiple interpretations.”39 I am also interested in where people encountered animal advocacy images in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As we shall see, many of these images encouraged empathy in children, and more generally reinforced

Introduction

15

dominant middle-​class cultural values and virtues. This dynamic was especially evident when specific pictures were displayed within the domestic space of the home, something many of the advocacy groups actively encouraged. At the same time, however, exhibitions and other public displays of visual culture brought the message of animal advocacy to a broader audience and were an important aspect of these educational and advocacy campaigns. These techniques and tactics helped to carve out a space for animal advocacy in broader public dialogues around nature, culture, and life in the modern city. Like all forms of visual culture, the images are visual texts informed by technological, social, cultural, and political factors. They are never neutral, objective glimpses of things “as they really happened.” They are always already informed by external factors, not the least of which is the context in which any given image is viewed.

C ON T E X T

I have chosen to focus this book on Britain and North America. As many historians have noted, Britain was a central site in the emergence of the modern animal advocacy movement.40 During this period, however, the activities of animal advocates in North America were strongly influenced by what their colleagues in Britain were doing, and there was much overlap and collaboration. For example, Henry Bergh, the founder of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), learned during a visit to London about the activities and organizational structure of the RSPCA, which influenced his establishment of the ASPCA in New York.41 Bergh was also inspired to fight for legislation prohibiting vivisection in New York after the Cruelty to Animals Act was passed in Britain in 1876. He was not successful in this attempt, but I raise it as a reminder of the ways in which the activities in Britain influenced animal advocacy in North America.42 We also know that Caroline Earle White, co-​founder of the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the American Anti-​Vivisection Society, “had developed a warm friendship with Miss Frances Power Cobbe,” and that “Miss Cobbe finally persuaded Mrs. White to organize a similar society in the United States.”43  Similarly, Baroness Angela Burdett-​Coutts, a high-​profile advocate for nonhuman animals in Britain, had a close working relationship with both Bergh and George Angell, founder of the MSPCA and the American Humane Education Society,44 and J. J. Kelso, the founder of

16

Art for Animals

the Toronto Humane Society, was actively involved with animal advocacy organizations in the United States.45 In short, the politics and visual culture of animal advocacy at this time frequently crossed the Atlantic Ocean, and reformers in Britain, Canada, and the United States often learned from one another and shared resources. I have therefore decided to consider the visual culture of animal advocacy in all three countries in this study. Of course, in  each specific geographical or temporal context, certain issues rose to the surface, while others received less attention from both reformers and journalists. Darcy Ingram notes that the nineteenth-​century animal welfare movement in Canada was much more conservative than similar reform efforts in the United States and Britain, and that there was a distinct “absence in Victorian Canada of the more radical edge that informed the movement in other parts of the Anglo-​American world.”46 Further, within this framework, the use of images is complex, at times even contradictory. That said, some general categories of advocacy received more attention than other issues from British and North American animal protection organizations during the last decades of the nineteenth century and the first years of the twentieth, including antivivisection, humane education, and the fight against “feathered fashions.” In addition, many reformers focused on the treatment of working horses in urban settings. Debate in one country was not isolated from discussion in the other two. And there is iconographic similarity across advocacy efforts in all three countries during the period under consideration in this book. This book focuses on the years between 1870 and the start of the First World War. The final decades of the nineteenth century saw a flurry of activity in the area of animal protection. While there are earlier instances of imagery created in the spirit of animal advocacy (for example, Hogarth’s Four Stages of Cruelty, published in Britain in 1751, and the Cruikshank image discussed above),47 it was not until the last third of the nineteenth century that the use of visual material in these campaigns was solidified. By the 1870s, visual culture had become an expected part of animal advocacy, and certain visual practices had become standardized. This era also saw a sharp increase in the number of dedicated animal protection groups that lobbied governments and attempted to shape popular opinion about the treatment of nonhuman animals. While there had, of course, been organizations dedicated to the protection of animals prior to the 1870s—most notably the RSPCA (founded in 1824), the ASPCA (founded in 1866), and the MSPCA (founded in 1868)—the final decades

Introduction

17

of the nineteenth century saw unprecedented growth in this area, as new organizations arose to address what were perceived as increased threats to the well-​being of nonhuman animals in the modern era. These organizations and their campaigns were not homogenous—some were dedicated to specific issues (antivivisection, for example), whereas others were more concerned with an overall sense of welfare for animals in many different circumstances. Further, as we see in some of the examples explored in this book, there was often tension between different groups working in animal advocacy. In general, however, there was a marked increase in organized animal advocacy in the period between 1870 and 1914. By attending to the politics of representation from previous eras, we become better equipped to understand the ways in which images in our own activist culture can destabilize dominant understandings of how nonhuman animals should be treated. As is the case today, activists working on bettering the world for nonhuman animals in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries found themselves embroiled in a battle of representation. How the issues were characterized, normalized, and complicated depended largely on representational strategies. Paying attention to the strategies of previous activists is especially critical in a world increasingly characterized by competing visual strategies. After all, many of the practices that animal rights activists today are attempting to stop are themselves the product of a long history of representation. As Anderson notes in her history of domesticated animals, “since England’s experience with livestock husbandry was so widespread and stretched so far back in time, inhabitants could not help but see it as normative.”48 What many take for granted, in other words, is often the result of a long and entrenched pattern of representation, one that is so readily accepted as “the way things are” that it barely registers as a specific cultural construction. It is this sense of cultural invisibility that many of the reformers studied in this book were attempting to challenge through their use of visual culture. Important contextual differences exist between our own time and previous historical eras, of course. As Katharine Grier reminds us, “even when we look back on past behaviors and label them ill advised or even cruel, it is important to understand what was possible and what was usual in a specific time and place.”49 In other words, judging the actions of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-​century reformers by twenty-​first-​century standards is neither productive nor beneficial. We need to consider the historical context of a given action or image and situate it accordingly. Likewise, we need to be

18

Art for Animals

attuned to the specific social, political, cultural, economic, and technological differences in different historical and geographical contexts. Animal advocacy was not a unified set of efforts during this period. Many different personalities were involved and many different organizations formed. Tension between members of a given group often led to the formation of breakaway groups, as when Frances Power Cobbe left the Victoria Street Society, an organization she had founded, to form the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection.50 Even within a seemingly single-​issue campaign such as antivivisection, there were different, and often competing, points of view among the reformers.51 In Britain, there was significant tension between two of the leading antivivisection organizations, the National Anti-​Vivisection Society (NAVS) and the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV). The most contentious issue between these two organizations had to do with the total abolition of vivisection. While the NAVS was keen to see its elimination, it was also willing to work incrementally through legislation designed to regulate experimentation on animals. The BUAV, however, “refused to deviate from an abolition policy.”52 A similar dynamic played out in the United States. ASPCA founder Henry Bergh was deeply committed to both antivivisection and animal protection more generally. However, after his death, the ASPCA moved away from the antivivisection issue, and this opened the door for the establishment of organizations like the American Anti-​Vivisection Society. But many prominent antivivisection reformers also worked for animal protection in a more general sense. Caroline Earle White, perhaps best known as the founder of the American Anti-​Vivisection Society, also “organized a temporary pound to house stray and homeless small animals collected from city streets.” Similarly, antivivisection activists protested what they saw as cruel treatment of cattle during transport.53 In sum, as is the case today, the politics of activism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was complex. Many of the people who were involved in animal advocacy during this era also were involved with other social justice campaigns, including women’s suffrage, child welfare, and antislavery. As Kathryn Shevelow notes, “many of the men and women who supported animal protection” were “involved in humanitarian struggles of great significance.”54 Earlier in the nineteenth century, Richard Martin, the Irish politician credited with passing one of the first laws against cruelty to animals, was “associated with a variety of progressive causes.” William Wilberforce and Thomas Fowell Buxton, two of the founding members of Britain’s Society for the Prevention of Cruelty

Introduction

19

to Animals, were both well-​known antislavery campaigners.55 In addition to antivivisection activities, Frances Power Cobbe “concerned herself with the reform of workhouses” and “the rights of women.”56 George T. Angell, the founder of the MSPCA, had also been an active campaigner in the antislavery movement in the United States,57 and J. J. Kelso, the founder of the Toronto Humane Society, also started the Children’s Aid Society in that city.58 The recognition that animal advocates were also involved in other social justice struggles points not only to the links between different advocacy campaigns, but also to the ways in which reformers shared ideas about which visual tactics would be most effective in a given context.

CRI T IC AL FR AME WORK

The animal advocacy movements under consideration in this book were shaped by notions of modernity and were primarily located in urban spaces. From witnessing cruelty to horses in the city streets to protesting the latest fashions or scientific practices, these campaigns were intertwined with life in the modern city. As Hilda Kean notes, “a new humanity towards the animals who lived, worked and traversed the urban domain becomes a distinctive part of modernity.”59 In her study of nineteenth-​century feminism, Deborah Cherry observes that “in the jostling, crowded, perplexing world of metropolitan modernity the visual assumed, and was ascribed, an increasing authority for telling differences and marking distinctions: seeing was elided with knowing.”60 In much the same way, animal welfare advocates drew upon this connection between the visual and patterns of thought about the treatment of nonhuman animals. From posters to lantern slides, and from films to art exhibits, there was a distinct visual quality to animal advocacy during this era. Scholars such as Chris Otter, Lynda Nead, and Jonathan Crary have demonstrated that new forms of visual engagement were occurring at this historical moment.61 Artificial light and new image-​making technologies combined with new ways of organizing and controlling society, and the visual culture of animal advocacy needs to be considered as part of this broader dynamic. Some of the questions that have guided my research include: How did imagery shape, and at times challenge, what it meant to be “kind,” “humane,” or “cruel” in the modern era? How did visual culture facilitate the process of witnessing cruelty, and what did it mean that these representations of

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Art for Animals

cruelty were always already mediated? How do “imaginative” images help carve out a space in which new possibilities for relationships between human and nonhuman animals could be articulated? In what ways does the context in which an advocacy image is viewed influence the way people respond to it? How did images help to define and reinforce a sense of shared identity among those advocating for animals? My work is interdisciplinary in that it is situated at the intersection of the fields of visual culture and critical animal studies. While I recognize that these images and their related campaigns can tell us a lot about the dominant attitudes and ideas different groups of humans held about both visual culture and the place of nonhuman animals in modern life, I am also mindful of the ways in which they held meaning for nonhuman animals, how representations are always related to actual, lived, material lives. As Jennifer Mason argues, cultural “ideas have been shaped by the presence of actual, animal nonhuman bodies that circulate in and co-​create with us this thing we call culture.”62 Just as it is important to see the pictures as pictures, to read their context and pay attention to their material and physical qualities, it is also necessary to remember that we are not only talking about representations of animals. There is always a connection with the lived lives of real animals to which those representations refer. In 1910, the New Jersey SPCA petitioned Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany to change a statue of himself because it depicted him astride a horse with a docked tail. Animal advocates have long protested the practice of docking a horse’s tail for reasons of fashion—not only is the procedure considered cruel because it causes “pain and suffering for a considerable length of time,” but it also prevents the horse from “protecting itself against insects, while the delicate parts beneath the tail are unnecessarily exposed.”63 The members of the New Jersey SPCA did not write this letter because they were upset about cruelty to an inanimate sculpture but because the statue normalized a cruel practice enacted on flesh-​and-​blood horses. Representations are linked to real-​world consequences. “Your Majesty knows . . . that the docking of horses is one of the most terrible cruelties which can be practiced on the noble animals,” the petition read. “We are of the opinion that it would be a mistake to leave the statue in its present condition. A long tail must be substituted. Such a change would not only improve the appearance of the statue, but put an end to the contention that your Majesty is not a believer in the aims of our society.”64 In spite of these protests, the statue remains standing (with the docked tail unaltered) along

Introduction

21

the Hohenzollern Bridge in Cologne. In the introduction to Representing Animals, Nigel Rothfels argues that “the stakes in representing animals can be very high.”65 This crucial point must be kept in mind. The ways in which we choose to represent other species undoubtedly influence the ways in which individuals of that species are treated, how their bodies are governed, and what actions against them count as “cruel,” “kind,” or “humane” according to dominant social and cultural values. While visual representations are also symbolic of human systems, structures, and sentiments, we must also consider what it meant to represent these animals as animals. Kean has argued that “what becomes increasingly important in the defining of appropriate behaviour towards animals is not only the perceived or potential status of the human but the situation in which the animal is seen.”66 We see nonhuman animals in a number of ways—through direct visual observation, but also through engagement with visual culture. What was the situation of the actual, material, lived lives of the nonhuman animals represented in these images? My work is influenced and inspired by studies of the relationship between visual culture and advocacy in other political and social justice movements.67 Nineteenth-​century temperance societies, for example, used visual culture to convey messages about the “demon drink.”68 As Julia Skelly argues, visual culture shaped dominant ideas about what addiction to alcohol looked like.69 In the early twentieth century, Lewis Hine’s photographs were credited with helping to usher in legislative changes regarding child labor in the United States—as Deborah Smith-​Shank notes, without these images, “the goal of child labor reform may have been much harder to attain.”70 Likewise, Deborah Willis and Barbara Krauthamer have argued that “the intensifying national conflict over slavery and black freedom [in the United States] played out through competing campaigns of photographic imagery.”71 In her analysis of the visual culture of the suffrage movement, Lisa Tickner convincingly argues that visual culture “was not a footnote or an illustration to the ‘real’ political history going on elsewhere.” Rather, Tickner sees the images used by women’s suffrage activists as “an integral part of the fabric of social conflict with its own contradictions and ironies and its own power to shape thought, focus debates and stimulate action.”72 My research on the visual culture of animal advocacy is inspired by these important studies; like Tickner, I argue that imagery is central to this political history. I am also indebted to the work of such scholars as Kevin Michael DeLuca and Finis Dunaway in the field of environmental studies. Their work has looked critically at the visual culture

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Art for Animals

of environmentalism, and has advanced the idea that “images are active rhetorical agents” in their own right, not “mere illustrations” or “passive mirrors that simply reflect historical change.”73 This important recognition has also informed my thinking about the visual culture of animal advocacy. Art for Animals joins a growing body of literature that explores the relationships between human and nonhuman animals, but it makes a unique contribution in that it brings a concern for visual culture to the study of these relationships. Several authors have published important works on the history of animal advocacy in Britain and North America, but none of these works explicitly focuses on the art and visual culture that were so central to these campaigns. Detailed histories of human relationships with nonhuman animals during this period have been written by a number of scholars, and it is not my intention to repeat their work here. Texts by such scholars as Erica Fudge, Diane L. Beers, Katharine C. Grier, Hilda Kean, Susan J. Pearson, Harriet Ritvo, and Kathryn Shevelow have been instrumental in informing my understanding of the many complex ways in which nonhuman animals figured in human societies during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and I urge anyone interested in the broader social, cultural, and political histories to seek out their work.

V ISUAL CULT URE AND ANIM AL S

Nonhuman animals have, of course, been represented in art for centuries.74 In many cases, the dominant understandings of these visual representations take nonhuman animals to be symbols of human values, ideas, culture, and concerns. Much recent scholarship in the fields of human-​animal studies and critical animal studies takes issue with this assumption—as Randy Malamud posits in An Introduction to Animals and Visual Culture, “animals in visual culture . . . suffer as a consequence of our habits of visualizing and acculturating them.”75 While this may be true of some forms of representation, this perspective does not take into account the visual culture of animal advocacy. While the images in this book are clearly linked to human concerns about the appropriate treatment of nonhuman animals, they also are situated in a context in which the actual lives (and deaths) of nonhuman animals are brought squarely into focus. Diana Donald’s work on the ways in which nonhuman animals were represented in nineteenth-​century British art draws connections between the

Introduction

23

representation of nonhuman animals and the broader contexts in which interspecies encounters take place.76 Likewise, Stephen  F. Eisenman’s thoughtful book, The Cry of Nature: Art and the Making of Animal Rights, addresses how dominant ideas about nonhuman animals are both sustained and challenged through visual means. Of particular interest is Eisenman’s attention to the resistance of nonhuman animals in these human-​centered cultural frameworks. My work builds on these texts by addressing how art and visual culture were so central to organized animal advocacy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, something that neither Donald nor Eisenman explicitly addresses. Recent work by Nato Thompson, Ron Broglio, and Steve Baker has addressed some of the ways in which artists have engaged with ideas about nonhuman animals in the twenty-​first century.77 Indeed, contemporary art seems a promising venue for thinking about and untangling some of the complex ethical issues around animals in our own time. The work of artists like Donna Szoke and Jessica Marion Barr, for example, stand as important models for using creative practice to think through some of the most challenging issues relating to our relationships with nonhuman animals.78 My work aims to extend this practice to previous historical contexts.

OV ERV IE W OF T HE BOOK

The first chapter, “Educate them Artistically,” lays the foundation for the rest of the book by outlining some of the ways in which art was linked to dominant discourses about education and personal improvement in the roughly half century under study. Animal advocacy publications from this era frequently included reviews of exhibitions and stories about artists, and this underscores the belief that exposure to art was an important part of fostering kindness and compassion for all species. Those who advocated the importance of the arts in this context had their favorite artists—pictures by Edwin Landseer, Rosa Bonheur, and Harrison Weir are among the most frequently reproduced images in the iconography of animal advocacy from this period. Visual culture was considered so important to animal advocacy that illustrated publications and other forms of visual spectacle became standard components of campaign materials. In this opening chapter, I consider some of the ways in which this transpired, and how, in some cases, the experience of making art itself was promoted as a way to create a better world for nonhuman animals.

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Art for Animals

In chapter 2, I look at the role that images played in the process of “bearing witness” during this period. Photographs, film footage, and in some cases graphic art were used to bring into focus cruelty to animals that was taking place out of sight. These images extended the process of witnessing through the circulation of visual culture—even those who were not able to witness atrocities firsthand were able to see and acknowledge them through the visual representations circulated by reformers. In this context, the dominant understanding of visual culture is that of an image standing as an unmediated, true-​to-​life look at what really happened. This, as I discuss, is a complex claim. This is not to say that these images were “fake” or inaccurate representations of what was occurring. Rather, through the examples discussed in this chapter, I point to some of the ways in which these assertions and expectations of visual culture can inadvertently unsettle the claims of animal advocates. Chapter 3 focuses on visual culture at the opposite end of the spectrum, on images that have no direct link or claim to “the truth” in a documentary sense. Rather, in “Imaginative Leaps,” I look at examples of visual culture that create alternative spaces in which to reexamine relationships between human and nonhuman animals. These images range from the ethereal to the truly bizarre, but they have in common the ability to imagine different kinds of engagements with animals and the potential to foster dialogue about how these “imagined realities” may actually come to pass. Chapters 4 and 5 switch gears and consider the spaces in which people encountered the visual culture of animal advocacy. Specifically, I am concerned with exploring how visual culture animated these discussions in both public spaces (e.g., city streets, town square) and the private realm of the home. These divisions between “public” and “private” are flexible and not as distinct as we may first assume. There are, however, important considerations about how imagery fosters ideas about animal advocacy in each of these types of spaces.

VAL UIN G ANIM AL ADVOC AC Y IM AGER Y

In the decade I spent researching and writing this study, I came to realize just how deeply this subgenre of visual culture has been undervalued. There has been little attempt to catalogue or archive the visual material used by animal advocates in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I discovered

Introduction

25

photographs, slides, prints, and paintings related to animal advocacy in a wide range of repositories, but in almost every case they were included as an afterthought, tucked in among other, more highly valued documents and images. At times, all I had to work with was a description of an image. I often felt like a detective—I would look for tiny clues (a brief reference here, a casual mention there) and follow all leads, though many turned out to be dead ends. When I began this work, I could not have imagined just how vast this topic was! I have been able to include only a small fraction of the images I unearthed, and I am certain there are many more out there, tucked away in attics, boxes, and libraries. It is my great hope that Art for Animals will prompt others to look for this material. As my research experience has demonstrated, the material under consideration in this book—the visual culture of animal advocacy from 1870 to 1914—has not always been valued. There are, of course, different kinds of value. When we talk about economic value, we must keep in mind that the visual culture of animal advocacy frequently took the form of prints, postcards, and leaflets that were relatively inexpensive to produce and typically considered disposable. (How many of us save the mailings and leaflets we get from animal advocacy organizations today?) Compare this with the value placed on original oil paintings that sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars at art and estate auctions. Such images are often well cared for, housed in climate-​controlled museums monitored by art conservators. A few such images had a place in animal advocacy efforts during this period, but the overwhelming majority of images considered here fall into the ephemeral category. This may explain in part why it has been so tricky to piece together this visual history—perhaps much of this material culture was disposed of because it was not seen as valuable by the institutions that guard and preserve our cultural heritage. Unfortunately, even on the rare occasions when this material has been carefully preserved and archived, it remains susceptible to damage, as when a fire destroyed part of the historical archive of the MSPCA in 2010.79 This leads me to another kind of value—cultural value. Animal advocacy has often been dismissed as trivial and framed as a marginal concern in relation to other pressing social and political issues. Only in recent years have we begun to see serious scholarly attention to this subject. Even within scholarship on animal advocacy, visual culture remains somewhat peripheral; the most celebrated and cited texts are those that address the legal or philosophical histories of organized animal advocacy. While active members

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Art for Animals

of animal advocacy organizations in the period under study here frequently and seamlessly incorporated art and visual culture into their educational campaigns, current rereadings of this movement have tended to neglect this intersection of art and activism. Until very recently, in  fact, the ephemeral material that constitutes much of the visual culture of animal advocacy fell outside the purview of art-​historical scholarship. In addition to the reasons discussed above about the relative value of these works, I suspect that this absence can also be attributed to the fact that many of these images feature nonhuman animals and often have sentimental overtones. Taken seriously, these images also challenge the trope of animal as symbol for human culture and thus do not fit neatly into traditional forms of art-​historical scholarship. There are some exceptions, but there has been little collective effort to learn about (or even preserve) these images and the stories they tell. And they do tell stories, about the people who created them and the societies in which they lived, but also about the animals represented. This book, therefore, is not intended to be an exhaustive catalogue of all the images used by activists and reformers working for animals in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Rather, it offers some ways to think about how images were used during this period, and it is my sincere hope that it will spark a conversation and a process of discovery about other images that make up this rich history.

1 EDUCATE THEM ARTISTICALLY

Perhaps it all started with a picture, a simple watercolor painting hanging on the bedroom wall of a young girl named Angela Burdett. Burdett, who later in life would be known as the Baroness Burdett-​Coutts and as a prominent champion for nonhuman animals in her role with the RSPCA, cherished a picture painted by Henry Bernard Chalon that hung in her childhood bedroom. The painting was a gift from her father, and, as Arthur Moss notes in his history of the RSPCA, “the painter would have been pleased to know his picture, coupled with the instruction on the care of animals that her father gave her, had influenced her mind” (fig. 5).1 Chalon was a well-​known animal painter in Britain during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and the picture in question “depicted a rural roadside spring and cattle-​trough, with two horses and a dog quenching their thirst, a boy with his faithful dog tending some sheep, with a village church and beautiful mountains filling up the background.” This tranquil scene of a rural idyll may not be the first image that leaps to mind when we think of the connections between art and animal advocacy, but it has been credited as an important influence on young Angela Burdett because “it touched the tender sensibilities of the child, and aided in fostering in her youthful mind a love for the animal creation.” This connection between viewing art and treating animals with kindness is a recurring theme in the literature of early animal advocacy. Chalon’s painting was not made with any reform, educational, or advocacy agenda in mind. In fact, as one commentator noted, “the painter little thought of the influence which in after

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Art for Animals

Fig. 5  Sir Francis Burdett and His Little Girl. Published in the Band of Mercy Advocate, June 1879. Image © The British Library Board.

years would be indirectly felt through this work of art.”2 And yet a direct connection has been made between this image and the advocacy work for which Angela Burdett would become famous later in her life. That Chalon’s painting did not originally have any connection to animal advocacy work is an important reminder that the processes by which meaning is derived from an image are complex and not static. Throughout the history of animal advocacy, as we shall see in the pages that follow, images have often been taken out of their original context and repurposed for education and reform efforts. Further, as with the Chalon painting, the meanings a viewer may associate with a specific picture may be quite different from the meaning the artist originally intended for the piece. This is as true today as it was in Burdett-​Coutts’s time. Burdett-​Coutts became well known as a high-​profile friend of animals and supporter of animal advocacy causes.3 Among other roles, she served as the president of the Ladies’ Committee of the RSPCA, an organization that she had long supported.4  She also funded a memorial statue and drinking

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fountain to honor Greyfriars Bobby in Edinburgh, and was “a generous contributor” to the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association, which was formed in 1859 to provide fresh, clean drinking water for both people and horses in the city of London.5 The Band of Mercy Advocate, a publication aimed at teaching children in Britain to be kind to animals, reproduced Chalon’s painting alongside a story about Burdett-​Coutts in its June 1879 issue. The editors found “much pleasure in giving our readers a reduced engraving from this favourite picture, which now has a place of special honour in her ladyship’s gallery.” By featuring this story and image from Burdett-​Coutts’s childhood, the Band of Mercy Advocate was not just sharing an interesting story about a very public figure. Rather, the editors were actively encouraging parents who might be reading the magazine with their children to think about the role of art in the raising of a kind, compassionate, and generous child: “We hope that this pleasing testimony to the value of a picture in a child’s bedroom will induce many parents to follow the good example of Sir Francis Burdett by decorating the walls of bedrooms and nurseries with instructive engravings and paintings such as will promote in the youthful mind a love of animals and birds.” The editors reasoned that if parents provided their children with appropriate art to look at, there was a good chance that those children would grow up to be kind and humane citizens. The editors also noted that many different images would be appropriate in this context, and that “parents of the present day possess advantages which were then unknown to Sir Francis Burdett. The splendid works by Sir Edwin Landseer, Harrison Weir, R. A. Ansdell, Edwin Douglas, and others, were then unknown.”6 This connection between viewing art and subsequent kindness to animals was a central component of many late nineteenth- and early twentieth-​century animal advocacy campaigns. As we shall see, work by the artists mentioned in the magazine became part of the iconography of animal advocacy during this period. This chapter serves as a framework for the remaining chapters of this book in that it sets up dominant ideas about how art and visual culture could be used as tools of education and reform by considering things like which artists and images were especially favored by those in the animal advocacy movement, as well as broader ideas about how images could educate and “civilize.” In some cases, like that of Angela Burdett-​Coutts, the association between art and kindness toward animals was rather loose; a chance encounter with an image was credited with setting someone on the path of kindness. In other cases, there was a more formal, concerted effort to bring art

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to situations where kindness to animals was actively taught and fostered. For example, humane education programs taught as part of school curricula, and community outreach and education programs, frequently incorporated art and art making into their lesson plans. Exhibits, lantern slide shows, and, later, films were also used in conjunction with meetings held by groups such as the Band of Mercy. Books and periodicals focusing on humane education were richly illustrated, often with reproductions of some of the most famous animal pictures of the day. Reformers working on behalf of animals during this era placed significance on art and other visual material, and in the animal advocacy literature we find frequent references to the importance of the arts in cultivating “kind” and “humane” behavior. The arts were seen as an essential aspect of educational campaigns aimed at making the world a kinder, gentler place for all species.

FAVORI T E AR T IS T S

There is, therefore, a long history of art being used in this sort of educational role when it comes to the treatment of nonhuman animals, and within this framework, specific artworks were used over and over again. Animal advocacy groups in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had their favorite artists and works of art. It comes as no surprise that these images featured nonhuman animals, but the selection of specific images points to a sophisticated understanding of how imagery could be used to convey ideas about the relationships between human and nonhuman animals in the modern era. Certain artists and artworks were reused often, and were sometimes recontextualized in different campaigns or geographical locations. Harrison Weir’s images, for instance, were frequently used in animal advocacy campaigns at the end of the nineteenth century. Weir, described as an “English fancier, animal lover, naturalist, author, artist, and poet,” became known for his images of animals, and advocacy groups were quick to point out that his artwork did much to “engender a love for the brute creation.” On the occasion of Weir’s death, the editors of the Journal of Zoophily, an American antivivisection publication, urged animal welfare advocates to take a moment to reflect on “how much our humble friends are indebted to him.”7 The work of Sir Edwin Landseer was especially favored by those working in animal advocacy during this period. He was celebrated as the “Raphael of

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animal painters” and praised for his ability to “endow his subjects with an exuberance of vitality and a bountifulness of intelligence which a less ecstatic genius would not have dreamt of.”8  While artists throughout history have painted nonhuman animals, what made Landseer so popular and such a favorite of animal advocates was his ability to convey a sense of individuality in the subjects he painted. In Landseer’s work, nonhuman animals were not decorative details; instead, the viewer was asked to consider each dog, cat, monkey, squirrel, or deer that Landseer painted as an individual sentient being capable of complex emotional, social, and intellectual experiences that were not much different from those of human viewers. As one reviewer noted, Landseer gave “to his fourfooted friends, turn by turn, an astonishing individuality. . . . It is not as if we had merely strolled into the paddock, or into the farmyard, but as if we were there brought face to face with the inner entities of their respective occupants.”9 In this context, the reproduction and circulation of well-​known Landseer imagery became part of a larger dialogue about the ways in which different kinds of animals (including humans) shared traits and characteristics, a dialogue that was intensified in the wake of Charles Darwin’s theories about the commonalities among species.10 When Landseer’s images were reproduced in the context of animal advocacy, they stood as important visual reminders that the certainty with which distinctions between humans and other animals could be made was up for debate. By the end of the nineteenth century, Landseer’s paintings were widely reproduced and easily recognized. Over the course of his career, more than one hundred engravers were commissioned to create reproductions of his paintings, resulting in what one biographer has termed a “thriving industry.”11 His obituary in the Times remarked that “his paintings are well known in the household of every educated man through the length and breadth of the land.” The Times reminded readers of the significance of printmaking technologies in the popularization of Landseer’s art, stating that his paintings of dogs were “well known to the world by the engravings of them.”12 The obituary in the Illustrated Review went even further: “among all the great artists who have ever lived, Landseer has owed more during his own lifetime than any other who could be named to the friendly and powerful co-operation of the art of the engraver. . . . It can hardly be a matter for surprise that Landseer’s name should have become a household word, or that his works should have known an ever-​widening circle of popularity.”13 In other words, when animal welfare advocates reproduced Landseer’s

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paintings, they could be sure that readers would recognize them. As Diana Donald has noted, Landseer’s animal paintings “were almost universally familiar to the artist’s contemporaries, and . . . they have never quite lost that familiarity to the public at large.”14 Another obituary argued that his art had shaped the public perception of animals: he “had the gift of controlling, directing, and even forming the popular thought, the popular imagination, and the popular affection.”15 Landseer’s animal images were not originally created for advocacy purposes. Landseer certainly was fond of animals, and most of the biographies about him recite details from his childhood that foreshadowed the connection with animals for which he would later become famous. Campbell Lennie writes, “almost as soon as he could walk, he was lifted into fields beside domestic animals and encouraged to draw them.”16 Further, as Diana Donald has noted, in some of Landseer’s early work we see “a series of morally charged paintings and etchings of suffering animals.”17 Later in life, Landseer became an outspoken critic of cruel practices toward nonhuman animals, cropping dogs’ ears or tying them up for long periods of time, for example.18 Landseer agreed to serve as vice president of the RSPCA in 1869 and was asked to testify in cruelty cases, but he was otherwise not directly affiliated with formal animal advocacy efforts.19 Landseer was not directly associated with most of the advocacy groups that would later repurpose his images for their campaign material, as most of them were formed after the artist’s death in 1873. His artwork, however, would be eagerly adopted by many organizations working within the related frameworks of animal welfare, animal rights, antivivisection, and humane education. The appropriation and recirculation of these images, then, became central to their use in the context of animal advocacy during this period. Despite Landseer’s limited direct involvement in animal advocacy organizations, the popular discourse surrounding the artist credited him with achieving one of the primary objectives of animal advocacy—namely, asking viewers to recognize that nonhuman animals possessed emotional and intellectual traits very similar to those of humans. For example, one reviewer noted that “Sir Edwin Landseer’s art is totally different in kind; he does not so much aim at obtaining a literal transcript of the animal, as getting into its mysterious mind, and showing the working of its instincts and affections.”20 And an article published in Bell’s Life shortly after the artist’s death argued that “whatever dogs do, their hope, their fear, their rage, their pleasure, their delights, their discourse, was the farrago of Landseer’s painting. . . .

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We were acquainted with it all before, but had really never seen it till we saw it in Landseer’s pictures.”21 Landseer was undoubtedly popular with the general public in his day, but his art also held a special place in the hearts and minds of late nineteenthand early twentieth-​century reformers working on behalf of animals. Landseer’s paintings were among the imagery most frequently reproduced by animal advocates in both Britain and North America during this period, several decades after the pictures were first exhibited. In the last decades of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth, Landseer’s images were repeatedly reproduced in leaflets and other publications produced by groups like the Victoria Street Society for the Protection of Animals from Vivisection (a group that incorporated one of Landseer’s dogs into its logo), the London and Provincial Anti-​Vivisection Society, the American Anti-​Vivisection Society, the Toronto Humane Society (THS), and the MSPCA, to name just a few. Of Landseer’s oeuvre, certain pictures were especially popular in this context, and three paintings in particular—The Old Shepherd’s Chief Mourner, A Distinguished Member of the Humane Society, and Saved!—were repeatedly reproduced in the pages of early animal advocacy. The Old Shepherd’s Chief Mourner is probably Landseer’s best-​known painting (fig. 6).22 Considered an “exquisite work” and a “true and most affecting transcript from nature,” this picture was painted in 1837 and exhibited at the Royal Academy the same year.23 It features a solitary dog with his head resting on the rustic wooden coffin that, the title tells us, contains the remains of an old shepherd. Many people consider this sentimental scene of a faithful dog refusing to leave his human companion’s side even in death the definitive Landseer image. John Ruskin, the celebrated art critic, had high praise for this image, and referred to it as “one of the most perfect . . . pictures.”24 It is, however, in another commentary on this painting that we find an even more poignant understanding of its influence. In  one of Landseer’s obituaries, the picture was celebrated for its ability to shift a viewer’s understanding of the relationship between human and nonhuman animals: “by the ‘Shepherd’s Chief Mourner’ we have all been cheated out of the pride of our humanity. And, losing this pride, we find that it has hidden from us a whole world of knowledge.”25 This painting, in other words, revealed for the writer—and presumably for at least some of the readers of his article—the extent to which a painting like this can reduce the “pride of humanity” and, in so doing, open the door to the recognition that human and nonhuman animals have much in common. This was the primary aim of organizations

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Fig. 6  Sir Edwin Landseer, The Old Shepherd’s Chief Mourner, 1837. Image © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

like the MSPCA26 and the RSPCA27 in reprinting this picture in their advocacy materials. Two other Landseer paintings were particularly favored by those working in animal advocacy: A Distinguished Member of the Humane Society (fig. 7) and Saved! (fig. 8). Both of these paintings focus on a Newfoundland dog, a type of dog that has a reputation for being especially skilled at water rescue. The Humane Society referred to in Landseer’s title is the Royal Humane Society of Britain, which was formed in 1774 and was originally called the Society for the Recovery of Persons Apparently Drowned. Landseer’s playful reference to the dog as a member of this organization acknowledges both the extraordinary rescue efforts performed by Newfoundland dogs and the “selfless” qualities attributed to all who perform marine rescues, human or canine. The relationship between image and text, in other words, focuses our attention on both the qualities that make this breed of dog unique and those that make this breed of dog seem decidedly like us.

Fig. 7  Sir Edwin Landseer, A Distinguished Member of the Humane Society, exhibited 1838. Image © Tate, London 2017.

Fig. 8  Samuel Cousins, print of Sir Edwin Landseer’s Saved! Published by Henry Graves, 1859. Image © The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved.

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In A Distinguished Member of the Humane Society, a large black-​and-​white Newfoundland dog rests on the water’s edge, his paws dangling casually over the edge of the cement dock while sea birds hover in the background. It is not clear whether this dog is catching his breath after a recent rescue or waiting attentively to be called into service. What is important is the legendary life-​ saving ability attributed to this breed of dog. This painting was “reputed to be the noblest picture of a Newfoundland extant,”28 and its many reproductions cemented the relationship between Landseer and Newfoundlands, so much so that even today a black-​and-​white Newfoundland dog is referred to as a “Landseer.”29 This picture was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1838 and proved so popular that in 1839 the artist’s brother, Thomas Landseer, was commissioned to make an engraving of it so that copies could be sold.30 The dog who posed for this painting was named Paul Pry. There are several stories about how Landseer met this dog—in some, Paul Pry was reportedly carrying a basket of flowers in his mouth as he walked down a London street, and Landseer was so taken with the sight that he insisted on painting a portrait of the animal.31 Other versions of the story state that Paul Pry was delivering a message when Landseer first spotted him,32 and there is even a version that traces Landseer’s first encounter with Paul Pry to a dinner party. It is also said that Landseer’s decision to paint this picture stemmed from his desire to commemorate and honor another dog, a dog named Bob who was reportedly “twice shipwrecked” and who, as Beryl Gray recounts, had “taken up residence in the London Docklands area where he made it his mission to rescue people from the water.” Bob had allegedly rescued so many people from drowning that he was awarded a medal by the Royal Humane Society, the marine rescue organization. According to this version of events, Landseer was so impressed by Bob’s heroic feats that he decided to commemorate the dog’s bravery and service to humankind in a painting, but, as Jan Bondeson notes, “when Landseer decided to paint Bob in 1837, the dog could not be located, and there is still debate as to whether he really existed, or if the whole thing had just been a newspaper hoax.”33 In a recent annual report, the Royal Humane Society reported on the story of Bob and his connection to Landseer’s art. In that report, the story of Bob receiving a medal for bravery was revealed as a probable myth—“there is no evidence in our archives to support the idea that the medal had been awarded by us. Indeed, the Society has never given a medal to an animal and would not consider doing so.”34 What we do know is that Landseer’s painting went on to become one of his most beloved and recognized pictures. It would

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also, several decades later, be taken up by a number of animal advocacy organizations. The idea that dogs could be so selfless and brave was enough to make this picture a perfect fit for reformers trying to change the ways in which people thought about nonhuman animals. The Victoria Street Society for the Protection of Animals from Vivisection adopted a cropped version of A Distinguished Member of the Humane Society in its logo (see fig. 2).35 The well-​known reformer Frances Power Cobbe founded the organization in 1875 as a means of lobbying against the practice of experimentation on live animal bodies.36 This organization was especially prolific in publishing campaign materials—as Harriet Ritvo notes, “by 1892 the Victoria Street Society alone had published 320 books, pamphlets, and leaflets, of which over 270,000 copies had been distributed.”37 That the specific dog who served as Landseer’s inspiration for the original painting was undoubtedly long dead did not matter to Cobbe and the other members of the Victoria Street Society; it was what this dog had come to stand for that interested these antivivisection activists. In 1856, Landseer once again painted an image celebrating the legendary marine rescues performed by Newfoundland dogs. Saved! features the dramatic narrative that A Distinguished Member of the Humane Society lacks. In this painting, Landseer depicted a scene just moments after the canine rescuer has brought a young child safely back to land. The child lies unconscious on the rocky shoreline, while the dog, clearly exhausted from the rescue effort, looks upward, perhaps toward the anxious family of the young girl. Landseer dedicated this painting to the Royal Humane Society, and a large print of the image still hangs in the society’s office today.38 Like A Distinguished Member, this picture was adopted by animal advocates. A copy of Saved! appeared on the cover of Vivisection in America, published by Frances Power Cobbe and Benjamin Bryan in 1890. In this case, an organization aimed at abolishing vivisection adopted an image that apparently had nothing to do with medical research or laboratory experimentation. Instead of showing animal bodies being restrained or cut open (as Cobbe did elsewhere), the visual strategy was to focus the viewer’s attention on the exemplary qualities, achievements, and abilities of nonhuman animals. Coupled with the antivivisection sentiment of the publication, the image served as a plea to support efforts to keep these animals safe from harm—if they are willing to help us, then why is it so hard for us to repay the courtesy? Landseer’s ability to capture the emotion and intelligence of animals received both praise and criticism—as one writer put it, “hyper-​critics have

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found fault with some of Landseer’s productions because, as they assert, ‘he invests the lower animals with soul as well as body.’ ” It was precisely this quality, however, that made Landseer’s pictures so popular with animal advocates. As one nineteenth-​century commentator noted, “Our domestic pets do, undoubtedly, under his exquisite treatment, become thinking creatures. They are endowed with intelligence. Their thoughts are written in their gestures or their features. Their sensibility is unmistakable. All this is nothing more than executive fidelity to nature and large-​hearted sympathy with it. The dog does evince anxieties, emotions, passions and desires.”39 Landseer’s paintings suggested some of the ways in which nonhuman animals were capable of some of the same emotional and intellectual experiences that humans were. This made his pictures especially valuable in campaigns intended to get people to think about the ways in which nonhuman animals could experience feelings such as joy, grief, friendship, fear. It was hoped that this realization would underscore just how cruel things like vivisection were.

G ALLERIE S, MUSEUMS, AND E XH IBI T IONS

The use of visual culture in animal advocacy can be seen as an extension of discussions surrounding the “civilizing” potential of museums and galleries in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The history of these institutions is inextricably linked with the idea that art and cultural displays served as important tools of edification for all members of society. As Tony Bennett points out in The Birth of the Museum, museums and art galleries were “summoned to the task of cultural governance of the populace,” and were “called on to help form and shape the moral, mental, and behavioral characteristics of the population.”40 Extended visiting hours and reduced ticket prices were designed to entice people who might not otherwise visit a gallery or museum—the very classes of people that many moral reformers thought would most benefit from engaging with the exhibits inside. As Kean notes, “galleries and museums were opened to the public to communicate particular cultural meanings and to encourage moral behavior and good conduct.”41 This belief in the “civilizing” and moral potential of museums was broad in reach and did not focus explicitly on the treatment of animals. However, when we consider the ways in which art and visual culture were an extensive part of animal advocacy during this period, we need to remember that this phenomenon is related to these more widespread cultural ideals, which saw

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direct links between the viewing of art and cultural artifacts and morally just and proper behavior. The link between kindness to animals and viewing art was also made explicit in reviews of exhibitions and articles about art regularly found in the pages of magazines and newsletters published by animal advocacy groups. In March 1885, the Animal World, a publication of the RSPCA, ran an article called “The Dog’s Place in Art” in which the author noted that “although dogs have been more or less painted or carved since men used brush and chisel, they have never held so important a position in art as they do now.”42 It did not escape the notice of the RSPCA executive committee that this increased focus on the representation of animals in art was occurring at the same time that organized animal advocacy was gaining strength. One of the paintings featured in “The Dog’s Place in Art” was John Everett Millais’s 1852 painting The Order of Release, 1746. The subject of this painting is a family reunited after the father’s release as a political prisoner. The scene of reunification shows the family members—including the family dog—embracing and forming a tight, intimate circle that signifies their strong familial bond. Of this picture, the author notes, “the dog has his due importance as a member of the family, and the painter does not ignore the canine gladness and affection.” The inclusion of the dog as a member of the family was significant, as was the idea that a dog could experience “gladness and affection.” The interest in this painting on the part of the editors of the Animal World can be related to broader cultural discussions in Britain in the wake of the publication of Charles Darwin’s theories on the connections between human and nonhuman animals. Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859) and The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872) intensified the debates about just how similar human and nonhuman animals were when it came to things like intelligence and emotions. The idea that a dog could be part of a family circle and share in the “gladness and affection” following the return of the patriarch to the family unit did not seem at all far-​fetched in this context. “The Dog’s Place in Art” also singled out Landseer’s Old Shepherd’s Chief Mourner for comment. This painting tells the story of the deep bond between a man and his dog, something many viewers could relate to. In this picture, a dog mourns alongside a simple, rustic coffin containing the body of his beloved human companion. As the author of this piece writes, “the dog is alone in his lamentation, and yet we feel that the bereaved creature is in the place that is his by a natural right, by right of long service, of constant

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companionship, of humble faithful friendship and deep love.” This idea that deep relationships could form between human and nonhuman animals made this picture of particular interest to those working in animal advocacy as they strove to communicate the message that nonhuman animals were deserving of kindness and humane treatment because of their emotional and intellectual capacities. Simply put, if a dog could grieve, would it not also make sense that he or she could feel fear and pain? If so, the logical extension was that it was immoral and unjust to subject nonhuman animals to situations in which they would experience unnecessary distress or discomfort. In both of these examples, the author of “The Dog’s Place in Art” focused on the bond between humans and nonhuman animals. The proliferation of dogs in art may be attributed to the fact that “dogs have not only the interest of character and intelligence,” but “also a rich variety of form and colour and texture . . . delighting the eye of the artist while he is at work, and permitting him to make good pictures.” However, there is something else at work here, for these are very specific types of pictures. Many of the paintings singled out in this article represent nonhuman animals as experiencing and expressing emotions very similar to those experienced and recognized by humans—love, loyalty, and grief, for example. The way these images stressed the commonalties between species served as important visual arguments for humane and compassionate treatment of nonhuman animals. The viewer, it was assumed, would know from his or her own experience how it felt to grieve the loss of a loved one, or how wonderful it was to be reunited with someone they cared deeply about. Viewers’ responses to these images, it was hoped, would force them to think about how nonhuman animals felt in similar situations. Art, in this context, could engender a sense of what Lori Gruen refers to as “entangled empathy,” which could in turn lead to different attitudes and behaviors toward nonhuman animals. This article about dogs in art did not appear in an art periodical but in a publication produced by the RSPCA, an organization dedicated to preventing cruelty to animals. In this context, art was understood to be an important narrative tool used to communicate to readers of the Animal World that nonhuman animals should be treated with kindness and compassion. By focusing on these specific paintings in this publication, the RSPCA provided visual justification for its ongoing work—if a dog could be a loyal and faithful friend, then was it not important to ensure that dogs were treated with kindness and compassion by the humans who shared their lives with them? It was the mandate of groups like the RSPCA to ensure that the idea of being kind to nonhuman

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Fig. 9  Marianne Stokes, A Parting, 1884. Image © National Museums Liverpool, The Walker Art Gallery.

animals became normalized through educational and outreach campaigns, and art and visual culture played an important role in these efforts. Two years later, in 1887, the RSPCA published another article on a similar topic. This time the piece focused specifically on the annual exhibition of the Royal Academy at Burlington House in London. The article opened with consideration of those who attended the annual exhibitions at Burlington House, rejecting the common assumption that many people attended only because it was a fashionable thing to do. “But are not these persons also raising their moral natures by attending exhibitions?” the article asked, making a connection between viewing art and “the acquisition of critical powers.”43 Once again, we see an explicit focus on the link between viewing art and self-​betterment. This 1887 article looked at the vast number of pieces in the annual Royal Academy exhibitions in which nonhuman animals were featured, and the writer described at great length the various pieces in which “animals are of principal, secondary, or minor importance in the artists’ work.”44 In a discussion comparing the number of pieces featuring animals at the 1887 exhibition with the works on display in previous years, the writer focused on a painting by Marianne Stokes called A Parting (fig. 9), which was reproduced in the article.45 Stokes’s painting was one that critics had previously described as “very touching,” and reviewers noted that it was also “painted with care and skill.”46

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Stokes has been described as “a painter of keen apprehension in simple things,” and we can certainly see this in A Parting.47 In this picture she has painted a tender image of a young girl saying goodbye to a calf she has clearly grown fond of. The French title of the painting—it was first exhibited at the Paris Salon—is Condamnée a Mort (Condemned to death), and plainly indicates the fate of the calf.48 The innocence of the calf and young girl are jarringly juxtaposed with the harsh realities of a society dependent upon animal agriculture. Even though the next violent stages of this calf’s short life are not represented in the image, they are foreshadowed in the title, a reminder that image-​text relationships are an important aspect of the meaning-​making process when it comes to visual culture. The bond between the child and the calf is represented in Stokes’s painting through the pose of these two central characters—the young girl tenderly strokes the calf’s soft fur while he rests his head in her lap. At first glance, this appears to be simply a heartwarming scene of interspecies friendship, but upon closer inspection it becomes apparent that this picture is also about the ways in which the bond between human and nonhuman animals is interrupted and troubled by the exploitation of animal bodies for the production of food.49 The calf’s four feet are bound together with rope—he is about to be taken away from the kindness of this child and the farm he was born on, the only life he has known so far. As the article points out, “the sorrow of the child is made in keeping with the mute appeal of the pet, who forbodes evil, because his four legs are bound together . . . a method that causes pain, and if continued long causes cruelty too.”50 The dichotomy between this tender scene and what comes next for the calf is intended to create an emotional response in the viewer. What we do not know is whether this response in turn raised questions for individual viewers about their role in this system, but the RSPCA certainly hoped that it would. We might not be too surprised to discover that this image and its accompanying commentary appeared in the Animal World, a publication produced by an organization devoted to abolishing animal cruelty.51 But even mainstream publications that were not specifically driven by animal advocacy concerns focused on these aspects of Stokes’s painting. A Parting was also reproduced in the Graphic on August 22, 1885,52 and the London correspondent for the Argus, a Melbourne-​based newspaper, admired the “perfectly natural attitude” of the “chubby little girl” and “the pet from whom she is presently to be parted.” The reviewer drew the reader’s attention to the details of the painting, noting that the young child “sits on the straw-​strewn

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ground, an empty bowl from which her favourite has drunk its last draught of milk is at her side; prone across her lap, its legs tied together in the horrible fashion in which the harmless creatures are tortured before they are killed, lies a pretty little calf; its mild eyes are lifted to her face, its soft muzzle rests on her knees, her arms encircle its brown neck; her face is full of the sorrow of childhood—bitter, if transient.”53 By focusing on both the relationship between calf and child and the “horrible fashion” in which calves are “tortured before they are killed,” the reviewer highlights the juxtaposition between the tender bond of interspecies friendship and the utilitarian attitudes that many hold when it comes to the treatment of nonhuman animals. The child’s sorrow, we are told, is “bitter” but ultimately “transient,” meaning that she will get over it, that she will toughen up and perhaps care less about nonhuman animals as she grows up. There is a subtle but important difference between these two reviews of Stokes’s painting. The author of the piece in the Animal World considers—if only briefly—the point of view of the calf. By mentioning the “mute appeal” that the calf in this picture makes, the writer calls attention to the fact that neither of the figures in this painting is enjoying this parting—the grief and fear are not limited to the little girl. The review in the Argus is much more focused on the emotional experience of just one of the animals in the picture—the human child. Further, the language used in the Animal World review is consistent with much of the writing done by animal advocacy groups at this time. By focusing on the calf’s “mute appeal,” the writer acknowledges the agency of nonhuman animals, and the ways in which they can experience emotions similar to those of humans. The “appeal” in this case is that the calf is asking not to be separated from his friend and to have his legs unbound. That this appeal is characterized as “mute” is in keeping with the rhetoric of animal advocacy groups organized around the idea that they had to speak up for animals because they were unable to do so for themselves.54 The idea of being a “voice for the voiceless” was a recurring theme in these publications.55 The RSPCA also singled out Thomas Sidney Cooper’s Old Smithfield Market (fig. 10). Cooper was an English artist who became so well known for his paintings of cattle that he was nicknamed “Cow” Cooper.56 Considered by some contemporaries as “Britain’s most accomplished painter” and the “foremost English cattle painter of the nineteenth century,” Cooper was compared to such other well-​known animal painters as Paulus Potter and Aelbert Cuyp.57 Of Cooper’s Old Smithfield Market, the reviewer for the RSPCA noted

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Fig. 10  Thomas Sidney Cooper, The Old Smithfield Market, 1887. Private collection. Image © Christie’s Images / Bridgeman Images.

that it “brings graphically before us the folly of driving affrighted animals through crowded thoroughfares.”58 The painting is a glimpse of an earlier time in London’s history, a time when cattle and other “livestock” were very much a part of the fabric of city life. Smithfield Market was established in 950 and had been an important site for the sale of live animal bodies (“livestock”) for centuries. In Beastly

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London, Hannah Velten notes that London “coped with the greatest volume of domestic livestock destined for slaughter of any city in history.”59 As the numbers of animals brought to Smithfield Market increased to meet the growing demand for meat in Britain, complaints about the market began to mount. The market site was a central location in the city, and the presence of large numbers of cattle, sheep, pigs, and geese became increasingly incompatible with urban living. Complaints grew louder, and by the early nineteenth century there were formal attempts to move the market to another location. As the article in the Animal World put it, “twice a week the old marketplace reeked with suffering and cruelty, which demoralized boys and girls as well as drovers; for every avenue leading there was choked with cattle, and scenes of violence were inevitable.”60 Stephen F. Eisenman has noted that the relocation of Smithfield Market in 1855 was related to the desire to distance the citizens of London from “the sights, smells and outcries associated with death.” This change was, in other words, more about removing offending stimuli from view than about concern for the well-​being of the nonhuman animals at the center of this industry. Very little changed in terms of the treatment of the animals bought and sold at the new location; in fact, there may have even been an increase in cruel practices. As Eisenman notes, “the irony is that the very welfarist perspective that demanded that centralized abattoirs be removed from public view essentially silenced the cries of protest of slaughtered animals and advanced the counter-​revolution against animal rights. Out of the sight and hearing of the public, the age of mass or industrial slaughter could begin.”61 Removing the visceral reminders that meat production and consumption depended on the bodies of living animals had significant consequences for those animals. Out of sight, out of mind. This, as we shall see in the next chapter, also had consequences for how animal welfare advocates chose to use visual culture in their reform efforts—bringing back into view what was hidden was considered an essential aspect of “bearing witness.” Cooper’s painting is a visual representation of an earlier time in London’s history, when the sights, sounds, and smells associated with the production and consumption of meat were obvious to those who lived there. Scholars such as Diana Donald have characterized Smithfield as “a shaming blot on the imperial capital,”62 and the reviewer for the Animal World wrote about how Cooper’s painting illustrated the “folly” of having livestock in the city, and how “violence,” “suffering,” and “cruelty” went hand in hand with this. And yet none of this is readily apparent in Cooper’s representation of Smithfield

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Fig. 11  A Night View of Smithfield Market. Published in the Animals’ Friend, 1840. Image © The British Library Board.

Market. Instead, the painting is infused with a soft, golden light, indicative of the early morning hour at which the drovers would have been bringing these animals through the streets leading to Smithfield Market. The warm tones also symbolically suggest a nostalgic look back at a different way of life. While it is true that seeing cattle on the streets as depicted in Cooper’s painting would have been visually jarring to those who were no longer accustomed to sights like this on a regular basis, there is little in this picture to suggest the chaos and violence that appears in other representations of Smithfield Market. This stands in marked contrast, for example, to a picture of Smithfield Market that was reproduced in the Animals’ Friend in 1840 (fig. 11).63 This is a much earlier representation of Smithfield Market, one that isn’t looking back in time but depicting contemporary conditions. This is a small black-​and-​white picture, a scene of chaos, in which the bodies of the nonhuman animals in the scene are contorted in fear and pain, and the human animals are represented as demonic and ghoulish. As Diana Donald has noted, the “subhuman, yelling faces and the chaos of animals and buildings give a sense of nightmare and unmitigated moral darkness.”64 When the editors of the Animal World chose to write about Cooper’s painting, they were highlighting the fact that times were changing, that things were improving for animals through the work and efforts of organizations

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like the RSPCA. I do not suggest that by focusing on this painting the RSPCA was campaigning against meat or advancing the argument of an ethical vegetarian lifestyle.65 Other reformers took up this issue in the late nineteenth century, but not the RSPCA. What, then, was the RSPCA’s interest in this painting? The RSPCA was drawing attention to the cumulative effect of its advocacy efforts, since the organization was founded in 1824. Cooper’s picture became a symbol of many types of reform efforts on behalf of nonhuman animals, specifically those for which groups like the RSPCA could directly take credit. The striking visual difference between the old Smithfield Market and the market familiar to those at the end of the century is significant here, but the changes at Smithfield were just the tip of the iceberg in terms of shifting attitudes toward nonhuman animals. This is related to broader shifts in thinking about nonhuman animals in Britain over the course of the nineteenth century—Harriet Ritvo notes that as organized animal advocacy took hold, “members of the humane establishment . . . could point with pride to a series of administrative and legal breakthroughs and to steadily widening public support for their activities.”66 The RSPCA had fought since its inception against cruelties at Smithfield. Indeed, at the very first meeting of what would later become the RSPCA, it was decided that the organization would send representatives to Smithfield Market to monitor the treatment of animals there.67 The mention of this painting in the Animal World, then, strategically reinforces the importance of organized animal advocacy in the late nineteenth century, and legitimizes the ongoing efforts (including fund-​raising and legislative support) in which the RSPCA was involved. Pictures of interest to animal advocates continued to appear in exhibitions held during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For example, the Victorian Era Exhibition at Earl’s Court, held in 1897 as part of the diamond jubilee celebrations marking the sixtieth anniversary of Queen Victoria’s reign, included a painting that caught the attention of antivivisection advocates (fig. 12). The painting in question was called Vivisection— The Last Appeal, painted in 1882 by John McLure Hamilton, an American artist who ended up settling in London in 1878.68 In this image, a vivisector stands with his back to the viewer, a scientific instrument in the hand behind his back. On the table before him is a small dog who stands on her hind legs, her front paws bent in front of her chest—a pose that anyone who has spent time with dogs would recognize as a begging stance. Here, however, the small dog is not begging for a treat or to play but for mercy. The compositional

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Fig. 12  Charles John Tomkins, print of John McLure Hamilton’s Vivisection—The Last Appeal. Published by Henry Graves, 1883. Image: Wellcome Library, London.

details—the scientific instruments and the dead body of a bird, the subject of a previous experiment—tell us how this scene is going to play out. Hamilton’s painting had previously been exhibited at the Albert Palace in the autumn of 1885 and at the Guardi and Continental Gallery in December 1882. Charles John Tomkins made an engraving of this painting, and the engraving was then exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1884.69 The Animal Defence and Anti-​Vivisection Society and the National Canine Defence League used this image in their campaigns in the early twentieth century.70 At the 1897 exhibition, Hamilton’s painting was hung in Room 4 and attracted considerable attention.71 The Art Journal had previously called it “a most painful picture” but noted that “its power is acknowledged unhesitatingly.”72 Again, one might expect this sort of attention in a periodical like the Art Journal, but publications produced by animal advocacy groups also devoted considerable space in their issues to detailed discussions of specific works of art. For example, a letter from a Mr. Edwin C. R. Langley to the editors of the Animals’ Friend, published in the September 1897 issue, described

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Hamilton’s painting as “a picture which I wish all your readers could see; but especially those—should there be any—whose sympathies are either cold or wanting.” “Can it be possible,” Langley wondered, “to look upon that picture and come away a vivisectionist?”73

IMP OR TAN CE OF ILL US T R AT IONS

As is the case today, art exhibitions were just one of many places where people could engage with visual imagery. In the context of animal advocacy, there was a rise in the number of images used in education and campaign material in the nineteenth century, as new developments in printing and image reproduction made it easier and cheaper than ever before to reproduce images. Animal advocacy groups placed tremendous importance on illustrations. For example, Sidney Trist, who served as secretary of the London Anti-​Vivisection Society, also edited the Animals’ Friend and another periodical called the Animals’ Guardian.74 He also published an illustrated book called The Under Dog in 1913, a collection of essays “on the wrongs suffered by animals at the hand of man.” Trist understood the importance of images in educational and advocacy campaigns and believed that “you can teach people more by the eye than the ear.”75 He “made the illustrations [an] especial feature” of the publications he edited.76 Critics and contemporary audiences seemed to agree with this point of view, as Trist’s publications were cited as being more eye-​catching and influential than other animal advocacy publications available at the time. In an article in the English Illustrated Magazine in March 1909, a writer named Clare Neave noted that, although she had “always loved animals,” she “did not pay very much attention” to the many pamphlets and “countless circulars from those who are interested in the several societies which exist for the purpose of stamping out vivisection—that most awful of crimes.” Neave thought that this was because most of the other advocacy publications were “not sufficiently well written enough to claim my attention.” However, when she came across Trist’s periodicals, she immediately saw that they were “of a different nature,” “so beautifully printed and so charmingly got up” that she was encouraged to read them.77 Trist’s insistence on creating eye-​catching and visually engaging publications through the inclusion of images went a long way toward drawing attention to issues like vivisection. The generous support of donors—in particular, the financial support of “a lady noted for

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her generous support of all good causes”—allowed for “a really well-​designed front page” and “an attractive exterior” on these publications.78 In 1888, the Toronto Humane Society published Aims and Objects of the Toronto Humane Society, a richly illustrated book that outlined the vision and work of the organization. George Hodgins, one of the vice presidents of the THS, edited the publication, which included 112 illustrations.79 Hodgins felt that if people didn’t have “full information on the subject of the work of a Humane Society,” it would be difficult to raise funds, and “without these funds the reader will see that but little can be accomplished.”80 The inclusion of more than a hundred engravings enhanced the book considerably, but it also greatly increased production costs. The THS had hoped to distribute it for free, but the cost of the illustrations made that impossible.81 In spite of the extra cost, the directors of the THS opted to include the images because they saw them as an essential part of their education and advocacy efforts.82 By the late nineteenth century, it had become nearly unthinkable to conduct animal advocacy without the assistance of illustrations. The images in the book ranged from a scene showing “inhumanity in loading cattle,” in which workers were depicted prodding cattle who have been tightly packed into a railcar, to a heartwarming scene of a kitten playing with falling leaves.83 Many of the images and illustrated stories had been used by other animal advocacy groups in Britain and North America, a reminder that many of these organizations worked together and often shared resources. This process of sharing and reusing pictures also created an iconography of advocacy images that were repeated over and over again, thus creating a visual vocabulary that became shorthand for complex ideas about what constituted “cruel” and “humane” behavior in this period. One of the stories featured in Aims and Objects is called “Kindness to Sheep on a Cattle-​Train” (fig. 13). This is a story recounted by Louisa May Alcott, the author of Little Women, and is accompanied by a picture of two young girls giving food and water to sheep crammed in an open-​sided train car.84 Alcott had been traveling by rail, and when her train stopped at a station, she saw another train parked along the tracks, this one full of sheep and cattle—“full in the hot sun stood the cars; and every crevice of room between the bars across the doorways was filled with pathetic noses.” As she contemplated getting off the train to do what she could to assist these animals who were clearly in distress, Alcott noticed two young girls coming to their aid. As Alcott noted, “in spite of their old hats and their bare feet, and their shabby gowns,” the girls’ “little tanned faces grew lovely” to her because

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Fig. 13  Kindness to Sheep on a Cattle-​Train. Published in J. George Hodgins, Aims and Objects of the Toronto Humane Society, 1888. Collection of the author.

of the kindness they were offering to the sheep and cattle. One of the girls repeatedly filled a bucket with water and kept bringing it to the hot and thirsty animals, while her companion offered handfuls of clover and grass to them. As Alcott writes, “I wish I could have told those tender-​hearted children how beautiful their compassion made that hot, noisy place, and what a sweet picture I took away with me of these two little sisters of charity.”85 This story and the accompanying picture made the rounds in a number of advocacy contexts—before appearing in Aims and Objects, it was published in pamphlet form by the MSPCA.86 It was also included in Sarah J. Eddy’s humane education text Songs of a Happy Life.87 Like the Toronto Humane Society, the Boston-​based Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals paid particular attention to imagery in its educational and advocacy campaigns. In order to assist with the cost of obtaining and reproducing images, the MSPCA frequently sent appeals to its supporters asking for financial support for “high class artwork, films, slides, pictorial booklets in various languages and [the development of] a thorough-​going press bureau.” The official publication of the MSCPA, Our Dumb Animals, was richly illustrated. In 1912, an article about the MSPCA in the Cambridge Chronicle noted how “booklet, page, and picture are now the quickest and best ways of reaching the masses,” and remarked

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that the MSPCA was especially good at using visual culture in its advocacy and education efforts.88 Other organizations followed suit. The Journal of Zoophily, a joint publication of the American Anti-​Vivisection Society and the women’s branch of the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, dedicated a section of their publication, called “The Library,” to the review of arts and literature. The editors noted that in this section “especial attention will be given to etched and engraved reproductions of the works of the Old as well as the Modern Masters, also to pictures illustrating the different phases of animal life.” The Journal of Zoophily actively promoted “the study of the Humanities,” which “made men humane.”89 Likewise, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds went to considerable expense to produce illustrated material for public display in Britain.90 Over and over again, these kinds of organizations underscored the link between appreciating art and being “humane.”

HUM ANE EDUC AT ION AND V I SUAL CULT URE

Henry Bergh, the founder of the ASPCA, believed that art and visual culture could play an important role in creating a kinder and more humane world, reaching even the youngest members of society. In an article in the Journal of Education, he argued that “children of the tenderest age, even before they can articulate, may be taught, through the simple agency of pictures, to admire and appreciate living creatures.”91 This emphasis on teaching children to be kind to animals was a central component of humane education efforts in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Humane education, broadly defined, is about teaching the value and virtues of compassion for all species, and it has taken different forms depending on the historical period, geographical location, and other sociopolitical factors. Proponents of humane education have frequently argued that it would greatly decrease crime and fix social problems. For example, the preface to A Mother’s Lessons on Kindness to Animals, one of the texts used in humane education efforts during this period, notes that “habits of cruelty in the young, if not checked in time, are very dangerous, and lead to many other sins. They harden the heart against every right and proper feeling. Children who are cruel to animals will soon be cruel to their parents, brothers, and sisters; as every act of cruelty increases the will and the power to repeat it, until it becomes a rooted and settled principle.”92 According to this point of

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view, a child who was not taught to be kind to animals at an early age could grow up to lead a life of violence and antisocial behavior, perhaps even criminal behavior. As an article about the MSPCA’s humane education programs noted, “humanity to animals, or the sentiment of benevolence, inculcated in the minds of children, tends toward the prevention of crime.”93 An 1896 study attempted to determine whether children who had pets and who had learned to care for them were less likely than others to engage in criminal behavior—a survey of two thousand inmates in American prisons found that “only three ever had possessed a pet animal of any kind.”94 Humane education was even cited as being an important tool for peace.95 Given the importance placed on humane education, organizations like the THS saw themselves not as “simply a patrol society for the prevention of cruelty.” They believed that they had “a higher work, which was to educate the people and indoctrinate the youth of the land with humane principles.”96 Humane education tends to focus primarily on children, the philosophy being that lessons on kindness and compassion learned as a child make a lasting impression and therefore influence behavior and attitudes in adulthood. As Diane L. Beers notes, “the solution seemed deceptively simple and enticing: teach the children, and the children would rise to heal the world.”97 During this period, there was a push to have humane education legislated in classrooms throughout the United States that was led by George T. Angell, founder of both the MSPCA and the American Humane Education Society (AHES). Thanks to his efforts, in 1886 humane education was legislated as part of the curriculum in the state of Massachusetts. Other states followed suit, although, as Bernard Unti and Bill DeRosa have noted, this legislation was not enforced with any degree of uniformity.98 Perhaps in an attempt to counter this, organizations like the AHES took it upon themselves to ensure that humane education material got into the hands of students and teachers, producing copious amounts of material intended to bring humane education to children around the world. Illustrated books and periodicals, lantern slide lectures, and films became a standard part of humane education curricula, and guidebooks for teachers made suggestions for lesson plans and included material appropriate to all grade levels. This campaign was not limited to the United States—the annual reports of the AHES detail the activities of their fieldworkers in places like Canada, France, Holland, Turkey, England, Guatemala, Mexico, and Cuba as well.99 One of the reasons for resistance to including humane education material in the classroom was that teachers already had to cover a lot of material each

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year, and it was believed by many that the addition of humane education would mean removing something else. But this argument was countered by proponents, who argued that humane education need not be its own special discipline, that it could be related to existing school subjects. For example, an article in the Practical Teacher in February 1900 encouraged teachers to incorporate humane education into already-existing lesson plans. So, for example, when students learned to recite poetry, the poems selected could focus on kindness and compassion for all species; as the article of this article pointed out, “it is quite astonishing how easily this subject works in with others.” This article also notes the importance of art in this endeavor: “The pictures in a school where there is a Band of Mercy generally tell the tale. What can be better than ‘An Old Pensioner,’ by Rosa Bonheur, for young eyes to gaze on?”100 The Toronto Humane Society actively advocated “pretty pictures” in classrooms, noting the link between “humane teaching” and the “unconscious influence of surroundings.”101 In Britain, the Animals’ Friend School Pictures series was advertised as a way to foster compassion in young students. These pictures were intended to be hung in the classroom and were described as being able to “convey some useful and humanising lessons, and serve to suggest and stimulate thought as to our proper conduct towards the sub-​human races.” The series included such titles as Poor Sheep! Here Is Some Water for You; Is Not He Glad to Be Free Again! (The Caged Lark); and Don’t Chain Your Dog All Day. These brightly colored pictures were mounted on cardstock, 40 × 30 inches in size, and sold for 1s. 6d. Animals’ Friend “kindness cards” were produced with the same aim: “to enlist the sympathy of children and uneducated people, to whom pictorial representation appeals most readily, and to give them, in simple language, some reasons for taking an intelligent and kindly interest in the animals who live with us.”102 The relationship between conducting oneself according to the lessons depicted was stressed again and again in the context of humane education. Pictures were considered ideal for this kind of education because they were thought to be easier to understand than other forms of communication and therefore would appeal to a broader audience. In 1910, Flora Helm Krause, an  active member of the Chicago Anti-​ Cruelty Society, published her Manual of Moral and Humane Education, a book widely used in humane education curricula in the early decades of the twentieth century. It includes the text of an address that Krause gave at the thirty-​third annual meeting of the American Humane Association in

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1909, and a number of chapters that outline her reasons for believing that humane education should play a central role in the education of children. She goes beyond the philosophical in this book, however, and offers examples of material and assignments that can be brought into the classroom at different grade levels. For elementary school children, Krause listed four key areas of humane education: nature study, civics, art, and literature, and noted that these are not four distinct categories but that they overlap and influence one another.103 Art, in fact, was such an important part of the curriculum that Krause outlined that she suggested that whenever possible it be incorporated into the classroom. In the earlier grades, she saw art as essential for “an objective study of life—human, brute, or both—through colored prints, photographs, or copies of the masterpieces.” Krause’s book was organized thematically by month, with examples and activities clustered around seasonal holidays or activities. Her lesson plans listed specific pictures that could be used in the classroom, and she noted that teachers could get “copies of the art classics recommended in the graded course of study” from companies like the Perry Picture Company in Malden, Massachusetts.104 As mentioned above, the emphasis on imagery in animal advocacy and humane education can be seen as part of a larger movement that emphasized the educational and “civilizing” function of art. T. C. Horsfall was a strong advocate of this principle. Horsfall established the Manchester Art Museum (also known as the Horsfall Museum) in Manchester, England, in  1877 with the goal that this institution would serve to educate the working-​class people of that region.105 “Looking at pictures was seen as a morally improving activity” on a number of fronts.106 Horsfall believed that pictures of “animals and birds” were important because “the sentiment of kindness towards them may strike deeper into the heart.”107 He was not content to leave the educational aspects of art in the gallery, and launched a program by which reproductions of famous works of art were brought into schools.108 Horsfall was also the author of The Use of Pictures and Other Works of Art in Elementary Schools, in which he strongly advocated the inclusion of imagery in educational settings. “I fear few even of the most observant people realise how much the degree and nature of love and hope depend on early familiarity with beautiful things,” he wrote.109 He hoped to rectify this situation by bringing art to children in elementary schools. Horsfall was not the only proponent of bringing art to the classroom. In a 1907 article in the Journal of Education, George T. Sperry not only outlined at

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great length the benefits of including art in primary school curricula, but also gave practical examples of how to do so. Sperry noted that “some teachers use a picture to bring home to a class a certain lesson of great importance to the common good.” He provided an example of an essay written by a third-​grade student in response to Landseer’s Sick Monkey (fig. 14), in which the student skillfully demonstrated an ability at visual analysis through a detailed description of the formal qualities and composition of the painting. This student’s paper also drew connections between the nonhuman animals in the picture and his own life: “This is a picture of the sick monkey and his mother is taking care of him. . . . If I were sick my mother would spend all her time caring for me.”110 A number of prominent artists agreed with the philosophies espoused by Horsfall and Sperry—for example, Walter Crane “had long urged the desirability of an extended use of the eye in the process of education.”111 Many, in other words, recognized “the teaching power of pictures.”112 Therefore, when we consider the ways in which those working in animal advocacy insisted on using art and visual culture in their campaigns, we need to be mindful that this was part of a broader trend in education in both Britain and North America. Moreover, this plethora of illustrated materials aimed at teaching children how to be kind to animals, and why such behavior was important, was an extension of even earlier educational practices. In The Animal Estate, Harriet Ritvo notes that during the eighteenth century in Britain there were a number of educational books aimed at children, and that these publications “aimed to improve and instruct, not just . . . entertain.” As Ritvo notes, nonhuman animals were quickly brought into this equation, and “kindness to animals” became a “code for full and responsible acceptance of the obligations of society, while cruelty was identified with deviance. The need for compassion was intertwined with the need for discipline.”113 As these examples show, the idea of kindness to animals was frequently woven into broader notions of what it meant to be a good citizen.

BANDS OF MERC Y

The Band of Mercy movement was an important part of humane education, and, not surprisingly, it also relied heavily on art and imagery. Bands of Mercy were formal organizations that brought young boys and girls together under the umbrella of being kind to animals. The Band of Mercy movement dates

Fig. 14  William Henry Simons, print of Sir Edwin Landseer’s The Sick Monkey. Published by William Schaus / Henry Graves, 1875. Image © The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved.

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to 1875, when Catherine Smithies formed the first one in Britain. In 1879, the Band of Mercy Advocate was first published in Britain. The RSPCA took over the organization of both the Band of Mercy and its magazine in 1882, the year the Band of Mercy movement came to North America. George T. Angell teamed up with Reverend Thomas Timmins to start Bands of Mercy in the United States. This movement grew rapidly in North America—by the early twentieth century there were more than twenty-​seven thousand chapters in the United States, and by 1908 Canada had eighty chapters with more than three thousand members.114 Bands of Mercy had regular meetings at which members would recite stories and sing songs that were specially written for these events. Lessons on kindness toward all species were given at these meetings, often accompanied by music and lantern slide shows. After Catherine Smithies died in 1877, her son, T. B. (Thomas Bywater) Smithies, took over many of the Band of Mercy activities, including publishing the Band of Mercy Advocate. T. B. Smithies was a well-​known publisher in London who also published the Band of Hope Review (a publication in support of the temperance movement) and the British Workman (a publication focused on issues of importance to the British working class). Smithies understood the importance of including striking imagery in his publications and “had learned the lesson that pictures attract and teach the human mind, and his illustrations therefore were in themselves sermons and treatises.” His publications were “remarkable for the excellence of their illustrations and the neatness of their embellishments,” according to his obituary, and Smithies was praised for “his judgment and taste and enterprise, as regards wood engravings.” He worked with some of the best-​known artists of his day, “retaining the services of eminent artists like Harrison Weir, Birket Foster, and John Gilbert”; as a result, he was “rewarded not only by the enormous sale of his publications, but by the universal appreciation and approval of cultured persons.”115

NE W T EC HN OLOGIE S

Proponents of humane education and animal welfare frequently incorporated the most up-​to-​date visual technologies in their campaigns. This is, of course, very similar to the ways in which activist groups today embrace new ways of sharing images and information. Like many other reformers in this era, those working for animal advocacy often relied on such visual

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technologies as lantern slides to bring the theme of “kindness to animals” to a diverse audience. So-​called magic lanterns were an early form of visual projection in which images could be shown to a room full of people, often accompanied by spoken word or music. Lantern slide shows are a form of visual education and entertainment that have a long history—prior to electricity, light sources such as candles or limelight were used in the projector. The effect was enchanting, especially for audiences who had not had the opportunity to witness this sort of spectacle before. As art historian Lynda Nead notes, “the condition of the magic lantern show is a state of wonder, as fantasy and imagination take hold of even the simplest images and give them a story, a life.”116 In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, projected images and slide shows became an important part of humane education campaigns. The slides were often accompanied by a story or narrative that was read aloud during the projection. Lantern slide shows were part performance, part spectacle, and, in the case of animal advocacy groups, were underscored by messages of humane education. For example, in 1898 the Canadian Department of Agriculture and the Toronto Humane Society commissioned Toronto-​based writer Annie  G. Savigny to produce an illustrated tale on the theme of kindness to animals. The result was Dick Niven and His Horse Nobby: Lantern Slide Lecture Teaching Kindness to Animals, a tale that was meant to be accompanied by twenty-​four lantern slides. The tale of Dick Niven was intended to instruct children on ways in which they could be kind to the nonhuman animals they encountered in their lives. The protagonist, Dick Niven, encounters two horses on the streets of Toronto who have been left to suffer a cold night without adequate shelter or blankets. Dick intervenes to help the horses and incurs the wrath of the horses’ owner, an evil character aptly named Nettle. At the end of the tale, Niven emerges triumphant, and a lesson in kindness has been learned both by the characters in the story and also, it was hoped, by those attending the performance of this “magic lantern” show. While the original images intended to accompany this lecture do not seem to have survived, it is significant that this was intended to be an illustrated lecture. Visual culture, in other words, was an integral part of this venture, not simply a decorative afterthought. Further, three of the twenty-​four slides featured the lyrics of Band of Mercy hymns. The lyrics projected on the screen were an invitation for audience members to join together in song. This shifted the process from passive consumption of the narrative to active participation on an individual level.

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Exactly how Savigny came to write the tale of Dick Niven is not known, but we do know that at the monthly meeting of the THS in January 1897, it was decided that a committee of five women (including Savigny) would be in charge of organizing an event at which “magic-​lantern slides” on the theme of kindness to animals would be shown at the St. James schoolhouse in Toronto.117  Savigny was a good fit for this project, as she had written a previous work on the theme of animal advocacy, a book called Lion, The Mastiff: From Life. The story of Dick Niven is one of many magic lantern shows presented in relation to animal advocacy work in the city of Toronto; the THS had a library of images that members could use to put together illustrated lectures. The press often reviewed these events favorably—for example, on January 21, 1898, the Globe reported that “the children at the Girls’ Home were much delighted with an address given to them on Tuesday evening by Mrs. Savigny, which consisted principally of anecdotes about animals and birds, with illustrations by the lantern slides belonging to the Humane Society.”118 Lantern slides became a central part of humane education, with many agreeing with the assertion made in the Animals’ Guardian that “it is surprising how a magic-​lantern impresses a fact on children’s minds.”119 As the years went on, new visual technologies were introduced as options available to those working in humane education and animal advocacy, and motion pictures were quickly adopted in this capacity. The MSPCA, for example, quickly embraced “the moving picture” as an additional tool for humane education in the early twentieth century.120 The Boston-​based organization produced a film called The Bell of Atri, a visualization of an epic poem by Longfellow, which focused on the theme of kindness to animals. In 1907, Charles Urban, the celebrated film producer, published a pamphlet called The Cinematograph in Science, Education, and Matters of State in which he asserted, “The great importance of educating through the agency of the eye, as well as through the ear, is now fully acknowledged and established.” For Urban, film was a natural extension of previously existing educational methods used in schools, colleges, and universities. He also saw the potential of film to reduce animal suffering and wrote about how motion pictures could be used as a substitution for vivisection: “its success in demonstrations upon living animals . . . would decrease vivisection experiments by at least ninety per cent. of their present number. This is an argument that should strongly appeal to all anti-​vivisectionists.” This argument hinged on the fact that a single experiment could be viewed over and over again.

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In other words, many students could study scientific and physiological phenomena through viewing a single experiment that was repeated on demand through motion picture technology. Urban did not denounce vivisection per se, and he attempted to stay out of the heated debates on the topic, noting that whether any medical or scientific knowledge derived from vivisection is ever justified “is not the purpose of this pamphlet to discuss.” He did, however, firmly believe that motion pictures had the potential to significantly decrease the suffering of nonhuman animals by reducing the number of animals used in laboratories. He also touted pedagogical benefits relating to the potential for a student to watch an experiment until he or she fully grasped the concepts being illustrated. Urban also noted that the reenactment of historic experiments for the purposes of teaching and demonstration could be done through film so that a student could “have the opportunity of seeing many of the historic and classical experiments that at present he can only read of.”121

M AK IN G AR T

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Britain and North America, there was a strong contingent of reformers who felt that it was also important for children to have the opportunity to make art and create their own visual images. This line of thinking expanded the educational and advocacy potential found in visual culture to the process of creating works of art. One of the earliest issues of the MSPCA’s Our Dumb Animals included a lengthy article that illustrates this point. In “Educate Them Artistically,” published in the June 1869 issue of the magazine, a contributor with the initials S. S. W. makes an explicit connection between artistic training and kind, humane behavior, arguing that it would be unlikely to find “evidence of refinement and culture” in the home of someone who is unkind to animals and that it was therefore incredibly important to offer children instruction in the arts so that they will not partake in “deeds of cruelty.” On the subject of sculpture, S. S. W. argues that a child who learns to “work in marble” will have “emotions, susceptibilities and perceptions . . . awakened, intensified and educated,” and will come to “understand the wonderful representative power of living forms.” As the young sculptor learns more, “he will fervently revere the warm, living, breathing models, of which his utmost possible skill can only show you likenesses in cold, inanimate

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rock. No argument or persuasion will induce the gifted or educated sculptor to strike out of existence that life which he finds he never could mould into the most successful and ideal creation.” A similar argument is made for those who take up brush and canvas: “As with the trained, practical sculptor, so with the painter. He cannot be tempted to extinguish, needlessly, the light of life, even in the most insignificant insect.” S. S. W. concludes by stating that “the most humane, merciful, reverent men in the world’s history are found among the cultivated artists.” This is undoubtedly a complex argument and certainly one that is open to socioeconomic critique. However, the notion that there is a correlation between producing art and the development of humane sentiments is one that many people working in humane education and animal advocacy at this time strongly believed. This article encapsulates some of the important thinking between the arts and animal advocacy that would shape some of the tactics and strategies of animal rights, animal welfare, antivivisection, and humane education groups in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. S. S. W.’s published theories on the relationship between the arts and kindness to animals undoubtedly raise many issues of class, gender, and race privilege in nineteenth-​century American society—in particular, the uncompromising assertion that those who are cruel to animals are “offspring of ignorance, and low and vulgar associations.”122 Further, this theory seems to ignore the fact that vivisection—one of the most hotly debated topics relating to nonhuman animals in the nineteenth century—was practiced by medical students, physicians, and scientists—professionals, in other words, who were held in high esteem and were rather far removed from “low and vulgar associations.” And yet this plea for artistic education and the “regenerating influences of the arts” gives important contextual information with respect to how those lobbying for kind and humane treatment of nonhuman animals saw the role of art and visual culture functioning in these campaigns. Many animal advocacy organizations held poster competitions in which contestants submitted their original artwork on the general theme of the promotion of kindness and the suppression of cruel behavior. These competitions served as an efficient and economical way of generating visual material to promote the work of the advocacy groups that sponsored the contests. Sydney Coleman, who served on the executive committee of the ASPCA,123 noted that these kinds of competitions “resulted in the first original art work ever available for anticruelty propaganda.” Coleman concluded that “the missionary value of the posters and essays has been very great.” However, these competitions

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were valued for more than simply promoting the messages and campaigns of groups like the ASPCA—this was a concrete opportunity to develop and foster humane sentiments through artistic endeavors. These competitions were seen as important for animal advocacy efforts because through them entrants “become greatly interested in humane education and anticruelty problems.” As a result, Coleman thought, “more is being done in these ways for humane advancement than the world realizes and the next generation of Americans will show the result by a higher and nobler grade of citizenship.”124 These kinds of contests were frequently aimed at children, although some competitions were open to all age groups. The Animals’ Guardian had a contest in which it “offered a series of prizes to artists for the best designs for posters illustrating humanity and inhumanity to animals.” The winning images from these competitions were frequently reproduced and widely circulated, “as the designs are very effective and must do good.”125 In 1906, Robert Morley’s winning design for a competition sponsored by the Animals’ Guardian was reproduced in postcard format so that it could be widely shared.126 Morley’s antivivisection image shows four animals—a cat, a rabbit, a dog, and a monkey—huddled together against a wall (fig. 15). They have nowhere to escape to and cling to one another for comfort. Above their heads is the shadow of a hand holding a knife, a visualization of the title of the poster, The Shadow of the Knife. The image-​text relationship is further underscored with the inclusion of the word “Help!” above the cowering animals. The copy of this postcard that I viewed at the New York Public Library had additional text included—a handwritten plea that reads: “Save us, We Would save You.” Photography was also seen as an important aspect of fostering kindness toward nonhuman animals, and the camera was increasingly promoted as a safe and humane way to interact with other species. Children were encouraged to use a camera not only to learn about animals, but also to think of photography as an alternate form of hunting—instead of capturing “trophies,” photographs of wildlife became the “prize.” It is, of course, important to remember that a photograph is a complex cultural document, and that claims that photographic images can be used to assist with learning about other species need to be considered through this framework. “The meaning of a photograph” as Allan Sekula reminds us, “is inevitably subject to cultural definition.”127 However, the prevalence of humane education material encouraging children to pick up a camera to explore the world around them indicates the degree to which this kind of image-​making process was used in animal advocacy. This theme of using photography to learn about other

Fig. 15  Robert Morley, The Shadow of the Knife, 1906. Image courtesy of the Science, Industry, and Business Library, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations.

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species was prominent throughout humane education efforts in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In Flora Helm Krause’s Manual of Moral and Humane Education, for example, one of the “nature study” discussion themes suggested for eighth-​graders was “The Kodak can accomplish more in science than the gun.”128 The responses to this debating point no doubt varied among the students who responded, but the ensuing discussion probably raised some important points about how to be kind to nonhuman animals through the use of the camera. As with the poster competition, the idea of promoting photography as a humane way to interact with nonhuman animals was not limited to youth. In May 1893, an article titled “Sport Without a Gun” appeared in the Animals’ Guardian, and the intended audience appeared to be both children and adults. The author, Ernest Ingersoll, wrote, “One of the most satisfactory directions in which amateur photography has turned has been toward the ‘taking’ of living animals in their native haunts. Here is a substitute for the gun. It has all the excitement of the chase, except the sight of the death-​pang, and it brings back a durable memento of achievement—a trophy worth having.” Ingersoll and other proponents of “hunting with the camera” argued that getting a good photograph actually took more skill than hunting did: Like the hunter, the photographer of living animals must know their habits, find their haunts, outwit their vigilance, and lull their suspicions. Modern long-​range firearms, with improved powder, make it a comparatively easy matter to get within shooting distance of almost any animal; but the sportsman who seeks to take the picture instead of the life of a wild creature must stalk it far more carefully, get much nearer to it, and obtain a clearer view of it. Those who have tried it affirm that the uncertainty, cleverness, and excitement belonging to successful photographs of this kind are far more than are required in shooting the same game, and far more fun. Ingersoll also argued that the experience of seeing a photograph of a living animal was more enjoyable for most people than the experience of seeing the “trophies” of an actual hunt: The trophies, too, are much more interesting. A stuffed hide, no matter how well done, requires a tremendous strain of the imagination that is asked to make it real; and a skin stretched as a rug upon the

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floor, or a pair of antlers hung against the wall, are useless to bring back the scene of the chase to anyone except, perhaps, the hunter himself. But the photograph of a stag browsing in his native glen, of a woodcock crouched upon her nest, or a heron intently fishing in some reedy pool, unsuspicious that a camera has been focused upon it, forms a vivid memorandum whereby other eyes than those of the artist can realise the scene and share the pleasure.129 The resulting photograph, in other words, could bring aesthetic enjoyment to a broad audience. In 1913, Our Dumb Animals reprinted an article from Forest and Stream titled “Shooting Without a Gun” in which it was persuasively argued that the skills that make one a successful hunter also are needed for successful photographic pursuits in the woods. The article notes that a photographer, like a hunter, needs to be “stealthy” and “panther-​like,” with a “tread that breaks no twig nor rustles the fallen leaves. . . . The wild world is not made the poorer by one life for his shot, nor nature’s peace disturbed, nor her nicely adjusted balance jarred.”130 Photography, it was argued, could foster compassion for nature and nonhuman animals without causing any direct harm.131 Amateur photography competitions further encouraged the use of the camera in this way. For example, an article in the April 1896 issue of the Animals’ Friend noted that these kinds of contests were initiated “with a view to encouraging the study of animals and their portraiture and of extending the circle of interest in our magazine.”132 This monthly contest first ran in March 1896, and was open to any amateur photographer—photographs were due by the tenth of each month, and each photographer was limited to a maximum of three entries. Winning entries were reproduced in future issues. In January 1910, the American Humane Education Society solicited “essays, stories, anecdotes, and photographs” for a contest in which the winning entries would be published in Our Dumb Animals. The photographs were to be of “animals or birds” as the “centre of attention,” and the first prize for the winning photograph was $3.00.133 The winning photographs were published in the March 1910 issue—B. H. Watts from Atlanta, Georgia, won first prize for a photograph of a “Georgia possum” on a tree branch. This prize-​winning photograph of a “wild” animal stands in marked contrast to most of the other winning entries that year. Many of the other pictures awarded prizes featured animals who had been domesticated for human use—sheep in a pen, oxen hauling a wagon load of corn, a horse under saddle

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with the caption “Breaking In.” That these kinds of images were celebrated with prizes and publication in Our Dumb Animals reminds us of the diversity of approaches to animal advocacy during this period. The MSPCA used these kinds of images to promote their message of kindness and humane treatment of nonhuman animals, but the framework in which these animals were used for human pursuits, pleasures, and industries remained unchallenged.

AR T IS T S A S AC T I V IS T S

It was not only amateur artists and photographers who were promoted by advocacy groups. Much was made of professional artists who were also members of reform movements. Publications produced by advocacy groups frequently reported information about artists who were involved in making the world a more compassionate place for nonhuman animals. I have discussed above how Landseer’s art was favored by animal advocacy groups during this era, but it is also important to note that Landseer actively spoke up against cruelty to animals. He served on the executive committee of the RSPCA, and he was an outspoken critic of what he saw as cruel practices—cropping the ears of dogs or the tails of horses. Landseer understood very clearly the connection between representation and the actual lived conditions of nonhuman animals, and he “invariably refused to paint a cropped dog or a docked horse.” One of Landseer’s “proudest moments” occurred when he encountered a man carrying two puppies along Regent Street in London. The artist stopped and spoke to the man, commending him for the fact that the puppies had not had their ears cropped. The man, clearly not recognizing the artist, replied, “Sir Edwin Landseer says they ought not to be cropped.” This encounter moved Landseer deeply and made him feel that he had “done something for the cause.”134 Other artists were also active in animal advocacy during this period. George Frederic Watts was an active member of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, and permitted the group to reproduce his paintings in their advocacy publications.135  Watts had artistic company in the RSPB— the “great bird painter” Henry Stacy Marks was among the first to join the society.136 The well-​known English painter Edward Burne-​Jones supported the Victoria Street Society, the antivivisection organization founded by Frances Power Cobbe in 1875.137 M. R. L. Sharpe, the author of the Golden Rule Cookbook and active member of the Boston-​based Millennium Guild, which

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advocated a vegetarian diet for ethical and compassionate reasons, was also a “decorative artist.”138 Likewise, Henrietta Latham Dwight, the author of the vegetarian Golden Age Cook Book (1898), was an American artist known for her watercolor landscapes. John Ruskin, one of the most celebrated art critics of the day, was also a staunch supporter of the antivivisection cause, even resigning his prestigious position as Slade Professor of Art at Oxford over the university’s increasing support of vivisection as a scientific practice. In 1884, Ruskin made a change to his will in which he removed a bequest of “his books, his portrait of the Doge Andrea Gritti by Titian, and the choicest of his Turner drawings,” which he had originally intended to leave to the Bodleian Library at Oxford. This action was celebrated by antivivisection supporters, who immediately drew connections between this action and Ruskin’s protests against the vivisection taking place at Oxford. Like Burne-​Jones, Ruskin was an active member of the Victoria Street Society, and his views on how animals should be treated informed his teaching of art; he insisted that students studying drawing should learn the intricacies of animal anatomy through observation and not through invasive processes such as dissection.139 “Man is intended to observe with his eyes, and mind,” he said, “not with microscope and knife.”140 The idea that vivisection and artistic concerns could not easily coexist was also taken up by Lady Walburga Paget, an “antivivisectionist and vegetarian.”141 In 1901, Paget wrote an article arguing that vivisection was antithetical to “the artistic and aesthetic point of view.” Paget argued that “no man or woman with any sense of beauty could ever be a pro-​Vivisectionist,” and that “every true artist” was necessarily “an opponent of vivisection.” She specifically issued a challenge to artists “to stand up and vow courageously and openly their loathing of the cowardly practice.”142 Similarly, Mary Eliza Haweis, author of such books as The Art of Beauty, The Art of Dress, and The Art of Decoration, was a staunch supporter of antivivisection efforts. A feature article on Haweis in the London Star in 1894 juxtaposed her graphically detailed description of vivisection with the art and decoration in her house—the reporter was glad to be able to look at such “interesting” things after hearing the “almost too dreadful stories of vivisection.”143 The question of vivisection was especially tricky, as it challenged deeply held ideas about the relationship between class (e.g., “civilized” behavior) and cruelty. The idea that cruelty to animals was perpetuated primarily by uneducated working-​class people had long been a mainstay of animal advocates.

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The belief in the “civilizing” power of art was a testament to this attitude, but the issue of vivisection presented a major challenge. The high social status of the doctors, scientists, and medical students who experimented on animals forced a reconceptualization of the relationship between cruelty and class position. There were, as a result, art lovers and connoisseurs on both sides of this debate. As we have seen, art and visual culture were considered important aspects of animal advocacy during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Imagery was valued for its educational potential and was understood as an essential tool in the ongoing struggle to create a kinder, gentler world for all species. When the RSPCA noted that “the pencils of old masters, and those of a hundred modern animal painters, among whom Landseer will ever be prominent, have taught us to love animals, and when we cannot love, to be in sympathy with them as fellow creatures,” it was aligning itself with broader social and cultural ideals that saw art and visual culture as instrumental in building a better world.144 As part of this process, exposure to uplifting images that demonstrated the difference between “kind” and “cruel” behavior was fostered through the proliferation of illustrated periodicals, posters, and lantern slides. Reviews of artworks and exhibitions began to appear on the pages of animal advocacy publications with increasing frequency as the twentieth century approached. Certain images were repeated over and over, creating a sense of visual consistency—an iconography of animal advocacy—that united reformers in North America and Britain. It was also thought that creating art—making posters, learning how to draw or sculpt, taking photographs of animals—would also help foster humane behavior and ideas, and so this kind of activity was promoted by animal advocacy organizations as well. This chapter has established the significance of art and visual culture to organized animal advocacy during this period. In the remaining chapters, I break down the use of imagery further, considering the different kinds of images that were used and where these images were encountered.

2 BEARING WITNESS

In February 1914, mere months before the outbreak of the First World War, a “frail” but “brave” woman from Norfolk named Ada Cole oversaw the creation of a film that she hoped would stop the rampant cruelty underpinning the export of live horses for slaughter from Britain to continental Europe.1 Cole, who was fifty-​four years old and in poor health at the time, had begun her crusade against this industry a few years earlier, while visiting her sister Effie in Antwerp. While in Belgium, she had watched in horror as a steady stream of elderly, injured, and visibly distressed horses were unloaded from cargo ships, and, as Charlotte Paton notes, Cole “risked her health to talk to anyone who would listen, and to gain evidence of the cruelty she saw.”2 These animals received neither food nor water on their voyage across the English Channel, rarely had any shelter on the boat to protect them from the elements during transport, and routinely died on the journey.3 While the conditions that Cole witnessed these animals suffering were undoubtedly shocking, she soon learned that what happened to them after they were unloaded was even worse. Cole saw horses barely strong enough to stand being forced to walk several miles to their deaths in Belgian slaughterhouses, operations that eschewed “humane” methods of killing in favor of stabbing or bludgeoning the animals to death with a knife, poleax, or hammer. These stood in sharp contrast to methods of slaughter used in Britain at this time.4 Like many others, Cole had been vaguely aware that this traffic in retired horses was taking place, but as Joyce Rushen, Cole’s biographer, noted,

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“to see it with her own eyes, to come face to face with the truth, was an entirely different matter.”5 Cole was haunted by what she saw, and emphasized that “those who had heard the screams of the tortured animals in the slaughter-​houses would never forget them.”6 Implicit in this narrative is the idea of witnessing, the idea that until Cole saw these atrocities with her own eyes she was unmoved by the distant knowledge of animal suffering. There were reports from Antwerp that “local inhabitants were known to draw their curtains when the horses were passing by.”7 Here was a situation where many people chose to look away, to avoid eye contact, and not visually engage with a difficult sight. Cole’s dismay and outrage led her to begin corresponding with the RSPCA in the hope that the well-​established and well-​regarded animal welfare organization could assist her in stopping these atrocities.8 The RSPCA had previously attempted to intervene in the horse export industry. In 1910, Edward George Fairholme, who was at that time the secretary of the RSPCA, took a tour of the ports to which the horses were being shipped. A reporter for the Daily Mail who had previously written about the horrors of this industry accompanied him. The two men witnessed the arrival of a ship from Hull to Antwerp that had traveled through a “severe storm”—so severe, in fact, that “thirty horses had died en route and seventeen were so badly injured that they had to have their throats cut on board before being disembarked.”9 Captain Fairholme had brought along his camera, but as he began photographing the scene unfolding on the docks at Antwerp, he received some unwelcome attention. When the horse dealers “saw Captain Fairholme photographing the heaped-​up carcasses, they attacked him, stole his camera, and threatened him.”10 In a report published in the Animal World, Fairholme described how a “young Flemish butcher” stole his camera while an “old English dealer” looked on and swore at Fairholme in “the most disgusting language.”11 The situation turned so violent that he had to seek the assistance of the local police.12 “Of the unpleasant incident when my camera was forcibly wrenched from my hand,” Fairholme wrote, “little need be said. The action stands condemned, but it also condemns the traffic, for it testifies eloquently that had the pictures taken been sent to England they would have proved undeniably that such horrors as we witnessed on Monday last are still existing. It was surely a foolish proceeding, for violence of that sort and of the kind with which we were threatened certainly does not make one think that the traffic is carried on under proper conditions.”13 Fairholme’s comments underscore

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Fig. 16  Edward G. Fairholme, Landing Horses at Antwerp, 1910. Published in the Animal World, April 1910. Collection of the author.

the tension that surrounded the question of who was permitted to see what. Fairholme wanted to obtain visual evidence of the cruelty he had witnessed in order to bring the graphic detail to a broader audience, while those working in the horse-​export industry used every means possible to prevent the images from being made. As he noted, “the theft of the camera all the more testifies to the fact that the dealers acknowledged their fear of the real state of the traffic being made known in England.”14 One of the photographs that Fairholme took speaks to this tension (fig. 16). There are three men in the foreground of the image, all with their backs to the camera. The caption tells us that “the drovers place themselves in front of the camera to obscure the view.” In the center of the composition we can see a horse, but only part of her body is visible as the workers stand between her and Fairholme’s camera. In addition, she is rendered blurry in the photograph, as she is in motion—as Fairholme noted, “the dealers whip up the poor animals to hasten them out of range of the camera.”15 Fairholme eventually had both his camera and photographs returned to him, and this incident paved the way for him to have a meeting with the Belgian

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prime minister to discuss the situation. In spite of promises to try and make the industry more humane, no real change came about as a result of this meeting.16 Fairholme knew that if there were to be any changes to this industry, there would have to be public pressure, and he realized the importance of imagery in creating a dynamic in which both policymakers and ordinary citizens would realize the urgency of what was going on and begin to demand change. Fairholme oversaw the production of an illustrated pamphlet on this issue produced by the RSPCA.17 He also supplied the media with copies of the photographs he took in Antwerp in the hope that these very disturbing images would be widely circulated and gain broad attention. His strategy worked. In March 1910, the Illustrated London News ran a full-​page image showing the horrors of the export of live horses from England to Belgium under the caption “disgraceful traffic into which the king and queen are inquiring: the worn-​out horse scandal” (fig. 17). The artist H. W. Koekkoek drew upon one of the photographs that Fairholme had supplied to create this image. This is a nightmarish scene—in the foreground is a heap of dead horses, who, the reader is told, were so badly injured from the journey that they had to be “slaughtered on arrival.” A jumble of equipment and bodies—some belonging to the workers on the dock, others belonging to dead horses unceremoniously heaped in a cart—occupies the middle ground, but a detail in the upper left corner is perhaps the most jarring, for here the viewer’s eye is drawn to the body of a horse hanging high above the dock, suspended by his feet, which are bound together. Fairholme’s recollection of this sight is printed below the image: “as we looked on, other carcasses were being taken by a high crane from the ship, a truly ghastly scene.”18 Two of the workers gesture toward the suspended horse, directing the viewer’s eye upward. This scene is so full of horrors that it is almost unbelievable, and the Illustrated London News was apparently well aware of this, taking care to indicate that this image was from a photograph. The addition of these three words served to vouch for the image’s veracity, pointing to a sometimes oversimplified equation of a photograph with “the truth.” Like Fairholme before her, Ada Cole knew that visual documentation of the horrors in this industry would be essential if change were ever to be achieved—“she must observe and record what went on in order to prevent it.”19 The animals suffering in this industry were retired horses from England, and Cole was certain that the English people were unaware of the conditions

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Fig. 17  H. W. Koekkoek, The Incoming Ship of Death, 1910. Published in Sidney Trist, ed., The Under Dog (London: Animals’ Guardian, 1913). Collection of the author.

under which these animals met their death. In Belgium, Cole partnered with Monsieur Jules Ruhl, a tireless reformer for animal welfare causes in that country.20 As Cole and Ruhl were witnessing these activities, their own movements were being watched in turn—by the dealers who stood to lose money should their industry be further regulated.21 In March 1912 Cole took her camera down to the docks to photograph the arrival of a boat full of horses, and experienced the same kind of animosity that Fairholme had encountered. “I was surrounded by dealers and drovers,” she wrote, “shouted at, hit on the face by something thrown at me, and followed everywhere by a lad leading a horse in decent condition. This horse was thrust between me and every miserable horse that I tried to examine. It was frequently thrust very close to me when I stood against iron railings.”22 Cole persisted nonetheless and managed to get some photographs of the mistreated horses. In 1913, Sidney Trist published The Under Dog, an illustrated collection of essays about various aspects of animal advocacy campaigns. Cole contributed an essay and included some of her images from Antwerp. These

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pictures were graphic and difficult to look at, but Cole and Trist believed that getting such images in front of a broader audience was necessary if the European live-​export industry were to be reformed. A review in the Athenaeum, a London-​based literary magazine, noted the complexity of including difficult content in a publication of this nature. The reviewer noted, “What is positively nauseating to sympathetic people may stir the imagination of the callous, and so do good.”23 This is an important reminder that viewers can respond differently to the same images, and the meaning they take away with them might be different from what the image producer intended. The horse dealers who were part of the European live-​export industry hired “watchers” to keep an eye out both for inspectors and for people like Cole and Ruhl, who were seeing things that the dealers preferred to keep under wraps.24 Cole and Ruhl retaliated with their own surveillance tactics, and hired a local artist, Kurt Peiser, to spend time down at the docks. Peiser was yet unknown to the dealers and could travel freely around the area without being harassed. Peiser dressed in clothing similar to that of the workers and blended right in. He made drawings of the boatloads of horses arriving in Antwerp, and these images became an important part of Cole’s crusade to stop the cruel traffic in “worn out” horses. Peiser’s painting Suffering’s End (The Death of the Old White Horse) (fig. 18) features an urban landscape populated by both human and nonhuman animals. However, it is the horses that are the focus of this picture. The human figures are represented in shadow and rendered in loose brush strokes that give them an unfinished quality—they are not intended to be the main focus of this image. In the center of the painting are three horses, but it is the titular white horse that especially captures the viewer’s attention, owing to her placement in the composition as well as the light color of her body—the eye is immediately drawn to her. She lies on the roadway, her body language indicating pain and exhaustion. The caption reads: “The old horses fall on the gangway; on the road; and descending from the floats. They fall from weakness, exhaustion, or injury. If they cannot get up, they may be slaughtered at once without further ill-​treatment. Their fate depends on the presence of an inspector.”25 The addition of this text is intended to add a sense of credibility and veracity to Peiser’s painting. Peiser’s painting style is reminiscent of much modernist painting in Europe at this time—this is not the precise realism popular with previous generations of painters. Instead, loose brushwork and atmospheric perspective provide the viewer with the artist’s personal impression of the scene;

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Fig. 18  Kurt Peiser, Suffering’s End (The Death of the Old White Horse), ca. 1913. Published in Sidney Trist, ed., The Under Dog (London: Animals’ Guardian, 1913). Collection of the author.

this is clearly an interpretation and not an image that we might recognize as documentary evidence. However, the addition of text attesting to what Cole and Peiser saw with their own eyes is intended to place this image in the realm of the documentary. There is tension between the way the image looks and the role it is being asked to play in this context. Cole reproduced seven of Peiser’s paintings in The Under Dog, accompanied by these words: “These seven pictures, of the old English horses at Antwerp, are from life. The artist watches the traffic week by week, at the docks, in the Streets, at the Quarantine Stables, and at the Slaughter-​houses. He paints only what he sees.” Cole again stresses that these paintings are “from life,” and that “M. Kurt Peiser watches the traffic continually, dressed as a workman, and paints what he sees.”26 In spite of Cole’s emphasis on the evidentiary and documentary qualities of Peiser’s paintings, these images also had strong narrative qualities precisely because they were the artist’s personal interpretations of the scenes. The choice of angles, brushstrokes, color, light, shading, and other compositional details invite a personal, empathetic interpretation.

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As important as Peiser’s images were to her campaign, Cole decided that she wanted to incorporate more camera-​generated images, in which the artist’s stylistic choices were not so immediately noticeable. In her discussions with the RSPCA, Cole suggested that a film be made to document what she was witnessing and to raise widespread awareness of these practices. “I wanted to stop that horrible traffic,” she told the Times, “and I thought if we got a film and the English people saw it they would stop it. So I offered to get a film for the R.S.P.C.A., knowing that they could give it publicity.”27 To Cole’s delight, the RSPCA not only agreed to work with her on this project, but they also covered the costs of the endeavor. This was a significant undertaking, for, as Arthur W. Moss has noted in his history of the RSPCA, “so far as one can tell, this was the first time the ciné-​camera had been used in the fight against cruelty.”28 Cole hired Pathé to shoot the footage, which was obtained “bit by bit and under difficulties, for though the butchers and dealers did not know for what it was taken, they object to any photographing of the traffic.”29 The secrecy with which this footage was obtained was deemed necessary, as Cole and her associates routinely were on the receiving end of “abuse, threats, and violence” as they went about their work.30 The resulting film provided a hard-​hitting, unflinching look at the live-​ export industry in Europe in the early twentieth century. These were appalling images, and Cole and the RSPCA knew it. They wanted to gain public support for legislative measures to stop the cruelty they had so carefully documented, and they knew that showing such graphic images to the public might backfire. By the spring of 1914, select clips were being “exhibited at different cinema shows in London and the provinces,” but in many cases the most graphic scenes were edited out because they were “too shocking.”31 Many took issue with the disturbing footage, complaining that “it was wrong to exhibit it in a public cinema to women and children.”32 A reporter for the Times who saw the footage in its entirety described the scenes as “deeply impressive” but noted that “no censor would pass them for general exhibition, and no cinematograph theatre manager would put them into an ordinary programme.”33 As Jonathan Burt has noted, this film and the debates about its graphic nature were part of “a much longer term concern over public codes concerning what should and should not be seen.”34 Politicians and policymakers had the opportunity to view the film at a special private screening held on February 23, 1914, an event designed to encourage legislative action on the issue.35 Cole must have been pleased with the results, because soon thereafter the issue was raised in Parliament, and

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the Exportation of Horses Act was passed.36 Cole’s satisfaction at achieving some success on the legislative front was quickly diminished, however, with the outbreak of the First World War, when the issue faded from public discussion. Cole’s focus was temporarily taken away from the issue as she traveled to Belgium to work alongside her sister as a nurse during the war.37 In November 1925, more than a decade after the film was made, there were allegations that it had been “faked for the purposes of propaganda.” Captain Robert Gee, an MP from Leicestershire, made this accusation in the House of Commons, alleging that Cole and the RSPCA had “knowingly paid people to kill horses for the purposes of obtaining a film.”38 Gee claimed to have witnesses who could testify that they were paid by Cole and the RSPCA to “slaughter a horse for the purpose of making cinematographic films.”39 It is significant that the death of the horses was never called into question—“there has never been any question that the horses were killed in that way in 1914,” Cole was told—rather, the sticking point seemed to be whether the killing was staged by Cole and Pathé for the camera, or whether this was an accurate reflection of the way the animals were treated within the live-​export industry at the time.40 Perhaps in anticipation of these sorts of accusations, shortly after the film was completed, Cole made a public statement asserting that she took “entire responsibility for the accuracy of every film taken in Belgium, both those that are shown in public and those that cannot be shown.”41 The RSPCA called a public meeting at Central Hall, Westminster, to address this “fantastic accusation.” A large crowd turned out, as both the film and the allegation had apparently “created considerable feeling.” The mood of the meeting was raucous, as cheers, hisses, and “scenes of some disorder” erupted throughout the proceedings. During the inquiry, Cole insisted that “when you go to prevent a crime you don’t stand and look on at it. Neither M. Ruhl nor I have ever permitted suffering we could prevent for propaganda.”42 Her comments point to a tension between documenting an atrocity and feeling compelled to stop it, a tension that remains a significant concern for activists today. In the end, Gee recanted his statement in 1927, after the RSPCA sued him for slander. During the court proceedings of Lambourne and Others v. Gee, he admitted that he “could not in any way support the statement which he had made and now realized that the information upon which he acted was unreliable.”43 Cole and the RSPCA had been vindicated and the credibility of their work for horses restored.

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In addition to providing good copy for the newspaper and fodder for the gossip mills, this incident illustrates some of the issues relating to the use of imagery in animal advocacy. Cole’s insistence on obtaining film footage of this industry speaks to the broader cultural associations that equate camera-​ generated imagery with a form of documentary truth, showing things as they really are. In other words, Cole was attempting to extend the process of witnessing through the lens of Pathé’s camera. That the accuracy of this footage was called into question years later reminds us of the complexity of this type of endeavor. Further, the covert nature with which images of the live-​export trade in horses had to be obtained by Cole and her associates, combined with the gut-​wrenching nature of the images, speaks to the emotional qualities inherent in these acts of witnessing. The visual politics of Cole’s campaign were undoubtedly complex. The incident also serves as an important case study through which to think through the ways in which the idea of “bearing witness” is related to animal advocacy.

PHO T OGR APH Y, W I T NE S SIN G , AND E V IDEN CE

Visual culture has long been used to build a case against behavior deemed cruel or unjust. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a number of photographers used their cameras to expose a wide variety of social ills. Jacob Riis’s photographs of New York City tenements, Lewis Hine’s work for the National Child Labor Committee, Dr. Thomas Barnardo’s “before” and “after” photographs for the Home for Working and Destitute Lads, and John Thompson’s photographs for Street Life in London are among the best-​known examples of this genre of photography from this era.44 When Captain Fairholme and Ada Cole decided to use photography to draw attention to the atrocities they found in the European live-​export industry, they were situating themselves within a larger context of reform imagery. An important underpinning of this kind of image making was the belief that the camera could facilitate virtual witnessing, allowing visual access to scenes that might otherwise not be visible to a broader audience. Tenements and factories tended to be “out of sight” to middle- and upper-​class citizens in British and North American cities. Likewise, the slaughterhouse was becoming increasingly discordant with modern urban life. As Chris Otter notes, “the spectacle of slaughter (not meat eating itself, of course), was gradually seen as being incompatible with urbane existence.”45 By exposing what was

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going on in these locations—by “making the hidden visible,” as Jonathan Burt puts it—photographers like Riis, Hine, and Cole were attempting to rectify that and bring social injustices to light.46 Although the specific contexts and locations in which these photographers worked varied, this aspect—the desire to “shed light” on social ills in order to provoke viewers into doing something to change the situation—was something they all shared, and photography and film were thought to be the most appropriate visual technologies to achieve this goal. It is important, then, to consider the specificity of these media within the framework of reform and advocacy. Both the medium of photography and camera technologies, as Lynda Nead notes, saw “extraordinary innovation” in this period. These innovations included shorter exposure times, artificial flash technologies, and smaller cameras. Cheaper and easier-​to-​use cameras encouraged many people to take up photography.47 These innovations allowed for even more applications of these image-​making technologies in the areas of activism, reform work, and humane education. Camera-​generated image-​making technologies have long been deemed integral to extending the process of “witnessing,” thanks to their mechanical and indexical nature and the assumptions of “documentary truth” that have long accompanied them. As Burt has noted, in terms of images of animals, the link between the images and the technologies used to make them is inextricable: “the historical background that links the visual to the moral is important in explaining the power of animal imagery, but it also needs to be considered in conjunction with the technology of the media that articulates these images.”48 It is also important to think about the ways in which those moments of witnessing are then turned into images. Photographs have played an important role in animal advocacy throughout history, and yet we must be mindful that the process of translating what one sees into a two-​dimensional representation is an imperfect and politically fraught process. A photograph, as Allan Sekula eloquently notes, is always an “incomplete utterance.” This is especially relevant to documentary work, because of the insistence that these types of images allow for an unmediated, precise, and truthful representation of what was occurring in front of the camera’s lens. It is these qualities that have made camera-​generated images so popular among reformers, and yet, as Sekula reminds us, this form of visual culture always relies “on some external matrix of conditions and presuppositions” in order to create meaning.49

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We need, in other words, to recognize that photographs and film occupy a precarious position in activist contexts—the expectation that these images are informed by a sense of veracity, that they show things as they really are, can be challenged on a number of fronts. I am not suggesting that images made in reform or activist contexts are “faked.” Some may be, but the vast majority of images used in advocacy probably are not. Rather, as Fred Ritchin has argued, we need to be mindful that “photographs are not incontrovertible recordings of visible reality, but interpretations and transformations of it.”50 Like Ritchin, I want to stress the importance of paying attention to the social, political, technological, and cultural factors that shape the ways in which imagery is made and circulated. This is important with any kind of visual culture, but it is absolutely necessary with photographs and film precisely because of the deep-​seated and long-​held beliefs about these kinds of images offering uncomplicated visual renditions of “the truth.” Captain Gee’s accusation that the film Ada Cole and the RSPCA made was “faked” points to the problems inherent with a true/false dichotomy when it comes to these kinds of images. These images are much more nuanced than this binary allows for. This recognition does not take away from the power of this kind of imagery in advocacy contexts; rather, it actually allows for more sophisticated uses and understandings of how these images can further advocacy efforts. The process of taking a photograph or obtaining film footage is always already mediated through the very technology used to “capture” the image. Simply put, the experience of viewing an event and the experience of viewing a photograph or film footage of that event can be vastly divergent. In addition, these images can be ambiguous, in that they can lead to a range of responses in viewers. As Susie Linfield has noted, “photographs evoke unexpected, unruly responses.”51 Camera-​generated images, in other words, are messy, complicated visual documents even in the most banal of situations. When they are circulated in the context of reform, advocacy, or political activism, this dynamic becomes even more complex. There is an assumption that viewers today are more sophisticated consumers of visual culture than those in earlier eras, that in the twenty-​first century we are more apt to recognize images as being complex documents than, say, a viewer in the late nineteenth century would. However, this is not necessarily the case. The nineteenth- and early twentieth-​century periodical press is full of articles and opinion pieces that discuss the “fallacies of photography.”52 Jennifer Tucker has written about the ways in which

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nineteenth-​century audiences understood the relationship between photography and “evidence,” and argues that this relationship has always been complex. As she notes, “although nineteenth-​century faith in photography was powerful, the idea that people over a hundred years ago accepted photographs at face value is exaggerated and misleading.” Tucker argues that when looking at historical images, it is important to go beyond broad generalizations. Rather, we “need to combine the study of the ideal of mechanical objectivity in photography with analysis of the actual processes through which people are mobilized and used photographic evidence.” For example, Tucker points to how the process of establishing a photograph as part of scientific evidence was a constant negotiation: “What defined many scientific photographs as a genre was not merely their subject matter. . . . Instead, what made them scientific photographs in the eyes of officials was often based on such considerations as how they were made and by whom and where they were exhibited.”53 In other words, the conditions in which the images were made and circulated went a long way toward determining their meanings. Further, innovations and limitations in technologies shaped how the resulting images looked, and many viewers understood that. Take the fact that most of the photographs they encountered were black-​and-​white translations of a multicolored world, for instance.54 It is absurd to think that this distinction would have gone unnoticed. Rather, we need to recognize that viewers in previous historical eras understood that there was not always direct and literal translation between what was in front of the camera’s lens and what appeared in the resulting image. The recognition that photographic evidence is the result of complex negotiations is significant, and it is as important to attend to these details in the context of advocacy and reform efforts as it is with the scientific case studies that Tucker writes about. We must consider the criteria that permitted a photograph to be considered as evidence. What were the conditions that made this so, and in what ways were they challenged? The allegations of faked imagery that were leveled at Cole and the RSPCA tested these boundaries. Tucker also reminds us that we need to consider the context in which people encountered photographs—a  critical analysis of these images “requires us to look carefully at where people saw them.” The “different forums” in which these images circulated mattered. Meaning was generated based upon the context of viewing these camera-​generated images. Tucker stresses the need to “move beyond the uncritical acceptance of binaries of

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photographic truth and falsity.” In terms of science, she argues that “widening the field of vision to include the debates on scientific photography by multiple publics clarifies how many people were involved in developing the cultural meaning of photography as a new form of scientific evidence, whether or not they actually took pictures themselves.” This is also important in the context of activism—the meaning of an image is determined by far more than the intention of those who made it. The ways in which any given image participated in the discourses and debates about the role of nonhuman animals in the modern world also helped determine its meanings. As Tucker argues, camera-​generated images are “objects having social properties,”55 and we need to be mindful of this as we look back to earlier historical periods to consider the ways in which they generated meaning for a diverse audience. As we saw in the case of Ada Cole, “witnessing” is deeply linked to animal advocacy efforts. Cole didn’t become invested in trying to stop the cruelty until she saw it with her own eyes; the citizens of Antwerp who lived near the docks closed their curtains so that they didn’t have to watch the horses walk by; as Cole, Ruhl, and Fairholme traveled to the docks and slaughterhouses to see the horrific conditions for themselves, those working in the live-​export industry retaliated by hiring “watchers” to keep prying eyes away. Witnessing has always been an important part of animal advocacy, and visual culture is intimately related to this process. Visual culture not only provides a record of what is seen; it also extends the process of witnessing to a broader audience. As noted above, however, these images can only ever tell part of the story—a single image cannot possibly tell “the truth” (in a singular sense) about a situation. Rather, imagery serves as part of a larger narrative and, as such, needs to be contextualized. This does not mean that these kinds of images don’t hold tremendous power—when Cole and Fairholme brought their cameras down to the docks, the workers felt threatened enough to resort to violence. When an image is used to expose behavior taking place out of sight, the idea of “virtual witnessing” becomes important. In the context of science, as Tucker explains, virtual witnesses were those who “became witnesses of experimental scenes by means of the production in their minds of images realized in the laboratory. . . . Through virtual witnessing the multiplication of witnesses is, in principle, unlimited.”56 Photography has also played an important role in “virtual witnessing” in the context of activism, including animal advocacy. Through the replication and dissemination of

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camera-​generated images such as those that Cole produced, the potential for a large portion of the population to witness that which took place out of sight was realized. The relationship between witnessing and cruelty to animals is complex and historically contingent. In the early nineteenth century, many reformers were convinced that watching something like bullbaiting could lead to behavior deemed socially unacceptable. As Coral Lansbury notes, there was a belief espoused by people like William Wilberforce, a politician, abolitionist, and vocal supporter of the RSPCA, that “the spectacle of suffering encouraged men to rebellion, making the transition a single step from cruelty to animals to cruelty to people.”57 The problems associated with witnessing violence to animals were addressed in a number of laws in Britain. The 1874 London Slaughterhouse Act made it illegal to kill an animal in “public view.”58 Britain’s 1911 Protection of Animals Act followed a similar course. Under this law, which came into effect on January 1, 1912, children under the age of sixteen were not allowed to watch an animal being slaughtered. Further, the act stated that “no animal shall be killed in the sight of any other animal awaiting slaughter.” As Jonathan Burt notes, “this last point, which extended consideration to what animals themselves see, is highly significant. Admittedly, any humanitarian aspect to this act is tempered by the fact that the animals are still being killed. Nevertheless, it does establish the idea that at some level animals are participant observers in visual culture.”59 That attention was paid to what a nonhuman animal might feel or experience as she witnessed the killing of a member of her social group also acknowledged that nonhuman animals might experience fear and pain in a way that was not that different from the ways in which humans experience these things. While practices of looking were being restricted in some areas, in other aspects of animal advocacy they were being increased. For instance, the RSPCA insisted upon increased surveillance to prevent cruelty to nonhuman animals. There was a need, the organization’s members believed, to keep an eye on the working class, those who they thought would be most likely to attend spectacles such as bullbaiting and be unnecessarily cruel to the nonhuman animals they encountered in their day-​to-​day lives. This relates to some of the points made in the previous chapter—namely, the belief that “uncivilized” and “uncultured” people would be more prone to violence and cruelty toward nonhuman animals. The RSPCA grew, as Lansbury notes, “only by means of constant vigilance.” The link between watching, witnessing, and the abolition of cruelty to nonhuman animals was also reinforced

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through humane education. In terms of organizations like the Bands of Mercy, children were not only taught that “it was not enough . . . to be kind to animals,” but that they also had to keep their “eyes open for any act of cruelty on the part of an adult and then . . . must actively help to apprehend the malefactor.”60 Children were thus empowered to enforce and enact the socioeconomic framework that informed the RSPCA’s response to cruelty. However, the notion that only members of the working class would perpetrate cruelty toward nonhuman animals got turned on its head once vivisection became a topic for debate in Britain and North America. Here, once again, the role of witness became central. The events that led to the infamous “Brown Dog Affair” in London from 1903 to 1910, for example, began with an act of witnessing. Lizzy Lind af Hageby and Leisa Schartau, two Swedish feminists and antivivisection activists, attended a laboratory demonstration performed by William Bayliss at University College London in 1903. The two women witnessed a brown dog “done to death” in an illegal vivisection, and they recorded what they saw in their notebooks.61 Lind af Hageby and Schartau did not take photographs of the experiment they witnessed, but when the incident moved to a courtroom after Bayliss sued for libel, the experiment was reenacted and a photograph was then taken (fig. 19). This photograph was used as evidence in the trial.62 Once again, this incident serves as an important reminder that the connection between imagery and evidence is anything but straightforward.

CULT UR AL (IN)V ISIBILI T Y

In some cases, the activities documented by animal advocates were taking place in plain view but were so normalized that many people either took no notice of them or simply accepted them as an inevitable aspect of modern life. Those working in organized animal advocacy, therefore, saw tremendous potential in using imagery to help draw attention to things that were culturally invisible. It is this aspect of visual culture that prompted the MSPCA’s George T. Angell to emphasize the role of photography in stopping cruelty to animals. In addition to showing photographs taken as part of the MSPCA cruelty investigations, he argued the need to “use the kodaks to show through the press and otherwise, not only high check-​reins, and horses mutilated for life by docking, together with owners who drive and ride them, but also all kinds of cruelty that can be found on cattle cars, in cattle yards,

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Fig. 19  Reenactment of the Brown Dog Experiment, 1903. Image: Wellcome Library, London.

slaughter-​houses, markets, horse racing, polo games, and otherwise.”63 Many of the activities that Angell suggested be photographed took place in plain view—markets, horses in the streets wearing checkreins, and polo games, for example. The cruelty inherent in these actions had become so normalized that Angell saw the camera as a way to get people to stop and take another look, to think again about what is “acceptable” in terms of the treatment of nonhuman animals. In other instances, the activities documented were taking place out of the sight of most people, behind closed doors or in another geographical location. For example, photographs were used in the debates over “murderous millinery.”64 These advocacy campaigns pitted the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) against “fashionable” women who wore feathers—and sometimes entire bird bodies!65—on their hats and the industries that supported and promoted this fashion trend. Photographs and other forms of visual culture were used to articulate visually the arguments against the killing of birds in distant lands for the sake of fashionable clothing. As historian Robin Doughty has pointed out, this was not the first time that people used feathers to adorn themselves, but the scale at which this was happening during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was

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unprecedented, and this is what prompted such a robust reaction against this fad—“never before had opposition to feather wearing been so organized, vehement, or widespread. Never before had it even been deemed important enough to merit more than passing attention.”66 Throughout Europe, the United Kingdom, and North America, fashionable women could be seen wearing hats adorned with bird feathers. Those who raised questions about the cruelty of this fashion trend were frequently told fabricated stories about how the feathers were obtained. Protesters were told that “these feathers are used by the bird to line its nest and are taken thence by the plume-​hunter at the end of the nesting season.” The notion that feathers used to line a nest would then be recycled into items of high fashion was rather far-​fetched and was challenged almost immediately by those lobbying for the protection of birds. In order to dispute these claims, the RSPB circulated a photograph taken by ornithologist A. H. E. Mattingley, a member of the Australasian Ornithologists’ Union. The photograph depicted an egret’s nest, “showing plainly that no feathers are used, and that the structure consists entirely, like the nests of other members of the Heron family, of rough sticks and twigs.”67 This image, coupled with Mattingley’s professional and academic credentials, gave a lot of weight to the visual arguments against the plumage trade, suggesting that claims made by the industry regarding humane methods of procuring feathers were not to be believed. This was not the only instance of Mattingley’s photographs being used as evidence in the fight against the plumage trade. In 1906, Mattingley took a series of photographs while on an expedition in New South Wales that would become a standard part of the iconography of bird protection in the early twentieth century. The series of seven photographs focused on the killing of egrets for the millinery trade and became an important part of the visual argument against this practice. It was hoped that these images would “bring home . . . the truth about the ‘osprey’ plume.”68 Mattingley had traveled to Mathoura in New South Wales in November 1906 in order to “make a closer acquaintance with the heronries” in that region. The photographs he took on this journey were reproduced as engravings in an illustrated article that appeared in the October 1, 1907, issue of the Emu, the “official organ of the Australasian Ornithologists’ Union.” The images were accompanied by a caption explaining that they were based on photographs—the words “From a Photo. By A. H. E. Mattingley” were prominently affixed under each image, testifying to their veracity. The photographs

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Fig. 20  A. H. E. Mattingley, Starveling Egrets (Parents Shot for Their Plumes), 1906. Published in Sidney Trist, ed., The Under Dog (London: Animals’ Guardian, 1913). Collection of the author.

included images of a “Brooding Plumed Egret,” a “Nest of Plumed Egret,” a shot showing the “Locality of Heronry—A River Murray Backwater,” and two juvenile birds (the plumed egret, Mesophoyx plumifera, and the Australian white egret, Herodias timoriensis) in their nests. The article described Mattingley’s journey, the surroundings, and biological information about the birds he had traveled to observe.69 There is brief mention of the plumage trade in this article—Mattingley and his party were told about the declining numbers of birds at this location, but on this trip did not witness firsthand the violence of the hunt. Mattingley returned to the same location during the Christmas holidays in 1906 with a single goal in mind, “to obtain one picture only—namely, that of a ‘White Crane’ or Egret feeding its young.” When he arrived, he instantly knew something was amiss, and it did not take long for him to realize that he was witnessing the remnants of a large-​scale slaughter of birds. When near the place we could see some large patches of white, either floating in the water or reclining on the fallen trees in the vicinity of the Egrets’ rookery. This set me speculating as to the cause of this unusual sight. As we drew nearer, what a spectacle met our gaze—a sight that made my blood fairly boil with indignation. There, strewn on the floating water-​weed, and also on adjacent logs, were at least 50 carcasses of large White and smaller Plumed Egrets—nearly one-​third of the rookery, perhaps more—the birds having been shot off their nests containing young. What a holocaust! Plundered for their plumes. What a moment of human callousness!

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Fig. 21  A. H. E. Mattingley, The Dying Nestlings (Parents Shot for Their Plumes), 1906. Published in Sidney Trist, ed., The Under Dog (London: Animals’ Guardian, 1913). Collection of the author.

Mattingley noted that about fifty birds were “ruthlessly destroyed, besides their young (about 200) left to die of starvation! . . . What a sickening sight! How my heart ached for them. How could anyone but a cold-​blooded, callous monster destroy in this wholesale manner such beautiful birds, the embodiment of all that is pure, graceful, and good.” Mattingley’s photographs of the “poor starvelings” were reproduced as part of a second article published in the same issue of the Emu. Most of Mattingley’s photographs of these “poor starvelings” depend on accompanying text to set the scene (fig. 20). Some birds, he wrote, “were seen trying in vain to attract the attention of passing Egrets which were flying with food in their bills to feed their own young,” and noted that “it was a pitiful sight indeed to see these starvelings with outstretched necks and gaping bills imploring the passing birds to feed them.”70 The image titles and accompanying captions provide important context for the reader/viewer. If these images were presented in a different context, a viewer could be forgiven for mistaking them as typical natural history photographs. In other words, there is little in the images themselves that overtly suggests these birds’ predicament. In most of Mattingley’s photographs of the nestlings, the framing is wide enough to give a sense of the landscape, with one exception. One of Mattingley’s photographs depicts young birds huddled together in their weakness (fig. 21). Unlike the other birds in this series, these birds are not alert, and their heads are hanging down. Their body language, as Mattingley was no doubt aware, conveyed a sense of loss and devastation. Mattingley also submitted the photographs to the RSPB, which, along with the Audubon Society in North America, aimed to “discourage the

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wearing of feathers.”71 The RSPB published Mattingley’s seven photographs in a special supplement accompanying its Autumn 1909 issue of Bird Notes and News. The cover of the supplement gives the title of the photo essay (“The Story of the Egret in Seven Scenes”) and assures readers that these images were “photographed from life.” Hundreds of extra copies of this supplement were made available for distribution in Britain and other countries. These images were published with the aim “not only to bring home the truth of the matter to those whom words may not have convinced, but also to stimulate public opinion to an active support of the Importation of Plumage Prohibition Bill, as passed by the House of Lords and introduced into the House of Commons in 1908.”72 Perhaps unsurprisingly, representatives of the “feather trade” attempted to discredit the photographs and claimed they were ‘bogus.’ ”73 These photographs were also presented to the Linnean Society of London in 1909 and later published in Trist’s book The Under Dog in 1913.74 These images were, in other words, viewed in a wide range of contexts and became an important part of the public relations war that erupted between those who benefited economically from this fashion trend and those who opposed it. Advocates used the photographs to counter industry claims that feathers were collected in “humane” ways, but they faced an uphill battle. In addition to having to combat the slick public relations spin from the industry, they also “campaigned before an indifferent or antagonistic public,” in Doughty’s words. The reformers were represented as “faddist and sickly sentimental,” and those who profited from the millinery trade were quick to point out that bird welfare advocates “were overreacting to a well-​established and reputable industry offering gainful employment to . . . thousands of workers in the fashion centres of the Western world.”75 Advocates countered that regulations and restrictions on the trade in exotic bird feathers would not reduce the demand for fashionable clothing and that those who earned their living through so-​called “murderous millinery” practices could easily transfer their skills to related jobs such as the production of artificial plumes or flowers for fashion.76 Pitting the plight of nonhuman animals against the threat of mass unemployment is a tactic that has been used for decades by those whose profits are most threatened by the prospect of the humane treatment of animals.77 Mattingley’s photographs of the avian carnage in Mathoura were subsequently plastered on billboards, published in newsletters, and displayed in shop windows. Those who supported groups like the RSPB were even encouraged to purchase reproductions of these photographs that were available

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“mounted on stout cardboard” and “ready for hanging.” The photographs were circulated internationally, and made visible activities that took place in locations that were out of sight (owing to physical distance) for most who wore plumes. It was hoped that these images would recontextualize the process of bearing witness to cruelty in a more familiar context and shape behavior accordingly.78 That visual culture was used here is significant, as the reformers were competing against the very visual fashion industry. As is the case today, the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-​century fashion industry relied heavily on visual spectacle, eye-​catching advertisements, and imagery depicting ideal visions of feminine beauty. Indeed, given the highly visual world with which they were engaging, bird welfare advocates may have had no choice but to use visual material in their educational and advocacy campaigns. As Doughty notes, by the end of the nineteenth century, many fashion magazines “reported styles in clothing and ornament (including feathers) from the fashion centers of London, New York, and Paris,” and “the elegant trimmings pictured regularly in journals meant that bird populations all over the world fell under the gun.”79 Mattingley’s photographs were celebrated for their ability to reveal accurately the truth of the millinery industry. Their value was very much related to both the medium (the indexical quality of the photographs) and to his position as a respected man of science. His credibility, in other words, coupled with the type of images, went a long way toward fostering a sense of veracity and legitimacy. Mattingley’s photographs are consistent with other contemporary reports, and there is no doubt that they are an accurate documentary record of what he saw—but this story reminds us once again that the issue of photographic truth in activist contexts is complex. The specifics of these photographs mattered less than the broader, general ideas that they could be seen to represent. And yet, somewhat paradoxically, their meaning could be generated only because of the specific conditions under which they were made. In other words, a small number of photographs taken by a specific individual at a specific heronry in Mathoura in December 1906 came to stand for the broader arguments against the fashion industry. The specific details mattered less than the broader “truths” the images told. I raise this point not to cast doubts on the credibility of activist efforts involving photographs but because I want to encourage an understanding of these types of images as necessarily existing in a broader context, one that viewers need to be critically aware of. This is as true of Cole’s or Mattingley’s photographs as

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it is of photographs taken in the context of advocacy today. Indeed, attention to these dynamics can make these kinds of images even more effective in activist and reform efforts.

T HE P OLI T IC S OF SIG H T

Undoubtedly, photography and film have played an important role in animal advocacy by bringing into view things that were otherwise not seen. Recognizing the complexities inherent in the ways in which these kinds of images created meaning does not in any way negate this. In 1913, Francis Rowley, who was then president of the MSPCA, articulated the connection between the politics of sight and injustice toward nonhuman animals, a point that still rings true today: “That kindly men and gentle women, many of them contending against other and lesser forms of cruelty, can come and go, indifferent to the injustice done to myriads of their humbler kin, is due only to the fact that the scenes and surroundings of the slaughter-​house are as far removed from their experience as though they did not exist.”80 Rowley, like many others campaigning for reforms to the ways in which nonhuman animals were treated, used photographic images to begin a conversation about the conditions found in slaughterhouses. The violence of the slaughterhouse was something that most people gave little thought to, because it was not something they directly encountered on a daily basis. By using visual imagery, Rowley aimed to remind people that this violence toward nonhuman animals was happening and that their consumer choices were part of the cycle of cruelty, even though this connection was not always visible. It is easy to ignore cruelty when you don’t see it, as Rowley clearly understood. One of the photographs Rowley circulated shows a young calf being slaughtered by two men (fig. 22). The photograph’s caption reads, “for the sake of a veal cutlet.”81 In this photograph, the calf hangs suspended from hooks attached to the slaughterhouse ceiling. His legs and hindquarters are blurry in this photograph, an indication that he is in motion, kicking, fighting for his life. Two workers are at his head, one holding it so that the other can slice through the calf’s fur, skin, and muscles. At the moment that this photograph was made, blood was already pouring out of the calf’s body, and there is some splattered on the wall behind the workers as well as on their clothes. When the camera’s shutter opened and closed, this calf occupied a liminal space between life and death—his body is in motion and at the

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Fig. 22  MSPCA / Francis H. Rowley, For the Sake of a Veal Cutlet, ca. 1913. Published in Proceedings of the International Anti-​Vivisection and Animal Protection Congress Held at Washington, D.C., December 8th to 11th, 1913 (New York: Tudor Press, 1914). Image courtesy of the Science, Industry, and Business Library, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations.

same time he is bleeding out through the gaping gash in his throat. Through this photograph, we too are witnessing the death of this animal. This calf was killed in the early twentieth century, but the photograph extends the process of witnessing indefinitely. More than one hundred years later, a viewer can still look at this image and be sickened, and grief-​stricken, at the horrific final moments of this young animal’s life. In the background, two workers watch the slaughter take place. Why are they watching? Why are they not participating, or slaughtering another animal? What is the role of witnessing in a scene like this? Would this not have been a normal scene in this workplace? What was it about this specific instance of killing that caught their attention? Are these workers looking on because of the presence of the camera? Was this animal’s death staged for the camera? If so, how does it differ from the others that took place in this location? The architecture and equipment in this space indicate that this is a scene of regular slaughter, and the workers, at least the two in the back, seem aware of and even welcoming of the camera, which indicates that this image was not made covertly.

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The context in which this image appeared shaped the way it was read and understood. Rowley used it at a 1913 conference aimed at ending cruelty to animals. How would the meaning shift if this photograph were displayed in the offices of the slaughterhouse or in the home of one of the workers depicted? It is also important to consider the image-​text relationships at play here. At the bottom of the photograph are the words “Copyright 1913, by Mass. Society Prevention Cruelty to Animals,” which add a sense of authority to the image. This photograph, the viewer is told, comes to us through a reputable organization dedicated to stopping cruelty to animals. We can trust it. But what does it tell us? Beneath the image in the conference proceedings, we read that “in federally inspected abattoirs during 1912, 2,277,954 calves were killed substantially in the manner indicated above. The annual year-​book of Swift & Co. says that in 1911, 8,000,000 calves were slaughtered. For the whole country the figures approximated 10,000,000.”82 The statistics about the staggering number of calves killed each year contrasts with the image of the individual calf shown in the photograph. Even if it were possible to show 2,277,954 calves being killed in a single image, the sheer numbers would make it difficult for the image to have a central focus. Through the addition of text, the viewer is encouraged to imagine this scene being repeated 2,277,953 times, while focusing on the one animal in the photograph. The calf in the photo is an individual, not an abstract statistic. This is a powerful tool of visual rhetoric, one that continues to be employed by activists today. It is much easier to connect and empathize with an individual than it is to connect with a mass of more than 2 million animals.

T HE BURDEN OF PROOF

Those who attempted to justify the status quo also used photographs to provide “proof,” not only of the lack of cruelty in the vivisector’s laboratory and slaughterhouse, but also of the ways in which animal advocates might have got things wrong. That both sides relied on camera-​generated evidence reminds us again to be cautious about accepting a simple equation of a photograph or film clip with “the truth” about a given situation. William Williams Keen, “an eminent Philadelphia surgeon,” president of the American Medical Association in 1899–1900, and an ardent vivisectionist, used photography to demonstrate—to provide evidence of—just how

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benign and uncruel vivisection practices were. In Animal Experimentation and Medical Progress (1914), he included a photographic image of his granddaughter wearing a “mouth gag” in order to “illustrate that some medical procedures looked more painful than they were” (fig. 23).83 Keen had taken issue with an illustrated postcard circulated by the American Anti-​Vivisection Society that featured a picture of a “large dog with his mouth gagged wide open.” As a rebuttal, Keen produced the photograph of his granddaughter wearing a restraint “to show how little annoyance” the procedure caused. “Here is a picture of a little girl, four years old, my own granddaughter,” he wrote, “with a mouth-​gag which I have used many times over with children and adults in operations about the mouth.” The image shows the young girl in profile wearing a checkered dress, her curled hair held back by an oversized ribbon. Her mouth is held open by a metal “mouth gag,” a jarring reminder that this is not a typical portrait of a young girl. Keen’s granddaughter does not appear to be exhibiting any signs of physical distress, although we are not privy to the circumstances in which the image was taken. Keen tells the reader that “the child regarded the whole proceeding of photographing her with her mouth wide open as a ‘lark,’ and sat as still as a mouse.”84 Was it easy for Keen to persuade his granddaughter to don this apparatus? Was it, as he suggests, a game for her, a bit of fun? Was she uncomfortable or in pain? What explanation was she given for the necessity of wearing this device? Was she given a reward or a treat afterward? Did she see a copy of this image? What did the rest of her family think of this? These are questions that the photograph cannot answer for us. Despite Keen’s assurances that this was not painful for the girl, we cannot know this for certain just by looking at this picture. And this is precisely the point—an image, even a photographic image, can tell only so much of the story. Keen, like the antivivisectionists, believed in the evidentiary power of photographic images. And yet, as we have seen, a photograph’s context shapes the ways in which it is understood. Furthermore, what is excluded from an image is often as significant as what is included. When we consider how images were used as a way to extend the process of “witnessing” in an advocacy context, it is important to keep these things in mind. Again, I am not discounting the value of photographic images in advocacy work. Rather, I want to stress that these images gain much of their power from the ways in which they are circulated and consumed, and this is an important part of the meaning-​making process that gets forgotten when we assume that a photograph is simply a mirror image of reality.

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Fig. 23  W. W. Keen, Mouth gag as used in operations about the mouth, ca. 1914. Published in Keen, Animal Experimentation and Medical Progress (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1914).

The identity of the photographer matters, as does the organization to which the photographer belongs (if any). In 1905, investigators working for the RSPCA began taking pictures to document animal cruelty that could be used in court as evidence against alleged offenders. When several cases of cruelty to horses at Staveley and Whittington Moor were brought forth, prosecutors suggested that photographs of the mistreated horses would “materially assist the bench.” While the issue of cost was raised, what is more significant here is that the RSPCA inspector (a man named Robinson) insisted that he would have to be the one to take the photographs—“I should have to take them myself to be admitted in evidence,” he stated.85 A photograph taken by just anybody would not suffice in this context, the implication being that a photograph taken by someone else could be untrustworthy. The images had to be made by someone with authority—in this case, Inspector Robinson—in order to be considered credible. In other words, it is not just the content of a photograph that determines its meaning but a host of other factors—such as who composed and took the photograph, how the image

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was used, and, perhaps most important, how it relates to ideas of power and surveillance—that are not necessarily immediately visible in the image. As John Tagg has argued, “the coupling of evidence and photography in the second half of the nineteenth century was bound up with the emergence of new institutions and new practices of observation and record-​keeping.”86

GR APH IC AR T A S V ISUAL E V IDEN CE

This chapter has been primarily concerned with camera-​generated images, but other types of imagery were also used as evidence and as a form of bearing witness. This reminds us that no history of imagery exists in a vacuum and that we must be attuned to the cultural histories that inform the production, consumption, and circulation of images. Prints were an important tool of reform movements before the invention of photography, and they were also a popular and relatively inexpensive way to reproduce images in the decades before it was feasible to use photomechanical technologies. In earlier historical periods, such artists as William Hogarth, George Cruikshank, and Thomas Bewick produced prints that focused on animal advocacy themes.87 These artists made use of the most effective visual media available to them. Even after photography became a viable medium for advocacy and reform efforts, some chose to use older methods of image making such as painting and printmaking. To be sure, these images looked different from documentary photographs and film footage, but this does not mean they did not have an important role to play in the practice of bearing witness to animal cruelty. Vivisection, or experimentation on live animals in the name of science, was a particularly contentious issue during this period. Antivivisectionists used visual culture as evidence of cruelty. Activists like Frances Power Cobbe frequently appropriated imagery from physiological manuals as “realistic” and “objective” representations of experimentation on animal bodies. These images tended not to be photographs but prints, drawings, and diagrams. Cobbe, who was described as having “tireless energy with which she devised fresh means to ‘poke up’ the vivisectors,” was one of the most vocal opponents of vivisection in the nineteenth century.88 She understood the importance of imagery and often incorporated images that many found difficult to look at. As Hilda Kean notes, “Cobbe tried to bring about change through shock tactics.”89

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Images from physiology and scientific manuals were originally intended to instruct students on the most effective techniques for experimenting on animals, and depicted scenes of dogs and rabbits bound and splayed on surgical tables. These images were intended to be clinical and objective, accurate and precise illustrations, devoid of emotional content. Cobbe felt that they would be an effective way to show the public exactly what was taking place in laboratories across Europe and North America. As she noted in the introduction to one of her best-​known pamphlets, Light in Dark Places, “every illustration in this pamphlet may be taken with certainty to be a Vivisector’s own picture of his own work, such as he himself has chosen to publish it.”90 Cobbe wanted to be sure that people took these images seriously and that she could not be accused of injecting emotion or sentiment into these representations. Given that her work was often discounted because of her gender—critics referred to her as an “irrepressible and irrational lady”—she was especially intent on demonstrating her credibility.91 But Cobbe’s recirculation of these images may have rendered them less objective than she hoped. Her appropriation of them opened them up to new interpretations, a demonstration of the complexity of visual culture in activist and reform contexts.92 Cobbe’s audience of animal lovers and antivivisectionists was obviously very different from the medical students for whom these images were originally intended. This is not to say that Cobbe’s tactics were ineffective—indeed, they demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of how visual culture functions in advocacy work. It is, rather, a reminder that the very act of taking an image made for one context (a leather-​bound scientific text intended for a specialist audience) and placing it in another (a cheaply produced paper leaflet intended for a mass audience) will necessarily generate new sets of meanings. Where a viewer sees an image, the way the image is framed, and the content on the pages next to the image all need to be taken into account when thinking about how these kinds of pictures produce meaning. That Cobbe’s repurposing of images ushered in new sets of meanings is not a bad thing, and in fact that was her intention. But when we consider her use of visual culture from this perspective, her claims of unmediated objectivity fall away. Did this make them any less useful? On the contrary! They invited new kinds of conversations about the value and role of practices like vivisection in modern times. This chapter has focused on the complexities that necessarily accompany the use of imagery as evidence in the context of animal advocacy. The notion of “bearing witness” and providing evidence of cruelty are often important

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aspects of advocacy efforts, and are frequently accompanied by imagery that is intended to serve as “proof” of a given situation. As the case studies explored in this chapter demonstrate, however, the ways in which images work to create meaning depend on much more than just the contents of the image. As Julia Thomas has argued, “as signifiers, images generate multiple and even contradictory meanings.”93 As critical viewers, then, we must be attuned to the contexts in which these images were made and viewed. When looking back at the ways in which those working in the areas of animal welfare, animal rights, antivivisection, and humane education relied on visual culture, it is important to see these images as more than simply unmediated, accurate reflections of how things really were. Rather, we need to understand these images as part of a broader cultural dialogue about the role and place of nonhuman animals in modern society and the responsibilities of humans. Recognizing the complexities inherent in the production, consumption, and circulation of images is not the same thing as saying that they are “false.” Following Jennifer Tucker’s lead, I wish to emphasize the need to let go of a framework for analyzing visual culture that depends on a “true-​false” binary. This is unproductive and neglects much of the important cultural and advocacy work that images do. At issue in these case studies is who is permitted to see what, what Timothy Pachirat has termed “the politics of sight.”94 How does visual culture enhance, negate, challenge, and restructure this politics? The context in which an image is made and viewed is an important aspect of this dynamic, as is the choice of medium. That twenty-​first-​century activists rarely use prints, drawings, or other graphic art in their advocacy work demonstrates the continued primacy of photographs, film, and video today. The technologies may have changed—we can now upload a smartphone image with the click of a button—but the ideas about the camera as a documentary tool remain essentially the same. And yet, this is only one way that visual culture can function in the context of animal advocacy. As the next chapter argues, it is also important to be open to thinking about the imaginative potential of visual culture if we want to make the world a better place for nonhuman animals.

3 IMAGINATIVE LEAPS

W H AT N O T T O W E AR

Imagine you are going to a prestigious art exhibition at one of the hottest and most talked-​about galleries in London. What would you wear? Probably something fashionable, something chic, something trendy. Now imagine that when you arrive at the gallery, you notice that one of the artworks prominently placed in the exhibition is a visual critique of what you are wearing, the very garment you purposely selected from your wardrobe to make yourself appear fashionable and stylish. How does this make you feel? This is the scenario that played out at London’s New Gallery in the spring of 1899, when George Frederic Watts first exhibited his painting A Dedication (also known as The Shuddering Angel) (fig. 24). This painting is an overt and very public criticism of the late nineteenth-​century fashion for hats and clothing adorned with feathers. Despite campaigns against the practice by such groups as the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, at the dawn of the twentieth century feathers were still very much in fashion, and undoubtedly more than a few visitors to the New Gallery would have been wearing them. Watts’s painting was only one of many in the New Gallery’s 1899 spring exhibition, but as the crowd circulated through the opulent exhibition space, it would not have taken long for someone to notice the link between the intended message of this picture and the feathered fashions that many would have worn to the gallery. Even the most oblivious of gallery-​goers could not help but make the connection, as Watts included an inscription

Fig. 24  George Frederic Watts, A Dedication, 1898–99. Oil on canvas. Watts Gallery Trust.

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that read: “A dedication to all who love the beautiful and mourn over the senseless and cruel destruction of bird life and beauty.”1 Watts was a celebrated artist—a “painter of eminence”2—whose work was considered in his time “more remarkable than that of any English painter of the present day.”3 A Dedication had many of Watts’s hallmark qualities, including “majestic colouring” and a strong narrative aspect.4 The painting shows a golden-​haired angel “hovering over a dais strewn with remnants of shattered birdlife taken for the plumage industry.”5 The luminous colors of the feathers are echoed in the robes of the angel, a visual suggestion that the loss depicted here is much bigger than the death of a few individual birds. This is an imaginative scene, not intended to provide documentary evidence of cruelty in the way the images discussed in the previous chapter did. The location where Watts chose to exhibit this painting is significant. The New Gallery opened in 1888 and was a prestigious exhibition space quite different from that of the structured, rigid Royal Academy. The New Gallery was modeled on the Grosvenor Gallery, itself a groundbreaking venture in the London art world. Places like the Grosvenor Gallery and the New Gallery moved away from exhibition strategies like those used at the Royal Academy—select artists were invited to exhibit, and they had a tremendous amount of freedom about what they exhibited. Unlike the Royal Academy system, no jury decided what would hang on the walls; artists consequently had much more control over what they exhibited and how it was hung. Further, the interior spaces of these galleries were designed to replicate “the layout and interior décor of domestic spaces transforming their commercial showrooms into more intimate interiors that mirrored the taste of the private patron,” according to Andrew Stephenson. In addition, the way artwork was displayed in both the Grosvenor and the New Gallery was unique; pictures were hung in such a way that there was ample space around each painting. This was noticeably different from the exhibition strategies used by the Royal Academy, which aimed for “quantitative over qualitative interactions.” The walls of the Grosvenor and the New Gallery were less crowded, allowing visitors to focus more easily on the individual pieces on display.6 This may seem like standard exhibition practice to us today, but in the nineteenth century it was far more common to have dozens of pictures grouped together, sometimes going up the wall almost to the ceiling. The New Gallery was celebrated for providing “singularly fitting surroundings for the Arts.”7 Contemporary descriptions paint a picture of luxury and opulence, complete with marble floors and columns, an elegant

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fountain, and palm trees.8 It had two large exhibition spaces on the main floor, and there was an additional exhibition space along an upper balcony that was used primarily for exhibiting smaller works on paper. An article celebrating the New Gallery in the Times on the day it opened noted that the impressive central hall was “the most charming feature of the building,” “altogether delightful and of itself . . . well worth going to see.” Gas lighting and a “refreshment room” completed the ambiance and experience of visiting this space.9 In an article lamenting the closing of the New Gallery in 1910, the editors of the Burlington Magazine called it “a shrine of art” and “a familiar meeting-​ place for artists and amateurs.” The editors described its “well-​known, well-​ ordered galleries,” and saw its closing (to make way for a new restaurant) as “a calamity to art.”10 Likewise, a writer for the Nation noted that the closing of the gallery brought to an end “the most interesting chapter in the history of English art.”11 The prestigious, fashionable gallery was an ideal place for Watts to debut A Dedication. The New Gallery was located in a building that had once been a cooperative meat market.12 Much was made of the building’s conversion, in a mere three months.13 As one writer noted, “the building itself is of great interest, not only on account of the short time in which it has been completed, but for the ingenuity and good taste of the architect in dealing with existing conditions—in giving dignity and beauty to a site and to a structure where meanness had reigned supreme.”14 That a place of elegance and artistic achievement occupied a location where previously “meanness had reigned supreme” is symbolic of some of the larger cultural shifts taking place in London (and other urban spaces). To turn a space that had once been defined by the sale of animal bodies and body parts into a space of elegance and refined taste was not only an architectural accomplishment; it also fit into broader cultural ideals that saw the removal of live markets and slaughterhouses from the city center. This physical shift had more to do with placating the refined sensibilities of the urban genteel classes than with any explicit concern for animal welfare.15 The transformation of a meat market into a high-​end art gallery serves as an important example of broader cultural shifts about what was acceptable in the center of the city. The New Gallery was located at 121 Regent Street West in London, in the midst of what has been a fashionable shopping district since the 1820s.16 As Erika Rappaport has noted, Regent Street was “the centre of fin-​de-​siècle commercial culture”—it had long been promoted as “an avenue of sparkling

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shop windows overflowing with goods.”17 Nineteenth-​century commentators such as Edward Walford praised the area for its “handsome shops” and for being “the very centre of fashion.”18 By 1899, when Watts exhibited A Dedication at the New Gallery, there were plans under way to upgrade and modernize many of the shops, but the address still held much cultural cachet.19 Regent Street was very much a place not only to take in the sights, but also to be seen—this fashionable address was tightly woven into the visual spectacle of consumer culture in London. The gallery’s proximity to and participation in this dynamic is important to remember when considering the ways in which Watts’s painting would have been viewed and understood in the spring of 1899. As Stephenson has argued, places like the New Gallery “appealed in part because of their proximity to London’s shopping districts.” Further, these galleries catered to the “growing number of art interested women consumers.”20 There was something wonderfully subversive about exhibiting a painting criticizing a fashion trend in a fashionable district, and Watts would have been well aware of this dynamic. As we saw in the previous chapter, the use of bird body parts as part of fashionable clothing was a contentious and divisive issue in Britain and North America in the late nineteenth century.21 The Society for the Protection of Birds (SPB) was founded in 1889 and counted among its membership many high-​profile campaigners, including Watts. Its aims were to “discourage the wanton destruction of Birds” and to work for their protection. Members pledged that they would “refrain from wearing the feathers of any bird not killed for the purposes of food.” The SPB boasted more than five thousand members by the end of its first year, and membership continued to grow at a rapid rate in subsequent years. However, as historian Barbara T. Gates points out, “for every hundred women who joined their group, hundreds of thousands continued to wear plumes.”22 The SPB faced an uphill battle but recognized the importance of visual culture in its campaigns. As we saw in the last chapter, photographs providing “evidence” of cruelty in the plumage trade were widely circulated by groups like the SPB. Other types of images, like Watts’s painting, were also used. Watts’s decision to paint and exhibit A  Dedication demonstrates his commitment to the SPB’s campaign themes—as Robin Doughty has noted, “Watts strongly objected to cruelty to animals.”23 His concern for the treatment of nonhuman animals was an extension of his commitment to fighting for social justice on other fronts. Earlier, Watts completed a number of social realist paintings on what he saw as some of the most pressing

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negative aspects of modern life. Found Drowned (ca. 1850), for example, depicts the body of a woman who has committed suicide by jumping off Waterloo Bridge, and Under a Dry Arch (ca. 1850) is a comment on homelessness in the city of London. His 1885 painting The Minotaur addresses the theme of child prostitution, and “Watts used it to illustrate the degrading effect of vice or the weakness of the flesh.”24 A 1901 biography of Watts emphasized that “in many noble crusades where the good of humanity is concerned, Mr. Watts has shown intense practical sympathy.”25 This sentiment was echoed in 2004 when Fiona MacCarthy argued in the Guardian that Watts “embraced the clear relation between politics and art” throughout his career.26 Watts’s concern for social justice issues and his understanding of the ways in which art could serve as political commentary on some of the most pressing issues of his day provide the context for A  Dedication. Watts’s biographer Charles Bateman emphasized the “strong humanitarian side in Mr. Watts’s work” and described A Dedication as “an attempt to arouse the conscience of society against the wanton sacrifice of bird life to supply the decoration of millinery.” When this painting was exhibited, Bateman noted, it “created considerable interest by its vivid portrayal of the artist’s eloquent plea for bird life.”27 A Dedication received mixed reviews when it was first shown in London’s New Gallery in 1899.28 The Times called it “a curious work” and expressed concern that “the ladies who wear feathers in their hats do not take their act so seriously as Mr. Watts does, and that some of them will only smile when they find a great artist taking the trouble to paint a majestic angel weeping—over what? Over a shelf-​ful of the wings of birds! It is a little startling to read so severe a sermon, and from such a quarter, over an offence which well-​meaning people commit in all unconsciousness.” The review continued, “But we all know that ‘evil is wrought by want of thought’; let us hope that the excuse of unconsciousness will henceforth be taken away.” The reviewer concluded by praising the formal qualities of A Dedication, noting, “lest any one should suppose that Mr. Watts’s picture is pure sermon and nothing else, we would add that it is as admirable in its restrained colour as any of his recent works have been. It is a colour that is all his own, for neither in this nor in his technical methods of painting, nor in his grave symbolism, has Mr. Watts founded a school or even created imitators.”29 As this last section of the review highlights, it was often Watts’s abilities and reputation as an artist, member of the Royal Academy, and member of the artistic

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establishment that drew people to his work. If even a fraction of those who flocked to see his art paid attention to the social commentary in paintings such as A Dedication, Watts no doubt would have been pleased. In 1899, the same year that Watts first exhibited A Dedication, Margaretta Lemon, a founding and active member of the SPB, gave an address at the International Congress of Women in London, June 26–July 7.30 Lemon’s talk took place on July 3 and was titled “Dress in Relation to Animal Life.” In this address, she focused almost exclusively on the trend for feathers and the cruel ways in which birds were treated in the rush to provide a seemingly endless supply of plumes for the fashion industry, although she did note the “indescribable cruelties” that occurred in the fur industry as well. Lemon concluded her remarks by mentioning A Dedication and encouraging those in the audience to go and see the painting for themselves at the New Gallery.31 A Dedication was viewed in several different contexts. In addition to being on display at the New Gallery, it was reproduced as a frontispiece on Wilfrid Scawen Blunt’s epic poem Satan Absolved (1899),32 on the front cover of an SPB leaflet published titled Trade in Birds’ Feathers,33 in the well-​known arts magazine the Studio,34 and in the RSPCA’s magazine the Animal World in November 1910. The caption accompanying the reproduction in the Animal World reads: “More eloquent than any written word is the great painter’s voiceless plea for the feathered victims of woman’s cruel vanity.”35 The reproduction of this painting, coupled with the prominent attention that Watts’s pictures received from both the press and the gallery-​going public, meant that a large number of people, on both sides of the feathered fashion debates, would have had the opportunity to view it, either the original oil painting or a smaller monochromatic print. It is important to remember, however, that the meaning-​making process associated with this image would necessarily shift depending on the context in which it was viewed. How, for example, did the experience of seeing this painting in an opulent gallery space differ from viewing a small black-​and-​white reproduction of it on the pages of a leaflet produced by an advocacy group, or as the frontispiece in a poem criticizing the British Empire? How do these different viewing experiences shape understandings of this image and the broader cultural context it refers to? As Catherine Hilary has argued, “Watts challenges the viewer: do you worship at the feet of fashion? Are you subordinate to the tyrant of greed? Are you a murderer of the innocent?”36 Hilary, a curatorial fellow at the Watts Gallery in Compton, Surrey, penned these comments as part of her analysis

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of this picture for a special exhibition focusing on A Dedication in January 2012. When Watts painted this picture, he was of course speaking to his contemporaries, a late nineteenth-​century audience. However, I often wonder what people think when they see this picture today. Do they “get it” and reflect on their own consumer practices? Do they consider how they might be complicit in practices that continue to cause suffering? The painting is a visual protest against the fashion of wearing feathers that was so dominant at the time. While “feathered fashions” may not be as popular in the twenty-​ first century, the fashion industry certainly continues to exploit nonhuman animals at an alarming rate, a fact that was especially obvious when I recently visited the building in which Watts debuted this painting. The building where the New Gallery once was located is now home to a Burberry store, a retail clothing chain that has attracted the attention of anti-​fur protesters. Bur­ berry’s high-​end fashion items frequently feature animal body parts like fur, and in response to criticism, a spokesperson for the company said, “As a luxury brand there will be occasions where the use of fur will be considered important to the design and aesthetics of a product. In those circumstances we will continue to use fur.”37 It was this link between the use of animal body parts and a sense of aesthetics that Watts was attempting to draw attention to with A Dedication. It would seem that Watts’s painting is as relevant today as it was in the late nineteenth century.

S YMPAT HE T IC IM AGIN AT ION

As Watts’s painting demonstrates, one of the ways in which art and visual culture were used in animal advocacy during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was as a goad to the viewer’s “sympathetic imagination.” The idea here is that the visual narrative of an image could create a sense of empathy in the viewer, and this empathy would be directed not only to those depicted in the picture but to those of a similar species whom the viewer might encounter in other situations. In Watts’s case, the viewer was encouraged to feel sad not only about the dead birds depicted in the painting, but also about the plight of the many birds who continued to die for fashion each and every day. As Barbara Beierl notes, “the power of sympathetic imagination” is because it gives people the ability to “think ourselves into the mind and being of another.”38 The link between viewing an image and the lived experience of the viewer, in other words, was the focus of

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the advocates who considered this kind of picture an important addition to advocacy campaigns. As we have seen, tapping into a sense of the “sympathetic imagination” of viewers was a common tactic of animal advocates. Landseer’s images were celebrated for their ability to focus attention on the intelligence and emotions of nonhuman animals, and they were frequently included in animal advocacy publications. Weren’t all dogs capable of mourning and forming deep bonds with their human companions in the way that the dog in The Old Shepherd’s Chief Mourner did? To make this connection, of course, necessitated an elision between the world drawn from the artist’s imagination and encapsulated by the painting and the so-​called real world. Here, the boundaries between “fact” and “fiction” were porous, especially when the viewer was aware, as many certainly would have been, of scientific theories like Charles Darwin’s, which emphasized the characteristics that humans and animals had in common. When considered in this broader cultural context, it was not much of a stretch to believe that a dog could feel sadness and loyalty in the ways in which Landseer’s dogs were shown to do. An 1873 article on Landseer’s influence clearly made this connection, noting, “nowadays, we cannot take up a book, a review, a newspaper, without feeling that the whole attitude of man towards brutes is completely changed. . . . If there is one man who, by the force of his native genius, is the cause of this extraordinary change, it is Sir Edwin Landseer.”39 Landseer’s paintings embody the principle of sympathetic imagination. Likewise, when Ada Cole and A. H. E. Mattingley used photographs to expose the atrocities of the live-​export industry and the trade in bird feathers, they counted on the viewer feeling a sense of empathy with the suffering horses and birds depicted and imagining what it might be like not only to witness these scenes firsthand but to be the horses or birds in the photographs. The idea of sympathetic imagination can be taken even further in the visual culture used in animal advocacy. The result is sometimes bizarre or otherworldly images, but in the process of creating an imaginative space, viewers have an opportunity to reflect on their actual relationships with living, breathing flesh-​and-​blood animals. Watts’s painting of an angel mourning over the death of birds was not meant to evoke a sense of “true-​to-​life” visual witnessing; it was an invitation to think about the hidden consequences of women’s fashion choices. Even though the images explored in this chapter have moved away from the “truth-​telling” quality that inspired the images we saw in the previous chapter, the connection between image

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and action is as significant—these images ask viewers not only to feel a sense of empathy with nonhuman animals but to reflect on and even adjust their own behavior. In an address given in Washington, D.C., in 1913, Lizzy Lind af Hageby, the well-​known British antivivisectionist, talked about the importance of sympathetic imagination for those who were campaigning against animal cruelty. She believed that sympathetic imagination was “the very essence of civilization” and noted that art and poetry were essential for fostering it because “we feel that from them there goes out an understanding of all living creatures, of the sinner and the innocent, of the beautiful and even of the ugly—a sympathy and a love for everything that lives and breathes, which draws out in ourselves the very best, and makes us long to be like unto them.”40 Creative endeavors can be an important way to reflect on the ways in which the lives of animals (both human and nonhuman) are intertwined. Lind af Hageby and her supporters felt that art was a crucial aspect of developing a sense of sympathetic imagination in the service of animal advocacy. Barbara Beierl has explored the ways in which the concept of sympathetic imagination works through literature and argues that “imaginative literature can become an effective vehicle through which both psychological and cultural shifts in sensibility occur.” “Stories,” she observes, “allow their readers to interpret ethical principles by giving them emotional texture and vicarious experience.” The same process can occur through the experience of viewing visual art, as visual narratives can also create a space in which the viewer can reflect on the experiences of those depicted in the scene, and consider the ways in which those experiences may relate to the lived reality of the viewer. As Beierl writes, “in order to understand the positive emotional and moral effects created by reading literature that is animal-​centric and emphasizes a compassionate human-​animal bond, one must read imaginatively and thoughtfully.” Beirel concludes that “imaginative literature can thus stimulate the development of a moral and ethical sensibility in the reader,” and I would argue that the same is true of visual culture. Paintings, drawings, photographs, sculptures, and other forms of visual material can offer the opportunity to reimagine the world in a different way, and to think about the shared experiences and commonalities between the viewer and those around him or her. With sympathetic imagination, one feels “empathy and compassion” not only for the animals (human and nonhuman) that appear in stories or images, but also for “the creatures with whom they interact in real life.”41

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IM AGINED SCENE S

Watts’s Dedication was just one of many images that attempted to foster a sense of sympathetic imagination in the context of animal advocacy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 1914, for example, a painting by the American artist W. L. Duntley titled Why Not? entered the visual vocabulary of animal advocacy in the United States (fig. 25). Duntley’s painting is of an emaciated horse who had the misfortune of having his tail docked. The painting depicts the moment when the horse has arrived in heaven after dying an earthly death. The physical state of the horse’s body— even in its ghostly form—indicates that this animal did not live a happy or easy life on earth. As one contemporary commentator described it, it was “a picture of an old horse, worn with service, weak, decrepit—all in, so to speak, and carted to the bone yard, we take it. Reappearing on some resurrection morn the horse stands in the halo of the bright light that beats upon the throne, and coming toward him with beaming smile, is an angel reaching forth a loving hand to claim him.”42 The notion that nonhuman animals might encounter a form of afterlife similar to that of humans who believed in the doctrine of Christianity was certainly a contentious position during this era.43 This, of course, was a matter of great speculation. Was it possible for a nonhuman animal to look forward to the same heavenly reward that devout Christians did? The answer was far from clear, but images like this opened up debate and discussion about why this might or might not be possible. In other words, a depiction of a scene that was entirely imagined—nobody knew for sure the answer to this theological question—created discursive space for rethinking and reimagining the lives, deaths, and potential afterlives of nonhuman animals. Even to entertain the possibility that nonhuman animals went to heaven cracked open long-​held ideologies and assumptions about other species. If one concluded that a horse would not be rewarded for his service on earth with a heavenly paradise akin to what Christians anticipate, would one then have a moral obligation to be kind to nonhuman animals while they were on earth? As the editors of the MSPCA’s Our Dumb Animals proclaimed in a 1914 response to this painting, “no one will deny that if the world’s millions of faithful horses that have been beaten, starved, worked and driven to death, perish with no reward for their patient service but the sufferings they have endured here on earth, the scales of Justice are horribly out of balance.”44 If there were no life after death for nonhuman animals, nothing

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Fig. 25  W. L. Duntley, Why Not? Published in Our Dumb Animals, May 1914. Image courtesy of MSPCA Angell.

to look forward to, then would it not be an obligation for humans to ensure that their time on earth not be marred with suffering? However, if one came to the conclusion that a nonhuman animal might enjoy the same kind of spiritual afterlife as a human, it would then be necessary to acknowledge that nonhuman animals had immortal souls, and this realization had the potential to upset long-held theological positions about the unique position that humankind held in the divine order of the Christian tradition.45 And yet, as a 1914 commentary on Duntley’s painting pointed out, for those who shared their lives with nonhuman animals, this may not have seemed like such a stretch—“the man who has become acquainted with his animal friends . . . must at times wonder if it hasn’t a soul that contains the immortal essence.”46 Pictures like this—and the discussions they started—raised the possibility of “life beyond the grave” for nonhuman animals and relied on sympathetic imagination to begin a dialogue about a new framework for thinking about the place of nonhuman animals in the modern world. While the scene depicted in Why Not? and the accompanying discussions about the potential of an afterlife for nonhuman animals were both situated

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in the realm of the speculative, there were very concrete ways in which this picture was directly linked to the lived existences of actual nonhuman animals in the United States. As noted above, when sympathetic imagination is evoked in a creative work, the viewer is asked not only to meditate on the situation depicted within the frame, but also to think about the ways in which the scene might relate to their own lived experience. Both the MSPCA and the American Humane Education Society sold color reproductions of Duntley’s painting for twenty-​five cents a print to raise money for Angell Memorial Animal Hospital, a veterinary hospital that opened in Boston in 1915. Finally, the visual link between image and advocacy was clear—as officials of the MSPCA quipped, “what could be better than to mail to a man cruel to his horse one of these pathetic cards?”47 How would those who received a reproduction of this image in the mail respond? Would they stop and think about the ways in which they interacted with nonhuman animals on a daily basis? The reformers who circulated this image certainly hoped so. In other instances, spiritual figures appear to intervene in scenes of animal cruelty, a  compositional device that underscored the sense of Christian-​based morality that informed much of the rhetoric of reform in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-​century animal advocacy campaigns. In 1902, the Animals’ Guardian published an image titled Christ in the Laboratory in which the figure of Christ appears in a burst of light to confront a man who is in the midst of experimenting on a dog bound on a table (fig. 26). Above the central scene is a caption that reads “Love, the Fulfilling of the Law.” A decorative scroll winding through the image contains the words: “Be Ye Therefore Merciful as Your Father Was Also Merciful.” Under the image, quotations from the Lord Bishop of Durham and John Graham denounce vivisection as antithetical to Christian teaching. Christ in the Laboratory is a visual argument that forcefully points to “the divergency between Christ’s teaching and vivisection.”48 The picture was drawn by the artist Robert Morley, and each subscriber to the Animals’ Guardian received a copy of it with the July 1902 issue. The New England Anti-​Vivisection Society also reproduced this image in their publication the Animals’ Defender later that year.49 Reproductions were sold in Britain for one shilling, and supporters were encouraged to display the image, which would “remind professing Christians of their very obvious duty in this most up-​hill crusade.” The editors of the Animals’ Guardian believed that this picture would be “highly prized,” specifically because it brought a modern view of Christianity to the world of animal advocacy, a reminder that

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Fig. 26  Robert Morley, Christ in the Laboratory. Published in the Animals’ Guardian, May 1902. Image © The British Library Board.

“Christianity was meant to be a living force and not stereotyped religiosity.”50 This example serves as a reminder that religious and spiritual philosophies were among the many influential ideas shaping organized animal advocacy during this era.51

ROLE RE V ERS AL

Images of role reversal were also very popular with animal advocacy groups. Once again, the idea of sympathetic imagination strongly informed these images, in which viewers were asked to imagine what it might feel like to be treated the way some nonhuman animals were treated by humans. Reformers considered images like this to be “a power for good” because they had the potential to capture the attention of “a class of people who would not

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Fig. 27  Is Turn About Fair-​Play? Published in Our Dumb Animals, June 1871. Image courtesy of MSPCA Angell.

take the time to read a long article on the subject, yet can see at a glance the artist’s idea, which speaks volumes.”52 Visual culture has the potential to command attention in a way that written or spoken words often do not, and those working in animal advocacy understood this. Images that featured role-​reversal scenes were often striking because of their bizarre qualities. Undoubtedly, many viewers stopped to take a second look, if only to try and discern what they were looking at. Animal welfare advocates hoped, of course, that in that moment of looking there would be recognition of the intended message—namely, that cruelty to animals was unjust and incompatible with modern life. The MSPCA was a strong proponent of this type of visual campaign, and it frequently published role-​reversal images in Our Dumb Animals. In the June 1871 issue, the magazine ran an image called Is Turn About Fair-​Play? (fig. 27). The central focus is two men who have been yoked together and forced to pull an overburdened cart. To add insult to injury, the cart is piled high with other human bodies. All around the cart, nonhuman animals brandish whips and torment the humans depicted in the nightmarish scenario. This was one of a series of images that the MSPCA published in its

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Fig. 28  Birds Robbing Child’s Nests. Published in Our Dumb Animals, July 1871. Image courtesy of MSPCA Angell.

anticruelty campaigns, and it ran in the children’s section of the magazine. The commentary that accompanied this image asked the viewer to reflect on how the animals (both human and nonhuman) in the scene might be interacting with one another: “Imagine the animals saying to the men, ‘How do you like your check reins now?’ ‘How do you like to have your legs tied and being piled into a cart?’ ‘If you don’t like it for yourselves don’t do it to us!’ ” The same theme was taken up the following month in the July 1871 issue of Our Dumb Animals. This time, the image was called Birds Robbing Child’s Nests (fig. 28), and it depicts two monstrously large birds carrying human children away from their homes in their talons while their parents look on in dismay. The accompanying text asks children to think about how their actions might frighten and upset other animals: “Boys! The next time you start out to rob a bird’s nest think of this picture and try to think how your parents would feel if some monster should swoop down, clench their talons in your hair and fly off. How would you feel about that time? Do you not suppose the fathers and mothers of young birds and the young birds themselves have similar suffering when boys rob their nests?” With these kinds of images, there is no attempt to offer a sense of truth in the way that

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the images discussed in the previous chapter did. These are not documentary images intended to show things as they really are. Here, instead, are nightmarish scenes designed to provoke a response in the viewer, one that considers what it might feel like to be on the receiving end of cruelty and to consider how one’s own actions might be causing similar suffering and agony for nonhuman animals. As Monica Flegel has noted, these kinds of images “were meant to defamiliarize animal usage by implying a shared experience of suffering: what was wrong for a human was clearly just as wrong for an animal.”53

ANIM AL AU T OBIOGR APH IE S

These role-​reversal images can be seen as a visual extension of a subgenre of literature that gave nonhuman animals a human-like voice with which to plead for kindness: the animal autobiography.54 Stories told from the point of view of a horse, dog, cat, or other animal offered yet another innovative way for reformers to employ sympathetic imagination in the service of animal advocacy. As historian Katherine Grier notes, “giving animals voices was a particularly striking and effective literary technique for making the case for kindness.”55 Stories like Beautiful Joe, published by the Canadian writer Margaret Marshall Saunders in 1893 and considered “one of the classics in humane literature,”56 were wildly popular during this period.57 Likewise, Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty (1877)—a book that Beierl sees as “a benchmark in the heightening of empathy for both humans and animals in England and America”58—was considered an important book for animal advocacy, so much so that MSPCA founder George T. Angell distributed thousands of copies of it free of charge. Angell referred to Black Beauty as “The Uncle Tom’s Cabin of the Horse,” an indication that he saw it as a powerful agent of social change, as powerful as Harriet Beecher Stowe’s famous antislavery tale.59 In his 1924 Humane Society Leaders in America, Sydney Coleman claimed that Sewell’s novel was “the most widely read book in the world, outside of the Bible.”60 The example of Black Beauty once again demonstrates the ways in which imaginative tales and images can have an impact on the lives of living, breathing animals—this book “is generally credited with having contributed to the abolition of the bearing rein which held carriage horses’ heads at an unnatural angle, interfering with their breathing and causing great pain.”61

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Because of these kinds of connections, Sewell’s book became standard reading for many involved in animal advocacy. As Coral Lansbury has argued, “Black Beauty was not simply a juvenile classic. . . . From the start it found its audience among children and adolescents, who wept and anguished over the story of a black horse.”62 Many of these stories were illustrated, furthering the connection between imagery and advocacy. For example, when Mark Twain’s “A Dog’s Tale” first appeared in Harper’s Monthly Magazine in December 1903, the story was accompanied by four images painted by W. T. Smedley, an artist who was taught by Thomas Eakins at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.63 Like Beautiful Joe and Black Beauty, “A Dog’s Tale” is told from the perspective of a nonhuman animal—in this case, a dog. The story she tells is a sad one. She lives in a home with a family who cares for her and looks after her, but the father of the family is a scientist who ends up conducting a deadly experiment on the dog’s puppy. This betrayal is seen as doubly unjust because the narrator has risked her life to save the family’s child from a fire earlier in the story. As one of the family’s servants says to the dog, “Poor little doggie, you saved his child.” In Smedley’s depiction of this moment, the servant tenderly pats the dog on the head (fig. 29). In his other hand, he holds a shovel with which he has just buried the body of the young puppy, a victim of vivisection. In this tender scene, the dog and man look at each other, the dog’s front paw raised in a reminder of the injury she sustained while rescuing the child from the fire. The other three images Smedley painted to accompany the story also depict important relationships. The first shows the tender bond between the narrator and her puppy as the two dogs sit by a single food dish (the caption reads “by-​and-​by came my little puppy”). The second image shows four elegantly dressed women doting on the dog after she rescues the human baby from a fire in the nursery—“friends and neighbors flocked in to hear about my heroism,” reads the caption. The bond between mother dog and puppy is reinforced in a scene showing the interior of the home laboratory in which the fateful experiment took place (fig. 30). A crowd of men are gathered in the laboratory (“they discussed and experimented,” reads the caption), and as the story unfolds we learn that these men are discussing the science of optics, specifically “whether a certain injury to the brain would produce blindness.” The father of the human family, in the center of the composition, holds the small puppy in his hands while the mother dog looks on attentively. At this point, she is still unaware of the danger that her young puppy is in, and she

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Fig. 29  W. T. Smedley, Poor Little Doggie. Published in Mark Twain, A Dog’s Tale (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1903). Collection of the author.

even feels proud of the attention he is being given (“any attention shown the puppy was a pleasure to me, of course”), but before long the puppy “shrieked” and “went staggering around, with his head all bloody.”64 Twain’s story was expanded and published as an illustrated book in 1904, increasing the number of readers of this antivivisection narrative. Animal advocacy groups such as the London and Provincial Anti-​Vivisection Society sold copies in pamphlet form to raise funds for their campaigns and educational efforts. Some critics felt that Twain’s story was too heavy-​handed, too sentimental, and too thinly veiled a political statement against vivisection. As one reviewer noted, “it is to be regretted that a lover of dogs should spoil his plea on their behalf by such unreal devices,” and predicted that the story would “appeal only to confirmed sentimentalists.” Another complained that, “in regard at least to vivisection, its methods and its objects,” Twain was “a very ignorant person.”65

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Fig. 30  W. T. Smedley, They Discussed and Experimented. Published in Mark Twain, A Dog’s Tale (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1903). Collection of the author.

Most reviewers admired Smedley’s illustrations—even negative reviews noted that “Mr. Smedley’s four illustrations show more understanding of dogs than is to be found in the text”66—although some medical journals took issue with his representation of vivisection, quibbling that “scientists do not try to find centres of sensory or motor action by running a probe held in one hand through the skull of a puppy dog held in the other.”67 This criticism illustrates the ways in which expectations and interpretations of images draw on a range of cultural ideas and influences. Smedley’s images and Twain’s story were both designed to foster a sense of sympathetic imagination in the viewer and reader. They were not intended to be true-​to-​life portrayals of vivisection in a documentary sense. Unlike the images of vivisection that Frances Power Cobbe published, Smedley’s illustrations were not intended to be scientifically precise. And yet this is how some critics judged them, with the expectation that because they were created in the

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spirit of reform, they should offer a real-​life glimpse of how things really were. This, as we saw in the previous chapter, was certainly the expectation of some images and texts produced in the service of animal advocacy. But this was only one way in which such images could function. The power of sympathetic imagination was also an important avenue for animal advocacy, and images that did not necessarily conform to expectations of documentary accuracy were nevertheless valid tools for creating change. As Margo DeMello argues in her discussion of animal autobiographies, “what is important about literary representations of animal minds isn’t whether or not they’re accurate; it’s what they reveal about how humans think about animals, and . . . the consequences of that thinking.”68 Similarly, when it comes to visual culture, sometimes accuracy is not the most important element by which to judge the success of an image used in the context of advocacy.

T HE AR T OF AN T HROP OMORPH ISM

In December 1910, several newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean reviewed and advertised a curious new book called Rumbo Rhymes, a satirical text written in verse by Alfred C. Calmour and richly illustrated by Walter Crane, a well-​known English artist affiliated with the Arts and Crafts movement. Rumbo Rhymes tells the tale of a “convocation” at which many different kinds of nonhuman animals gather to air their grievances about how humans treat them. The opening asks: Do you once give a single thought To the poor creatures you caught Or been presented with or bought,   Whose death with agony is fraught Of course you don’t, but then you ought.69 The text outlines various ways in which humans have been cruel to nonhuman animals. All of the animals have an opportunity to speak about an injustice of particular concern to their species. For example, the rabbit speaks against vivisection. Crane’s black-​and-​white illustration shows a rabbit holding a piece of paper that reads: “Resolution. Anti-​Vivisection” (fig. 31), with accompanying text suggesting that scientists should dissect their own kind.

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Fig. 31  Walter Crane, Resolution. Anti-​Vivisection. Published in Alfred C. Calmour, Rumbo Rhymes, or The Great Combine: A Satire (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1911). Collection of the author.

The combination of images and text create a compelling, if unusual, case “against the tyrant, man.”70 Most of Crane’s illustrations for this “anti-​meat-​eating satire” are in full color and were prepared using the halftone printing process.71 In one particularly striking image, a crowd of animals that might be considered “livestock”—pigs, sheep, ducks, geese, chicken, and cattle—are shown uniting in a common fight against the humans who intend to eat them (fig. 32). The bull leading the charge holds in his hoof a red flag symbolizing revolution (a cooking pot is upturned on top of the flagpole), while a sheep next to him carries the recognizable flag of England bearing the red and white Cross of St. George. Rumbo Rhymes received considerable press—the Art Journal called it an “amusing satire . . . on man, the common enemy of all animals,” and the New York Times noted that it was “clever and sophisticated.” All of the reviews praised Crane’s illustrations, referring to them as “delightful,” “ingeniously coloured,” and a “fine series of pictures.”72 In spite of its theme, Rumbo Rhymes was not published by or produced in conjunction with an animal

Fig. 32  Walter Crane, Victims of the Pot and Pan. Published in Alfred C. Calmour, Rumbo Rhymes, or The Great Combine: A Satire (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1911). Collection of the author.

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advocacy organization. It did, however, raise questions about the treatment of nonhuman animals in modern society through the vehicle of satire. It also followed in the footsteps of a very similar book, published by the Ladies’ Branch of the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in 1892. Voices of the Dumb Creation: A Sequel to Black Beauty was also illustrated (although, regrettably, no artist is given credit) and also centered on a gathering of nonhuman animals (“The Quadrimillennial Convention of Beasts, Birds, Etc.”) united in their desire to band together to “protest against the usurpations and cruelty of Man” (fig. 33). There are many similarities between the two texts. For example, a rabbit addresses the meeting (“in a voice broken by sobs”) about the horrors of vivisection: “My dear friends of every species, I beg of you to listen to the sad story I must tell. Together with a great many dogs, cats, rabbits and other creatures, I was penned up in a room, the very sight of which filled us with terror. Strange instruments of torture, skeletons, dissections of animals and other disgusting Exhibitions were on every side.”73 As in Rumbo Rhymes, this plea is accompanied by a black-​and-​white illustration, this time of three rabbits in a meadow, none of them with written resolutions. What are we to make of these creations? Here, the idea of sympathetic imagination has tipped over into the realm of overt anthropomorphism. Both the animals’ language (English) and the format of their gatherings (complete with a chair or president presiding over the meetings and a structure that appears to follow Robert’s Rules of Order) impose human culture and conventions on nonhuman animals. And yet, unlike many other uses of anthropomorphism as a narrative device, the content encourages the reader to think more deeply about the various forms of cruelty that nonhuman animals face in their regular encounters with humans. Lorraine Daston and Gregg Mitman have discussed the “moral” element that often comes into play in discussions of anthropomorphism, and the accusation that those who interpret the behavior of nonhuman animals through human filters are engaging in a form of “self-​centered narcissism.” Viewing animals through the lens of humanness, in other words, has been repeatedly rejected, and yet an anthropomorphic framework can generate empathy for nonhuman animals. As Daston and Mitman argue, perhaps the most important consideration when evaluating the potential of anthropomorphism as a technique is not whether “it is good or bad to do so” but whether empathic connections across species lines can be fostered through these kinds of creative techniques.74

Fig. 33  Cover of John Collins, Voices of the Dumb Creation: A Sequel to Black Beauty (Philadelphia: Ladies’ Branch of the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, 1892). Collection of the author.

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C AR T OONS

As we saw with Rumbo Rhymes, humor can be used to raise awareness about the ways in which nonhuman animals are treated. Undoubtedly, this technique must be handled carefully—animal cruelty and abuse are certainly no laughing matter. However, in the hands of a skillful artist with a sophisticated understanding of the uses of humor, satire, and comedy, this form of visual culture has the potential to generate change. As Martha Banta argues, “caricatures and cartoons are an expression of the culture that creates them, and they also influence how groups within the culture conduct their affairs.” She notes that these types of images can “derive their authority through unspoken reference to accepted norms, but their force on the social scene derives from their devotion to depicting the abnormal, what differentiates ‘we’ from ‘they.’ ”75 It is this aspect of social differentiation that has made this kind of image an effective tool in animal advocacy campaigns. By isolating an activity or behavior deemed cruel and then making fun of it in cartoons or caricatures, reformers attempted to modify and shape the ways in which people thought about and interacted with nonhuman animals. At the end of the nineteenth century—at the height of the “murderous millinery” campaigns—Linley Sambourne, the celebrated English cartoonist, created a set of images that openly poked fun at the trend of wearing feathers. The goal of these images was to make the fashionable women who wore feathers appear ridiculous in their callous oblivion to the suffering of birds hunted for their clothing. In 1892, Sambourne’s cartoon A Bird of Prey was published in Punch, the well-​known British satirical magazine (fig. 34). A monstrous-​looking creature—half woman, half bird—descends upon a marsh in pursuit of a small bird. In case the viewer should be in doubt, the caption gives details about the slaughter of birds for fashion. In her history of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Margaretta Lemon described the creature in this cartoon as “a Harpy decked from head to foot in the spoils of birds slaughtered at the behest of fashion.”76 In 1899, Sambourne published another cartoon on the same theme (fig. 35). The “Extinction” of Species, or The Fashion-​Plate Lady Without Mercy and the Egrets features a fashionably dressed woman standing in a field. The “haughty, unheeding woman”77 crushes eggs in the nest beneath her feet, while behind her a bird who has been shot drops from the sky. To her right

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Fig. 34  Linley Sambourne, A Bird of Prey. Published in Punch, May 14, 1892. Image © The British Library Board.

is a nest of orphaned baby egrets, their beaks pointing skyward in hopeful anticipation of food they will never receive. The woman’s clothing and accessories are adorned with feathers and other bird body parts, yet she is oblivious to the carnage around her. Sambourne joined the RSPB in 1892 and was an active member for the rest of his life. The RSPB was grateful for his support in publicizing the cause and, in a 1910 article lamenting his death, praised him as “one of the first to encourage and support the young Society in its struggles against an evil fashion.” The organization was also grateful that he gave permission to reproduce his artwork as lantern slides to be used for educational purposes.78

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Fig. 35  Linley Sambourne, The “Extinction” of Species, or The Fashion-​Plate Lady Without Mercy and the Egrets. Published in Punch, September 6, 1899. Image © The British Library Board.

Images relating to other animal advocacy campaigns from this era also appeared in Punch. Bernard Partridge drew a cartoon that focused on the live export of British horses to Antwerp (fig. 36). The Outcast was published in the August 18, 1909, issue of Punch, and it depicts a conversation between an emaciated horse arriving in Antwerp and the customs agent working at the dock. The agent asks the horse if he has anything to declare. The horse replies, “only this—that i’m ashamed of my country.”79

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Fig. 36  Bernard Partridge, The Outcast. Published in Punch, August 18, 1909. Image © The British Library Board.

Cartoon images have been used repeatedly in the history of animal advocacy to “shame” those who act cruelly toward nonhuman animals. In 1901, C. H. Brenner, an interior decorator in the Germantown district of Philadelphia, was horrified to learn that a police officer named Charles Upton had killed Brenner’s dog because she was suspected of having rabies. The collie had wandered away from Brenner’s yard and reportedly had a “fit,” which prompted a police response. Witnesses told how Upton first shot at the dog and then, when he missed her, resorted to beating her to death. When Brenner learned the details of his beloved pet’s death, he was enraged and demanded to know why such a violent response was necessary when medical

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testing had not been carried out to determine whether the collie even had rabies.80 Brenner demanded retribution and sued Upton for $100. His lawsuit was wholeheartedly supported by others in the neighborhood who felt that they had “lost valuable dogs needlessly.” But Brenner wasn’t satisfied with simply letting the courts handle this dispute. He also created a cartoon and displayed it prominently it in his shop window. The title of the image was Ignorance vs. Ignorance, and it depicts a police officer (clearly labeled Upton) carrying a bottle of alcohol in one hand and a gun in the other. Upton fires wildly in the direction of the dog, who is shown crouching and trembling in fear.81 While the image could not, of course, bring Brenner’s dog back, it did serve as a rallying point for those who opposed the police force’s shoot-​first, ask-​questions-​later approach to rabies. This chapter has focused on images used in animal advocacy that moved beyond attempting to capture a sense of documentary accuracy. Unlike the art and visual culture discussed in the previous chapter, these images pushed the boundaries of creative practice to create a space in which alternative realities could be visualized. Here, the role of the image was not to portray a single, uncontestable truth but to depict new ways of imagining relationships with nonhuman animals. The inclusion of spiritual figures such as the angel in Watts’s Dedication added moral authority to animal advocacy, and cartoons depicting animal abuse as monstrous attempted to reform behavior through ridicule. The imaginative aspects of these images encouraged conversations about what constituted “humane” or “cruel” behavior. As with documentary photographs, these images did not exist in isolation. Animal advocacy organizations drew from a range of images and visual tactics in their campaigns, and it was not unusual for a single publication or organization to make use of both kinds of images. Consequently, the picture of animal advocacy that many people encountered in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was a blend of these different kinds of images. This is important to remember when we think about how these visual campaigns created a sense of meaning. We also need to consider where people encountered these images, the focus of the next two chapters.

4 IN THE PUBLIC EYE

T HE BELL OF JUS T ICE

Once upon a time, the story goes, a once loved but since-forgotten horse roamed through a village looking for food. The horse was half-​starved and could not find even a blade of grass, and he grew weaker with each passing hour. At last he found a vine hanging from an old, cracked bell tower. As he grabbed the vine in his mouth and tugged, he may have been surprised by the sound of chimes, for the vine was attached to the rope that controlled the bell in the tower. At the sound of the bell, villagers gathered around the horse, for in this village the bell served a special purpose—it was the bell of justice, and it was to be rung when an injustice had taken place. The wise men of the village would then gather in the village square to hear the case and decide how the injustice could be rectified. On this particular day, the inhabitants of the village were taken aback when they discovered that the bell had been rung by a horse—“a poor steed dejected and forlorn”—but they proceeded to consider the injustice of his situation all the same. It was determined that the animal had once been a noble horse, cared for by a knight who lived nearby. The horse had served the knight “long and well, but having grown old and useless was meanly and cruelly turned out on the commons to take care of himself.” The villagers decided that regardless of the horse’s age and frailty, the knight “should feed and care for him in his old age!” The king “confirmed the decree, adding to it a heavy fine if the Knight neglected his duty to the faithful animal.”1

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This story was told in Mary Howitt’s 1867 illustrated book Our Four-​ Footed Friends, but it would become even better known when Henry Wadsworth Longfellow turned it into an epic poem, first published in the Atlantic Monthly in July 1870.2 Harrison Weir provided specially commissioned illustrations for Howitt’s book (fig. 37).3 Both Howitt and Weir had undertaken previous advocacy work—Weir had illustrated many similar books, “publications for the promotion of kindness to animals,”4 and Howitt was well known for her “sympathetic appreciation of animals.”5 That the horse in this tale saved his own life by ringing the “bell of justice” made it a favorite among animal advocacy groups in the late nineteenth century. An 1871 article in Our Dumb Animals, the MSPCA’s monthly magazine, commented that “if all the neglected and worn out horses should thus make an appeal, there would be the most mournful tolling of bells ever heard in America.”6 The notion that nonhuman animals had the ability to communicate their need for help appealed to animal advocates during this era. In Hewitt’s telling, the tale of the bell of justice appears in the context of another story, that of three young children, Angela, Jack, and Willie, who try in vain to assist a starving horse they discover on a neighboring farm. One of the distraught children compares the situation to an artwork he has recently viewed, an engraving by Thomas Bewick called Waiting for Death—“ ‘he is waiting for death,’ said Jack, remembering Bewick’s horse, in a similar case.”7 The reference is to a Bewick engraving, the last image the artist worked on before his own death in 1828 (fig. 38). Bewick intended to use the work to support the efforts of Britain’s SPCA, formed in 1824.8  Waiting for Death depicts an old and decrepit horse, who had once been as “sleek as a raven, sprightly and spirited, and was then much caressed and happy,” but who had been passed around to different masters, and “as he grew in years his cup of misery was still augmented with bitterness.”9 Bewick’s engraving shows the emaciated horse standing on a barren hillside under a stormy and foreboding sky—the leafless tree stump behind him echoes the bleakness of the horse’s situation, abandoned to the elements, “unsheltered and unprotected, to starve of hunger and cold,” in spite of his having “faithfully dedicated the whole of his powers and his time to the service of unfeeling man.”10 As Diana Donald has noted, the horse’s cropped tail and the sight of farms in the distance underscore his neglect.11 In Howitt’s narrative, the children bring water and food for the horse, but the animal eventually dies, much to their dismay, “for they had hoped he would live yet and enjoy himself.” The children go home and tell their elders

Fig. 37  Harrison Weir, The Old Horse’s Appeal. Published in the March 1871 issue of Our Dumb Animals. Image courtesy of MSPCA Angell.

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Fig. 38  Thomas Bewick, Waiting for Death, 1828, published 1832. Image © The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved.

about the poor horse, and “everyone commended them” for their kindness.12 Their grandfather then tells them the story of the “bell of justice.” This story of the abandoned horse who rings the bell is set in an unspecified but distant past, when knights, “with spur on heel and sword on belt,” were not an uncommon sight.13 The telling of this tale in the nineteenth century is significant, for it was a time when ideals of public participation in order, justice, social reform, and protest were being negotiated and tested in the context of modernity. As Lisa Keller writes, “the nineteenth century’s democratizing energies and pluralistic tone resulted in the broadest inclusion ever in the public dialogue. That public discussion evolved from the classical idea that the public could speak its mind; in almost every city, the town center functioned as a public forum where people went en masse to speak their minds.”14 There was renewed focus on public participation in the urban centers of Europe and North America, and specific spaces within these cities became sites of protest, spaces in which ideas about whose voice

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counted were negotiated in very public ways. Trafalgar Square in London, for example, “an enduring center for demonstrations,” was the site of many a protest for animal advocates.15 The setting of the story of the bell of justice—the central town square—is therefore very significant. The story may be set in an earlier era, but its focus is the role of public space and community participation in social justice issues. That these considerations are extended to include a nonhuman animal made it a particular favorite of reformers who were working to create a better world for animals. A number of artists created visual renderings of this tale, most focusing on the moment when the forlorn horse tugs on the rope and rings the bell of justice, and these renderings were widely reproduced. In Weir’s rendition of the scene, the focus is exclusively on the horse; no humans are present. This is a powerful picture—the emaciated state of the horse is echoed in the cracked and worn façade of the bell tower. A large painted version of this scene by J. H. Priest was prominently placed at the Fair for Dumb Animals, a fund-​raising and outreach event held by the MSPCA in Boston in December 1871.16 In 1885, the MSPCA distributed five thousand copies of Longfellow’s poem, complete with illustrations, free of charge thanks to a generous donation from one of the MSCPA’s prominent supporters, Mrs. Emily Appleton.17 The story of the bell of justice emphasizes the role of public space in the context of advocating kind and humane treatment for nonhuman animals, and it continued to have currency for several decades after it was first published, well into the twentieth century. Longfellow’s poem was recommended as part of the “graded course of study” for elementary school children in Flora Helm Krause’s 1910 Manual of Moral and Humane Education, a text widely used in North America. Krause noted that “this poem, illustrated, can be obtained in leaflet form at two cents a copy from the American Humane Education Society, Boston.”18 Teachers were encouraged to work with this text in their classrooms, and ideas for bringing the tale to life through creative means such as performing it as a play were suggested.19 In 1920, the role of this story in humane education was further expanded when the MSPCA and the American Humane Education Society jointly produced a film version, The Bell of Atri, which premiered on October 16, 1920, at the Exeter Street Theatre in Boston. The film continued to be circulated well into the twentieth century, including a number of screenings in Europe.20

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P UBLIC/PRI VAT E

The public spaces in which animal advocacy took place during this period were communal areas in which ideas about social identity, community, gender, class, race, and politics were continually negotiated. It is important to situate animal advocacy against this backdrop, as it did not occur separately from these other social and cultural processes. While this chapter and the following one explore the ways in which the visual culture of animal advocacy was created and circulated, and gained currency in both public and private spaces, this is done strictly as an organizational strategy; the typical divide between “public” and “private” spaces is, in many ways, a false dichotomy. As Sarah Richardson has argued, in previous historical eras, “political activities did not necessarily take place along public/private boundaries.”21 Claire Midgley’s analysis of British women’s participation in nineteenth-​ century abolition movements also underscores this point and notes that there were important “interconnections between domestic and political life and between private and public activities.”22 As Simon Morgan has argued, “it is more accurate to think of the public sphere as an organic entity that was continually growing, changing and reordering itself.”23 This is not to say that there were no distinctions between locations deemed “public” and those deemed “private” during this era, but it is important to recognize that the divisions were flexible, permeable, and frequently challenged. We often assume that “public” spaces were the domain of men during this period and that “private,” domestic spaces were more-feminized realms. Of course, there were cultural conventions and social norms that did dictate who could easily and safely occupy specific spaces, and those conventions and norms were typically enacted along gender, race, and class lines. However, to assume that these borders were not transgressed and that private and public spaces were entirely separate and unrelated to each other neglects the complexities of social realities that informed animal advocacy in North America and Britain at this time. As Hilda Kean notes, from the early days of organized animal advocacy, women working on behalf of animals “extended beyond their domestic role of responsibility for pets within the home into a broader concern for animals outside the family unit.”24 This is not to say, however, that women who stepped into the public realm to fight on behalf of animals necessarily had an easy time of it, or that they did not face resistance.

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At a meeting of the newly formed Canadian Federation of Humane Societies in Toronto on June 29, 1909, some argued that men should serve on the executive committee. “It won’t do to have the officers all ladies . . . or people will say we are just a lot of sentimental women,” said one of the attendees.25  Nevertheless, Lady Gray was named honorary president and Lady Hanbury-​Williams was elected president of the new federation. Perhaps somewhat ironically, this meeting to unite all of Canada’s humane societies was designed to coincide with the International Congress of Women that took place in Toronto on June 24–30, 1909.26 Less than two weeks later, in writing about a large-​scale public antivivisection demonstration in England, a reporter for the Saturday Review noted that “the public has to put up with too much from hysterical women and their street nuisances in these days.”27 A letter to the editor responded that there were just as many men as women involved in the protest.28 The assumption that the “nuisance” on the street was caused by a group of women who were “hysterical,” or that women were too sentimental to hold executive positions, points to the common stereotypes and prejudices that women activists faced. When we think about who occupied spaces in any given historical period, we  also need to consider the spaces in which nonhuman animals lived, worked, and died. During this period, a wide range of nonhuman animals were found in urban spaces—some, such as pets, found more often in the “private” or domestic realm, and others, such as draft horses, more likely to be encountered in “public.” And yet we need only think of a stray dog on the streets, or a working horse safely tucked into a barn for the night, to recognize that those divisions are fluid.

ANIM AL ADVOC AC Y IN P UBLIC SPACE S

A wide range of nonhuman animals lived, worked, and died in spaces considered “public” in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Human encounters with nonhuman animals necessarily informed the ways in which animal advocacy was enacted and thought about in both Britain and North America. If one were to travel back to the nineteenth century, the types of nonhuman animals you would be likely to see in public urban spaces would be quite different from what one might expect to encounter in twenty-​first-​ century cities. Today, animals raised for food (“livestock”) are typically far removed from the visible fabric of city life, although their body parts (in the

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form of meat and leather, for example) are ubiquitous. This has not always been the case. Historical accounts tell of cows, pigs, chickens, horses, and other animals sharing spaces with humans in ways that are rarely found in Britain and North America today. As historian Sean Kheraj notes, cities like Toronto were once “multi-​species environments” in which encounters with “large domestic animals” were “almost quotidian or unremarkable.”29 Kheraj’s work on the presence of nonhuman animals in urban spaces during this era underscores the ways in which interspecies encounters in the city have continually evolved. Those encounters have in turn shaped the ways in which cities are ordered and understood. Kheraj points to the ways in which “urbanization was a process of the development of a multi-​species habitat,” and this is the foundation upon which much late nineteenth- and early twentieth-​century animal advocacy work was built.30 Organized animal advocacy has always had a public aspect, and this can be seen as a response to the very visible presence of all kinds of nonhuman animals in urban spaces. In 1868, for example, George T. Angell and the MSPCA enlisted the support of the Boston police in delivering “more than 30,000 copies of Our Dumb Animals” to homes in that city.31 The sight of a brigade of uniformed policemen walking the streets carrying stacks of animal advocacy material was so unusual that it undoubtedly attracted much attention. In many cities, animal advocacy groups lobbied for “more streetside sources of fresh water for cart horses,” which led to the building of “elaborate drinking fountains with separate spigots and basins intended to serve people, horses, and dogs,” many of which still exist today as leftover relics from a previous era.32 These fountains were visible reminders of the need to consider the physical comfort of the nonhuman animals who lived and worked alongside the human occupants of these cities. In Britain, antivivisection posters were displayed in train stations during the early twentieth century, forcing commuters and travelers to encounter the issue of animal experimentation whether they wanted to or not.33 In Philadelphia, the American Anti-​Vivisection Society put up posters addressing people who might have lost their pet cat or dog. The posters urged people to check the “experimental research laboratories of the medical schools” for their missing companion animals, a not-​so-​subtle suggestion that their beloved pet might have been stolen for use in vivisection. Philadelphia’s medical establishment complained that the city was “plastered” with these posters, which the American Anti-​Vivisection Society purposely designed to be “large and showy” for maximum visual effect.34

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Animal advocacy organizations also frequently held public meetings that anyone interested was invited to attend. To increase the general appeal of these gatherings, visual imagery was often incorporated. For instance, the RSPCA supplied images for a meeting of an affiliated organization held in 1904 in Cannes, and “pictures sent from the London Society, demonstrating the cruelty of the ‘bearing rein’ on carriage and cart horses in hilly country,” were hung on “the walls of the elegant suite of reception rooms.”35 Many British and North American animal advocacy groups used technologies such as the magic lantern to spread the message of kindness to animals, often in interesting and unexpected venues. In 1897, the annual general meeting of the Toronto Humane Society was held in the Toronto Art Gallery, and “a number of excellent limelight views descriptive of the work done by the society were exhibited.”36 The British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) held many public meetings in parks, churches, and public halls.37 The New York–based Animal Protective League held many of its illustrated lectures in “the horses’ home—the stable,” in order to “more vividly to impress the spectators.”38 In another instance, the Maryland Anti-​Vivisection Society put on nightly lantern slide shows in Asbury Park, New Jersey, during the summer of 1911. Miss H. Gertrude Crosby, one of the directors of the Maryland group, gave the following description of the event: “A visitor, who viewed the slides the first night they were shown, said they attracted a great deal of attention; all about her, conversation ceased, and as she turned from the screen to the boardwalk, she saw no one in motion—everyone within sight of the screen had stopped to gaze at these strange, new pictures. The boardwalk itself was a picture of arrested motion.”39 Crosby’s account highlights one of the most important aspects of these public events—namely, that they attracted the attention of a large audience, not all of who would necessarily have been politically aligned with animal advocacy but who were nonetheless captivated by the spectacle. As is the case today, eye-​catching visual strategies were an important part of bringing political issues such as vivisection to the attention of the public. However, as we shall see, there was not universal agreement among the various advocacy groups about the best visual strategies or sets of images to be used in these contexts. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds advocated the use of lantern slides and similar forms of “entertainment” to help spread its message. RSPB organizers stressed the importance of “appealing to the public by persuasive methods,” and noted that “everything nowadays is made plain to the mind of the public by lantern lectures; public amusement is centered in the

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lantern pictures.” For further entertainment value, the RSPB suggested that images could be paired with music—“every verse was illustrated by one or more pictures”—and recommended songs like Schubert’s “The Quail,” and Claribel’s “Robin Redbreast.”40 The London and Provincial Anti-​Vivisection Society regularly advertised illustrated lectures featuring “an exceedingly fine and beautiful collection of animal studies on a screen by means of our new and powerful lantern.” This organization worked to ensure that these were enjoyable lectures, with “inoffensive” titles; “large audiences are secured, varying from two hundred to seven and eight hundred people.”41 These events and their accompanying illustrations focused on interesting facts about different species of animals, and in order to attract large audiences the organizers purposely stayed away from lectures “dealing with vivisection horrors pure and simple.”42 Graphic and violent images showing victims of vivisection, it was felt, would turn people away instead of encouraging them to learn more about the cause.43 Film and theater productions that included narratives aligned with the goals of animal advocacy groups gained popularity as well. The MSPCA in Boston recognized the importance of films shown in popular movie houses—“it is no uncommon thing for the society to reach 50,000 to 100,000 people weekly with this humane message through the motion picture houses alone.”44  Stage and film productions of such stories as Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty were highly praised and promoted by animal advocacy organizations. Neil Toomey’s production of Black Beauty ran at the Grand Opera House in Boston in 1909, and then again as a “vaudeville playlet” in May 1910 at the American Music Hall.45 The Doctor’s Dilemma, one of George Bernard Shaw’s plays, was highly praised by antivivisection organizations. It was first staged in London in 1906, and the BUAV “felt that his discussion of the matter in the play’s preface added a ‘brilliant and forcible plea’ to the debate.”46 Photography also assisted in blurring the lines between public and private when it came to animal advocacy. In the spring of 1895, MSPCA founder George T. Angell asked Massachusetts residents to take photographs of animal cruelty that they witnessed and send them to him at MSPCA headquarters. Angell was specifically interested in obtaining “kodak pictures of cruelly checked Massachusetts horses” and of “horses cruelly mutilated for life by docking.” Angell offered a $50 prize for the best set of photographs in each category.47 This highlights another dynamic relating to animal advocacy in the public realm—namely, people reporting acts of cruelty. If these acts took place in private spaces, they could quickly be made public through the

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circulation of a photograph, and if the cruelty were already taking place in public, a photograph could provide a lasting record of the incident and therefore potentially affect a person’s private life. By the end of the nineteenth century, camera technologies had advanced to the point where it was relatively easy to take photographs of those engaging in animal abuse without the photographer being noticed, and people were thus subject to “a new visual scrutiny.” As Lynda Nead notes, “small, hand-​held cameras made the streets alive with the possibility of being seen without knowing [it].” The benefits of improvements in photographic technology were quickly realized by proponents of animal welfare. As Nead points out, “the new photographic practices forced a reassessment of social behavior in the city streets and of individual rights to a private self within public space.” Photography gave “form to civic and social power.”48 Images not only shaped and modeled what was considered good or kind behavior—there was also the potential to be photographed acting cruelly. This was an extension of the surveillance already taking place in urban spaces in this era. As Andy Croll argues, the “disciplinary gaze” was very much a part of the urban landscape. In writing about the move to bring temperance to cities and towns, Croll emphasizes the role of the ordinary citizen—the police were also involved in regulating these efforts, but “it was as individuals that opponents of the drink trade were most likely to engage in surveillance.”49 A similar situation played out with animal advocacy. The RSPCA and similar organizations had inspectors to watch for cruelty, but citizens were also encouraged to keep an eye out for those who transgressed the boundaries of acceptable treatment of animals. The publicity campaigns such as the one started by Angell and the MSPCA served as a reminder that you could be caught—someone could snap a photograph—if you chose to treat nonhuman animals in an unkind manner. This tactic placed faith in the photographic image as an unmediated, truthful visual document, although, as we have seen, camera-​based images are much more complex than this. However, the idea that the camera could act as a tool of constant surveillance became firmly entrenched in animal advocacy and remains so to the present day. It was not just nonhuman animals, then, who were visible in cities during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—advocacy groups were increasingly visible and part of the fabric of urban spaces as well. These kinds of tactics and strategies brought animal advocacy to heavily populated spaces and fostered ongoing public dialogue about what it meant to be “cruel” or “kind” to nonhuman animals.

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T HE BROW N DOG MEMORI AL

Perhaps no other event in animal advocacy from this period better illustrates the significance of visual culture in public space than the so-​called Brown Dog Riots that took place in London in the early years of the twentieth century. This was a flashpoint in the debate over vivisection, and it began in 1903 when two students at the London School of Medicine for Women, Lizzy Lind af Hageby and Leisa Schartau, witnessed an experiment performed on a dog at one of the vivisection demonstrations they attended as part of their curriculum at University College London. Lind af Hageby and Schartau were especially concerned about the fact that it appeared that the dog used in this experiment had already been subjected to previous experiments (which was against the law), and they were also horrified by the way the dog was killed (“euthanized”) after the experiment ended—a student named Henry Dale reportedly stabbed the dog with a knife instead of using chloroform or another, more “humane” method. Lind af Hageby and Schartau kept meticulous notes of what they witnessed, and they shared these notes with Stephen Coleridge, a prominent antivivisection activist in London. Coleridge believed that what the two women witnessed was in contravention of the 1876 Cruelty to Animals Law. Coleridge drew attention to the violations in a “high-​profile public speech” and specifically took aim at William Bayliss, the man who had performed the experiment.50 “If  this is not torture,” Coleridge boldly proclaimed, “let Mr. Bayliss and his friends . . . tell us in Heaven’s name what torture is.”51  Excerpts from Coleridge’s impassioned speech were published in the Daily News. Bayliss sued Coleridge for libel, and people on both sides of the vivisection debate watched the trial, which took place in November 1903, with great interest. In the end, Bayliss’s suit was successful and Coleridge was ordered to pay £2,000 in damages and an additional £3,000 for Bayliss’s legal costs.52 As mentioned in chapter 2, one of the most interesting elements of the trial from the perspective of visual culture is that the vivisection experiment was re-​created, and a photograph of the staged version was used as evidence in the court proceedings (see fig. 19). This trial, once again, complicates the relationship between imagery and evidence, a reminder that those who work with and interpret images—both today and in the past—need to remain acutely attuned to contextual information accompanying both the creation and circulation of visual culture in the context of animal advocacy.

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Fig. 39  Joseph Whitehead, Brown Dog Memorial, ca. 1906.

In 1906, a monument to the brown dog upon whom Bayliss experimented was erected at the Latchmere Recreation Ground in Battersea. Louisa Woodward, “honorary secretary of the Society for United Prayer for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and of the International Anti-​Vivisection Council,” came up with the idea and raised the money for the memorial, which took the form of a drinking fountain upon which was proudly perched a sculpture of the dog by Joseph Whitehead (fig. 39). It was unveiled on September 15, 1906; the mayor of Battersea oversaw the ceremony and “accepted the gift on behalf of the municipality.”53 The memorial to this specific brown dog killed in Bayliss’s laboratory was controversial, in particular because of the inscription that accompanied it. The dedication read: “In Memory of the Brown Terrier Dog Done to Death in the Laboratories of University College in February 1903 after having endured Vivisection extending over more than Two Months and having been handed over from one Vivisector to Another Till Death came to his Release. Also in Memory of the 232 dogs Vivisected at the same place during the year of 1902. Men and Women of England, how long shall these Things be?” The memorial

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became a concrete manifestation of the tensions in the vivisection debate in Britain, and it had to be guarded from the many angry medical students who repeatedly threatened to destroy it.54 There were several very public clashes between the medical students, antivivisection activists, and the residents of Battersea, many of whom felt protective of the memorial. Questions were raised about the cost of protecting the memorial, and by the end of 1909 there was discussion about the merits of removing it, to both save money and restore the peace. Those who wanted the memorial to remain in Battersea quickly mobilized a campaign to try and save it, holding large-​scale protests in Trafalgar Square and Hyde Park in February 1910, many of them carrying banners and even wearing dog masks.55 These tactics undoubtedly drew attention to the campaign, but in the end the Battersea Council removed and destroyed the memorial to the brown dog who had been “done to death” in Bayliss’s laboratory. The removal took place under the cover of darkness on the night of March, 10, 1910. Just to be safe, 120 policemen were engaged to protect the workers hired to dismantle it.56  Whitehead’s sculpture was later destroyed by a blacksmith, an action reminiscent of the many incidents of iconoclasm that have taken place throughout the history of art. Both the anger toward the memorial and the Battersea Council’s decision to destroy it point to the symbolic power of this piece of public art. As Hilda Kean has argued, “the monument itself (as opposed to the narrative it was representing) became invested with much power.”57 Antivivisectionist activists were outraged by the Battersea Council’s action and took to the streets to express their anger. On March 18, 1910, several thousand people participated in a protest that began at Hyde Park and ended in Trafalgar Square. Once again, those involved in this demonstration used visual culture and other tactics to draw attention to the issue. Contemporary descriptions of the protest describe how the demonstrators were accompanied by “a band which played popular airs,” and how many of the marchers “led or carried dogs,” creating an interspecies spectacle in the heart of London.58 Photographs of this protest show large banners featuring images of the brown dog and the memorial. Signs with such messages as “battersea protests against the removal of its brown dog” undoubtedly drew the attention of onlookers as the protest made its way to Trafalgar Square. The location of this protest was significant. In his history of Trafalgar Square, Rodney Mace describes it as the “front room” of England, a place that “attempts to give palpable expression” to the country’s “social and

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political aspirations.” Trafalgar Square is a “place to be looked at,” and the visual dynamics of a protest are perfectly suited to the location.59 Indeed, the politics of space was very much a part of the story of the Brown Dog Memorial. The decision to locate it in Battersea was deliberate and was related to the proximity of places like the Battersea Dogs Home, an organization with a strong animal-​welfare and antivivisection stance established in 1860 by Mary Tealby, but also for the district’s reputation for radical politics.60 In addition, the memorial sculpture was designed to be public—as Kean observes, the point was “to make a public commemoration of a dead dog.” Further, the specific spot within the Latchmere Recreation Ground where the memorial was located remained a highly contested, politically charged space even after Whitehead’s sculpture was removed. On  March  11, the morning after its removal, the Daily Graphic published a picture of the empty space, with policemen standing in the void created by the removal. As Kean notes, this “was viewed as a potentially controversial space needing to be policed—even when the statue itself had gone.”61 In 1985, a new memorial to the brown dog was established in Battersea Park, a short walk from the Latchmere Recreation Ground, where the original memorial once stood. This new monument was the joint initiative of the National Anti-​Vivisection Society and the BUAV and was created by British artist Nicola Hicks, who used her own dog, Brock, as a model.62 The original 1907 inscription was included, and, as in 1907, there was a backlash from the medical establishment. The British Medical Journal, for example, weighed in with an editorial, calling Hicks’s creation “libellous,” “degrading,” and “offensive.”63 Overall, however, the criticism was much more subdued than it had been earlier in the century. Hilda Kean notes that the dog in the 1985 memorial had “changed from a public image of defiance to a pet,” and was thus “safe” and “an easier, less uncomfortable subject, for the contemporary viewer.”64 Kean’s point is well taken when we think about the typical images used in antivivisection campaigns in the late twentieth century. These images tend to be visually explicit, showing dogs, rabbits, or cats being experimented on, and they can be tough to look at. Hicks’s sculpture does not challenge the viewer with this kind of graphic visual content. Furthermore, unless one reads the dedication accompanying it, it would be easy to miss the antivivisection intention and instead see Hicks’s sculpted dog as merely part of the park landscape. And yet, one could say the same thing about Whitehead’s original monument. In the 1907 version, the dog does indeed look more defiant. But, again,

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had the inscription not been included, it is doubtful whether the sculpture alone would have raised the ire of the medical students who were so eager to destroy it. Whitehead’s dog was not shown bound, restrained, or being cut open. As we have seen, graphic images were used in antivivisection campaigns prior to the twentieth century, so Whitehead could have drawn upon that iconography had he wanted to. However, the intention was to remind viewers that the dog who was vivisected in Bayliss’s laboratory was a dog and not only a victim. In other words, the brown dog’s life amounted to more than the events that transpired in Bayliss’s laboratory in 1903. The point was to ask viewers to think about the dogs they knew, loved, and interacted with and to ask themselves how they would feel if one of their beloved canine companions had been placed in the same position. For this emotional connection to occur, it was important that this representation not trigger feelings of disgust, revulsion, or denial, as an explicit image of experimentation might. When considered from this angle, Hicks’s sculpture is very much in line with the intent of the original monument. Kean refers to Hicks’s piece as “a celebration of a former statue,” and in many ways that is true.65 This reflection on the history of visual culture used in the service of advocacy is in itself significant, as it reminds us not only of how imagery was used in the past but of the different ways in which these kinds of representations have the potential to gain currency and generate dialogue.

CELEBRI T Y SUPP OR T FOR ANIM AL ADVOC AC Y

The British actor Geraldine James unveiled the new brown dog memorial in Battersea Park in 1985.66 James’s presence lent celebrity support to the project and to the antivivisection crusade more generally, and is part of a long history of having well-​known public figures associated with animal advocacy projects. For example, playwright George Bernard Shaw strongly opposed vivisection and spoke at meetings organized by the BUAV, where “he held his audiences captivated with his wit and eloquence. He ridiculed vivisection with scathing satire.”67 Minnie Maddern Fiske was another popular figure who spoke out against cruelty to animals. She was both a “star performer” and an “accomplished director,” and she used her celebrity status to lobby on behalf of nonhuman animals.68 She reportedly distributed free copies of Black Beauty to her audiences and fans, and sought opportunities to speak against cruelty to animals.

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In 1912, she performed in Edward Sheldon’s play The High Road, a production she also co-​directed with her husband. This play addressed the theme of women’s rights, and during the tour she spoke about ending cruelty to animals, specifically “murderous millinery.” Fiske did not mince words. She frequently made her audiences uncomfortable as she spoke about the need to stop wearing furs and feathers, going to great length to paint a picture of the fur-​bearing animals and birds who suffered for the sake of human fashion and vanity. Many members of the audiences that gathered to hear her speak were adorned in the very items that Fiske denounced. On February 12, 1913, she spoke in Detroit at an event organized by that city’s Chamber of Commerce. As Archie Binns notes in his biography of Fiske, “when she told of the agonies suffered by trapped animals, some of her listeners tried to conceal their furs; and when she pointed out that every aigrette plume represented a nestful of young birds starved to death, faces reddened and women removed their hats.”69 Fiske’s approach was reminiscent of George Frederic Watts’s decision to exhibit A Dedication at the New Gallery in the spring of 1899. In both cases, the artists would have been well aware that at least some in attendance would be adorned in fashionable items made from animal body parts. Celebrity draw was also an important component of the antivivisection exhibitions that took place in a number of urban centers in the early years of the twentieth century. A 1909 exhibit at 503 Fifth Avenue in New York included a picture gallery of famous people “who were and are anti-​ vivisectionists, with excerpts from their opinions (and in many cases autograph letters) below. Here Shakespeare and Bacon look down from the wall alongside of Thomas Hardy and Mark Twain; Cardinal Gibbons and Morgan Dix stand next to Cardinal Newman and Phillips Brooks, and Queen Victoria is within earshot of Voltaire.”70 As is the case today, being able to demonstrate that famous and well-​respected public figures supported your campaign provided a boost to the public relations and educational efforts of animal advocacy groups.

M AK IN G C OMPA S SION FA SH ION A BLE

As we have seen, debates over antivivisection and other animal welfare issues often had a strong public dimension. Protests, lectures, public meetings, and other such venues created a space in the public eye in which the status quo could be challenged and people could imagine a different kind of

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relationship with nonhuman animals. The Boston-​based Millennium Guild raised ethical questions about the eating and wearing of animals in a number of ways. The guild included many prominent Boston socialites, which itself generated considerable press for the cause. The president of the Millennium Guild was Maude Freshel (formerly Maude Sharpe), who opened her home in Boston for the group’s meetings.71 There was also a public dimension to the activities of the Millennium Guild, as members strove to equate ethical vegetarianism with fashionable high society. Each Thanksgiving, the guild hosted a lavish vegetarian dinner at Boston’s Copley Plaza Hotel, and this event “sought to lend credence to vegetarianism through a connection with high society, fashionable dress, and Boston’s philanthropic class.”72 The Thanksgiving dinners were high-​profile events attended by actors, poets, artists, and other celebrities, and they were “reported in the same style of writing used to describe any high society event.”73 The 1913 menu for the Millennium Guild’s Thanksgiving dinner included an image of the conversion of Saint Hubert. The legend of Saint Hubert is that he was quite passionate about hunting, even neglecting spiritual worship in favor of the hunt. One day out hunting, he had a vision in which “a stag bearing a crucifix between its horns appeared and threatened him with eternal perdition unless he reformed.”74 This scene of religious conversion has been depicted by such well-​known artists as Albrecht Dürer, Jan Brueghel the Elder, and Peter Paul Rubens, and when the Millennium Guild chose to include Hubert on its Thanksgiving menu in 1913, it knew that many in attendance would recognize the narrative it was conveying. The words “no turkey need feel the slightest alarm, our members will feast on the heart of the palm” appeared alongside the image of St. Hubert’s conversion, and the connection was made between the life of the stag spared by the hunter turned saint and the lives of the many animals spared by the guild’s dedication to vegetarian cooking.75 Members of the Millennium Guild also sought alternatives to clothing made with animal body parts, and photographs of fashionable women wearing faux fur appeared in newspaper stories about the guild and its activities.76 Fashion is at once deeply personal and also inherently public. While the act of getting dressed is typically done in private and the choice of what to wear is based on individual taste and budget, ideas about what is fashionable or appropriate are culturally and socially driven. Further, once one steps outside the privacy of the home, those choices become subject to scrutiny by others. Deciding to wear a particular garment can have political

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connotations, as when a reformer makes a deliberate choice to wear a fabric-​ based coat instead of one made from the skin of an animal. The visual spectacle of fashion was tied to late nineteenth- and early twentieth-​century animal advocacy in several ways. As  we have seen, the fashion for wearing feathers became hotly contested during this era. As plumes fell out of favor thanks to high-​pressure advocacy, some well-​ to-​do women gave their formerly stylish clothing to their servants. “Snob appeal” came into effect as women who continued to wear feathers ended up being “humiliated by meeting some friend’s cook or washerwoman under a white mist of plumes as fine as her own.”77 As is the case today, if concern for the well-​being of nonhuman animals didn’t force people to reconsider their wardrobe choices, peer pressure and changing social norms often did.

CELEBR AT IN G MOV EMEN T LE ADERS

Reformers like Freshel were recognized for their efforts not only to promote kinder food and clothing options, but also for being respectable public figures after whom others might wish to model their behavior. Many advocacy groups circulated images that portrayed their leaders as upstanding men and women, people to emulate and look up to. Painted or photographic portraits of noted reformers often graced the offices of animal advocacy organizations—in Boston, for example, the MSPCA offices included a cherished portrait of founder George T. Angell alongside pictures of other noted reformers like Catharine Smithies, the founder of the Band of Mercy movement.78 In the March 1897 issue of Anti-​Vivisection, the official publication of the Illinois Anti-​Vivisection Society, there was an advertisement for an illustrated book celebrating antivivisectionists. The Book of Portraits of Leading Anti-​Vivisectionists of Europe and America and Others Who Have Aided in the Anti-​Vivisection Cause included forty-​one portraits of movement leaders, including George T. Angell, Henry Bergh, Frances Power Cobbe, and Anna Sewell. The cost of the book was $1 and it was available by mail order from the offices of the Illinois Anti-​Vivisection Society in Aurora. There was curiosity about those who dedicated their lives to animal advocacy, and it was not uncommon for newspapers to publish photographs of well-​known reformers on the speaking circuit. In 1909, the Journal of Zoophily, a  monthly magazine published jointly by the American Anti-​ Vivisection Society and the Women’s Branch of the Pennsylvania Society

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Fig. 40  Harris & Ewing, Mrs. Clinton Pichney Farrell, Mrs. L. B. Henderson, Mrs. Florence Pell Waring, Mrs. Caroline E. White, Miss Lind af Hageby, Mrs. R. G. Ingersol Gathered in Washington for the 1913 International Anti-​Vivisection Congress, 1913. Image courtesy of Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division, Washington, D.C.

for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, reported that when Lizzy Lind af Hageby gave lectures in the United States, “all of the leading newspapers and periodicals published her portrait,” and noted that she was even “given a respectful hearing in columns known to be hostile to the anti-​vivisection movement.”79 A photograph of Lind af Hageby and five other reformers taken in 1913 by the Washington-​based studio Harris & Ewing was circulated in the press (fig. 40).80 The women in the picture—Mrs. Clinton Pichney Farrell, Mrs. L. B. Henderson, Mrs. Florence Pell Warning, Mrs. Caroline E. White, Miss Lind af Hageby, and Mrs. R. G. Ingersol—were gathered in Washington for the 1913 International Anti-​Vivisection Congress. This photograph has since become an iconic representation of antivivisection efforts in previous eras and continues to have currency in the twenty-​first century.81

H IG H-​P ROFILE E V EN T S

The meeting that the six women in the Harris & Ewing photograph were attending was the fourth of its kind,82 and was organized by a number of

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American groups: the American Anti-​Vivisection Society (Philadelphia), the Maryland Anti-​Vivisection Society (Baltimore), the New England Anti-​ Vivisection Society (Boston), the Vivisection Investigation League (New York), and the National Society for the Humane Regulation of Vivisection (Washington, D.C.).83 The event took place at the Hotel Raleigh in Washington, D.C., December 8–11, 1913, and it attracted a number of high-​profile delegates and supporters. As an article in the Washington Times in the week leading up to the conference noted, “Senators, governors, Congressmen, members of parliament, members of foreign nobilities, labor leaders, Socialists, professors, army and navy officers, journalists, lawyers, and authors all will be represented at the coming congress.” In addition, a number of high-​ ranking clergy and religious figures attended the event, including “an archbishop, bishop, and monsignor of the Roman church, twenty-​five Episcopal bishops, eleven bishops of the Methodist Episcopal church, and officials of other Protestant denominations.” An “address of welcome” was given by Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, and the bishop of Washington, the Right Reverend Alfred G. Harding, gave the opening prayer.84 The 1913 congress was not only a highly visible event; it was also highly visual in that the organizers incorporated imagery and exhibits in many aspects of the programming. A number of films were screened—“motion pictures of almost every form of animal activity, from the evolution of a silk worm to bull fights abroad, will be shown and explained,” as the Washington Times put it. There were also opportunities to view stereopticon images, including a popular set of pictures focusing on dogs who had been experimented on in vivisection laboratories and dogs from the Great Saint Bernard Hospice who were famous for their rescue abilities.85 This slide show used the familiar convention of juxtaposing images of dogs who helped humans with dogs who had been harmed by humans. The contrast between canine selflessness and human selfishness was intended to give viewers pause about the inconsistencies in their relationships with nonhuman animals in the modern world, and to encourage them to think about how they might modify their own behavior. Ernest Thompson Seton gave an illustrated lecture titled “Cruel Methods of Trapping,” in which he noted that many delegates seemed to care about the animals who ended up in vivisection laboratories but gave little thought to those who suffered for the sake of fashion: “I see as I look round here, well I may say many ladies who are wearing furs. I think that if these ladies knew the history of that poor fur they are wearing they might not feel quite

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conscience-​clear in wearing it.” Seton also expressed his displeasure with reformers and advocacy groups who used graphic imagery in their campaigns and explained his decision to leave images of suffering and torture out of his lecture: “Now I did think at one time of bringing some pictures of animals caught in traps to show you, but I thought it over very carefully and this is what I decided—and I am quite sure I am right in believing that most of you will agree with me that these pictures do no good—pictures of tortured animals do no good. . . . There is a better way to do it; the better way is to offer a constructive policy in place of a destructive one.”86 Seton was responding to an antivivisection exhibit in a Washington shop window that had been put together especially for the congress, but the public display of images of animal cruelty was common among animal welfare advocates at the time. Seton’s position on such displays was controversial; many animal advocates felt that these images were essential in reaching people’s hearts and getting them to change their ways.

SHOP C AMPAIGNS

Reformers who disagreed with Seton and considered such “shop campaigns” important rented retail shop windows in busy urban areas, where they displayed anticruelty, antivivisection, or humane education exhibits, and the interior of the shop contained additional resources and exhibits (fig. 41). Volunteers were available to speak to the “constant stream of visitors, both friends and foes,” who “passed in and out of the shop asking questions, offering suggestions, raising objections or entering into debate.” The British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection considered itself “the pioneer of anti-​vivisection shops” and was quite prolific in this regard—by 1914 the organization had set up more than eighty shop campaigns across the United Kingdom. These efforts were “an essential campaigning technique” and came to an end only with the First World War, when “the nation became preoccupied with the war effort.”87 Similar shop campaigns took place in North America. By the early twentieth century, the MSPCA had adopted a strategy that included displays and exhibitions, illustrated lectures, “talks given on the street corners,” and “educational propaganda” placed in vacant stores.88 The MSPCA campaigns focused on humane education and the prevention of cruelty to animals in a general sense, but the antivivisection organizations in North America

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Fig. 41  British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection shop campaign in Bristol, 1911. Image © Hull University Archives, Hull History Centre and BUAV / Cruelty Free International.

made the most use of this technique. The American Anti-​Vivisection Society held frequent shop campaigns that traveled to many U.S. cities.89 In her 1913 address to the International Anti-​Vivisection and Animal Protection Congress in Washington, Caroline Earle White described the importance of these exhibits to the antivivisection movement and noted that they “always proved very successful in creating the publicity that we so much desired for the good of the cause.”90 Newspaper reports, archival documents, and campaign materials give us a sense of what these exhibitions were like. From April 5 to April 10, 1909, for example, we know that an American Anti-​Vivisection Society exhibit took place in a shop building on Chestnut Street in Philadelphia (fig. 42). The free exhibit was open daily from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. The walls of the shop were lined with framed pictures of individual dogs, cats, and horses, along with portraits of many well-​known animal advocates. In addition, there were

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Fig. 42  American Anti-​Vivisection Society exhibit in Philadelphia, spring 1909 (Chestnut Street). Published in the Journal of Zoophily, May 1909. Image courtesy of the Science, Industry, and Business Library, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations.

images with an explicit antivivisection theme, what William Schupbach has called “the iconography of animal experiment.”91 For example, this exhibit included a poster featuring Robert Morley’s 1906 image The Shadow of the Knife (fig. 15) in the front window facing passersby on Chestnut Street.92 Shop campaigns in the United States often included antivivisection-​ themed cartoons, and traveling exhibits organized by the American Anti-​ Vivisection Society included oil paintings sent over from London by people like Lind af Hageby and paintings by Helene Maynard White, a young American artist committed to animal advocacy issues. These paintings depicted “how dogs were gagged and secured to vivisection boards” and were featured prominently in the design of these exhibits. These images were supplemented by illustrated lectures drawing on “a collection of lantern slides” as a way to “impress more strongly upon the public the horrors which are daily taking place in laboratories.”93 In sum, the exhibits included a mix of different types of imagery. Paintings, drawings, and other forms of visual culture were used to solicit sympathy for nonhuman animals. Oil paintings of majestic-​looking horses and faithful dogs were included to elicit admiration and feelings of compassion for these animals. However, these displays also included graphic depictions of cruelty toward these same species, and

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the juxtaposition of the two types of images undoubtedly presented a stark and vivid contrast to the public. One of the repeated themes in these exhibits was the idea that visual culture could act as a mediated form of witnessing—that viewers could get a glimpse of cruelty taking place in more hidden locations. For example, in a 1910 storefront display created by the BUAV, a taxidermied dog was laid out as if on a vivisector’s “torture trough.” While the display was clearly a re-creation of what went on behind closed laboratory doors, it was accompanied by a sign stating that it was based on a photograph of an actual experiment.94 The sign was intended to convince viewers of the veracity and accuracy of the display, even as they clearly recognized it as a staged display twice removed from the actual experiment. These exhibits attracted a mix of people. The 1909 Philadelphia display attracted considerable attention: “The lowest attendance for any single day was greater than some of the managers expected for the entire week,” a piece in the monthly Journal of Zoophily observed.95 Those already dedicated to the antivivisection cause came out to support the exhibits, but the shop campaigns also attracted curious passersby and those who wanted more information about the campaigns. And, of course, these campaigns also attracted the attention of those who favored vivisection as a medical and scientific procedure. Articles in medical journals like the Journal of the American Medical Association lambasted these exhibits and shop campaigns. In December 1909, a JAMA reviewer called an exhibit “at a busy point on Fifth Avenue, New York,” a “grotesque show” full of “wickedly suggestive implications.”96 The content of this December 1909 exhibit came largely from the American Anti-​Vivisection Society, and most of the items had been on display in Philadelphia and Atlantic City earlier that year. The exhibit included taxidermied bodies of dead dogs displayed in “animal holders” intended to mimic the apparatuses used for restraining animals in laboratories, and some of these displays were placed “prominently in the front windows, to attract the attention of the passing crowd.” The exhibits included antivivisection cartoons reproduced from Life magazine, oil paintings depicting scenes from vivisection laboratories, and a catalogue of laboratory tools and devices. Of this last category, the JAMA reviewer noted that “a catalogue of the instruments used in surgical operations on man could be used with the same sly suggestion of torture,” making the point that context shapes how visual culture is understood. The exhibition also included portraits of notable

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people who opposed vivisection (“poets, novelists, statesmen, artists and clergymen”), with a display of quotations attributed to those featured.97 In November 1911, an antivivisection exhibit was displayed at 112 South Thirteenth Street in Philadelphia, a location “smaller than our previous quarters in the city” but still “a very satisfactory one for our purpose.” It featured items used in vivisection labs (e.g., an “improved oven” from Claude Bernard’s laboratory), posters, books, and leaflets arranged on a series of tables and pedestals set up at regular intervals around the room. On the wall were framed paintings and photographs, and the entire exhibit was set up to facilitate the movement of large crowds through the room, as wide aisles separated different components of the exhibition. Also on display were dogs who had been rescued from vivisection—a photograph of one of these “exhibit dogs” shows a medium-​sized dog sitting on a cloth-​covered platform near a sign reading: “i have been saved. help to save others.”98 The timing of the November 1911 exhibit in Philadelphia was significant, as its opening coincided with the Clinical Congress of Surgeons of North America, which was meeting in Philadelphia. This, according to the exhibit organizers, “afforded an exceptional opportunity of bringing the Exhibit to the attention of the medical profession, and of correcting the misunderstanding of our attitude that seems to prevail among some of its members.”99 Once again, the content and curatorial strategies of the exhibit were attacked by those who favored vivisection. An editorial in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, for example, called the exhibit “misconceived” and “absurd,” and argued that it contained “imaginary pictures appealing to the noblest sentiments and playing upon them fallaciously in the interests of the cause.” The reviewer also noted that the exhibit “should be generally visited by physicians, since it affords convincing evidence of the depth and genuineness of the delusion under which its supporters are laboring.”100 That the contents and curatorial strategies of these shop campaigns provoked such a strong response from the medical establishment is a testament to the power of images—even images originally designed to be clinical and sterile in their content—to evoke strong emotional reactions, and a reminder that the context in which an image is viewed shapes its meaning. A Landseer painting or a catalogue of laboratory instruments viewed in another context would probably not have caused such consternation. The attention generated by these exhibits—even the negative attention—was counted as a success for groups like the American Anti-​Vivisection Society

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and the BUAV because these displays got people talking about the controversial issue of experimenting on animals. These exhibitions kept the issue in the public eye and drew the support of many people who were continuing to learn about vivisection.

P UBLIC E XH IBI T S

These strategies were also used in other public venues. Public displays were a highly visual way of keeping attention focused on the issues surrounding vivisection in the early twentieth century, while the educational tactics earned these organizations a reputation as a “pamphleteering brigade.”101 The New York Anti-​Vivisection Society maintained an antivivisection display outside the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (now Rockefeller University) in 1909.102 The staging of such an exhibit near a renowned medical center was perhaps to be expected, but other locations suggest more creative tactics on the part of the antivivisection lobby. For instance, an exhibit was included as part of the 1912 Great Lancaster Fair in Pennsylvania, tucked in alongside the “State College Live Stock Exhibit,” the “State Exhibit of the Chestnut Blight Commission,” the “Boys’ Corn and Potato Growing Contest,” and “Moving Pictures of Improved Farm Life.”103 Animal advocacy groups used similar techniques to educate the public about the humane treatment of animals in a more general sense. The MSPCA organized events like the “Fair for Our Dumb Animals” as a way to raise both funds and awareness. At these events, art and visual culture played a prominent role. In December 1872, the Fair for Our Dumb Animals was held in the Horticultural Hall in Boston and prominently featured art for sale. In addition to things like the “pickle and preserve table,” which raised more than $1,300 for the MSPCA, several exhibits incorporated art and visual culture. Table 16, the “Rosa Bonheur Table,” was run by a Miss A. M. Wellington of Boston, and it brought in $537, presumably by selling reproductions of the French artist’s work. Table 10, the “Justice Table,” was organized and run by Mrs. Appleton of Boston. It featured a painting of a scene from “The Bell of Atri” by the artist J. H. Priest that was considered “a very appropriate decoration for the table named ‘Justice.’ ”104 Appleton’s “Justice Table” brought in an impressive $5,500 for the MSPCA. In 1875, during the second Fair for Our Dumb Animals, there was a separate art table to which numerous Boston-​area artists contributed works for sale. In addition to displaying the

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“delicate skill and taste” of MSPCA supporters, the art table raised more than $1,000 for advocacy and educational efforts. The table was described as “most attractive and graceful” and included “gems displayed from the brush and pencil of our best artists.”105 In Canada, the Toronto Humane Society regularly set up displays as part of the Toronto Industrial Exhibition in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.106 In 1898, the THS joined forces with the Royal Humane Society and the Children’s Aid Society to create a “triple alliance.” Although the other two organizations focused more on rescuing humans than on nonhuman animals, the cooperation of the three groups pointed to the broader culture of philanthropic and reform work in late nineteenth-​century Toronto. There were important connections to be made in the “rescue” work of some of society’s most vulnerable citizens, especially when we recall that both the THS and the Children’s Aid Society were formed by J. J. Kelso, a Toronto news reporter. This “united exhibit” was located in “Society Row” at the 1898 Toronto Industrial Exhibition, and a satirical image by the Toronto-​born cartoonist J. W. Bengough—“our modern Cruikshank”—greeted visitors at the exhibit’s entrance. The cartoon poked fun at people who insisted that their horses be decked out in uncomfortable gear simply for the sake of fashion, and the THS felt that Bengough’s image would “without doubt do much to abolish the hideous as well as abominably cruel check rein.” The exhibit also featured “numerous pictures of animals, humanely and cruelly treated,” alongside “pictured faces of dear little children” in the care of the Children’s Aid Society. In addition, objects associated with cruel treatment of nonhuman animals—such as the “drover’s stick with its cruel iron spike”—were on display. The THS also programmed a series of illustrated lectures as part of this exhibit so that those attending could learn “of our band of mercy work and of our methods of work in ameliorating the condition of our friends and helpers among the animals and birds.”107 In 1904, the RSPCA encouraged members and supporters to submit designs for “artistic wall papers” to an international competition sponsored by the Paris-​based Société Protectrice des Animaux. Artists had “absolute freedom” in the style and content of their designs but were reminded that entries should depict “the Society’s objects” and aim to “widen humanity.” An exhibition of the winning entries was held in Paris in November of that year, and through the publicity garnered, the RSPCA hoped “to provide some suggestive means for the propagation of our great cause of protecting animals against cruelty.”108 The RSPCA also had a presence at the Ecclesiastical

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Art Exhibition held in Cambridge as part of the Church Congress in 1910. Here, a number of “leaflets and tracts were distributed freely among visitors to the exhibition,” and lantern slides were used to illustrate the “claims of the lower creation for merciful consideration and humane treatment.”109 These kinds of displays also began to be incorporated in the international exhibitions and world’s fairs that were so popular at the end of the nineteenth century and the start of the twentieth.110 George T. Angell was invited to organize a display at the 1884–85 World’s Fair in New Orleans and “to give information to all seeking it” on the subject of “Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.” Part of this effort involved distributing and displaying “humane books, literature, or pictures,” again pointing to the fact that in these sorts of endeavors, art and visual culture were as central as written text. At Angell’s booth representing the MSPCA in New Orleans, The Old Horse’s Appeal (fig. 37) hung in a prominent position. The text of the story was printed out on a poster at the booth, and the image itself was suspended from a pillar twenty feet in the air above the booth. In a letter to his colleagues in Boston, Angell noted that the image “faces the north, and so has good light, and is seen at a long distance.”111 The 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris was also considered an appropriate location for a visual display focusing on animal advocacy. In October 1898 the monthly Journal of Zoophily issued a call for sympathetic organizations to assist in planning “an anti-​vivisection exhibit or component at the Paris Exhibition of 1900.” Once again, art and visual culture were given a primary role in the planning of this entry, with the work of Landseer singled out as especially appropriate for this venue: “Upon the walls of the booth will be hung drawings and paintings of vivisectional apparatus, copied from the works of the experimenters; and in contrast some of the beautiful creations of Landseer and other animals lovers, illustrating the lessons of love, kindness, and justice to our fellow creatures.” In this context, Landseer’s paintings would portray nonhuman animals—particularly dogs—as loyal, noble, innocent beings upon whom the horrors of vivisection were being needlessly and cruelly inflicted. This message was to be underscored by the inclusion of visual representations of vivisection, although the idea of creating three-​ dimensional, sculptural models of some of the most common experiments on animals was rejected because “the expense would be great, and a spectacle so exceedingly gruesome—even beyond the painted pictures—might repel visitors to a harmful extent.”112 In other words, the organizers of this display were mindful of not creating an exhibition that people would simply

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skip over because of its graphic content. This points to the delicate balance underpinning politically themed art and exhibitions, something of which activists today also need to be mindful. As it happened, the antivivisection exhibition in Paris was not permitted to go ahead as planned, owing to concerns over some of the images. A note in the Animal’s Defender and Zoophilist blamed pro-​vivisection sentiment among the organizers of the Exposition Universelle for this last-​minute change: “We regret to say that our friends of the Illinois Anti-​Vivisection Society, after an immense amount of labour and great expense in endeavouring to secure a space for an exhibit at the Paris Exposition, have been debarred from displaying upon the walls of the booth the illustrations of vivisection—the drawings, paintings, and models which they had in contemplation. All exhibits must undergo the scrutiny of the French Exposition officials, and this in the land of Pasteur and Claude Bernard settles the matter.”113 Although the exhibit in Paris ultimately did not happen as planned, the plans for it tell us a bit about what it might have looked like, and about some of the key issues that these antivivisectionists were considering when it came to the use of visual culture in their campaigns.

P UBLIC PRO T E S T S AND OFFENDIN G SIG H T S

As we saw in the case of the Brown Dog Memorial, this era saw a number of public demonstrations in relation to issues surrounding animal advocacy. The strategy of taking to the streets to raise awareness for an issue or to express displeasure at a set of actions has a long history, and when those advocating for nonhuman animals adopted this tactic, they were aligning themselves with this tradition. While these protests took many different forms and arose in response to a range of issues, the common element was that they took place in public. As Lisa Keller has observed, “when crowds get the opportunity to vocalize their beliefs, their desires and discontents are also visualized for society to see.”114 Having a public presence and engaging with the issues in a very visible manner was therefore an essential aspect of this form of advocacy. Further, the visual culture used in these protests was an important aspect of these public campaigns. With handmade signs, colorful textile banners, sculptures, and placards, these public demonstrations relied heavily on imagery to argue against things like vivisection. In the context of these

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highly charged public demonstrations, debates about which images could (or should) be used in a protest situation frequently arose. In July 1909 in London, for example, there was heated debate in the press about the use of images in antivivisection protests. Much of the debate took place in an exchange between Lind af Hageby and Stephen Paget, a strong supporter of vivisection and member of the pro-​vivisection group known as the Research Defence Society. This very public argument unfolded in a series of letters to the editor of the Times, and one of the main points of contention was the use of two specific images on banners designed for an antivivisection protest in London on July 10. The protest in question was part of the International Anti-​Vivisection Congress that took place in London on July 6–10, an event that Lind af Hageby had organized.115 Taking a page from Frances Power Cobbe’s book, the designer of the banners had turned to publications written by and for those who experimented on animals. The images in question were taken from the Journal of Pathology and from a sales catalogue for “vivisectional apparatus.”116 This recontextualization of images necessarily created new sets of meanings. Paget was outraged when he discovered which images were going to be used in the protest, and he described them as “exhibiting all sorts of insult and hatred.” Lind af Hageby replied that these were images originally used in the context of vivisection and stressed that because they were based on photographs, “there is no cutting and there is no exaggeration.” In other words, she was relying on the long-​held conviction that a photograph portrayed the truth. The picture taken from the sales catalogue showed “a dog stretched on an operating-​board,” and the image from the scientific journal depicted a dog “in an advanced state of diseases and suffering after inoculation.” Paget argued that by incorporating these pictures into colorful fabric banners for the procession, Lind af Hageby neither understood nor provided the necessary context for either of them. He acknowledged that the image taken from the catalogue “displayed how a dog may be kept in position during an experiment” but pointed out that it told only part of the story, and that it “concealed the fact that the dog is unconscious under an anaesthetic.” Paget argued that “it would be hard to find a more striking exhibition of insult and hatred than the display of this picture out of an instrument-​maker’s catalogue,” and he feared that it would be taken “as evidence that our men of science, and our masters of medicine, are guilty of torturing dogs.” Regarding the image taken from the Journal of Pathology, Paget took to the pages of the newspapers to defend the necessity of infecting dogs with

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diseases so as to come up with a cure. Paget in no way denied that the dog in the picture had been infected and in fact noted “the immense importance of such experiments to the welfare of mankind; and the great saving of human life and health which is already due to them.” Further, he noted that by killing this specific dog, countless other animals—“horses, mules, and cattle”—might be saved if a cure could be developed. Lind af Hageby, on the other hand, believed that by appropriating images directly from their original scientific sources, animal welfare advocates could depict a truthful and accurate picture of what vivisection was really like, and she hoped that the images would raise the ire of decent citizens who believed that animals should not be treated cruelly. However, taking these images out of their original specialized context and putting them on banners for display in a public procession in the heart of London undoubtedly changed their meaning. Again, this is not to say that Lind af Hageby and her co-​organizers falsified the images in any way—they probably took great pains to ensure that their reproductions were as accurate as possible. However, it is absolutely essential to acknowledge that the context in which the image is seen matters a great deal in the meaning-​making process and to recognize that an image on a protest banner is read entirely differently from the same image in a catalogue intended for people familiar with vivisection. In addition, the words “is it nothing to you all yet that pass by?” were added beneath the photograph taken from the Journal of Pathology. The image-​text relationship in this case was just one of many ways in which the meaning of the original photograph was altered when it was recontextualized. Complaints were made to the police about the content of the banners (in his July 6 letter to the Times, Paget noted gleefully that “the police have taken exception to certain anti-​vivisection banners”), and in the end the banner with the image of the dog who had been “inoculated” in the experiment was banned from the procession. In protest against this censorship, the organizers covered the banner with an additional layer of cloth so that the offending image was not visible, and proceeded to carry a blank protest sign in the procession.117 In a letter to the editor of the Saturday Review, a man named Edward Cahen, an “eye-​witness” to the July 10 procession, noted poignantly that if “an illustration of vivisection should be of such revolting character that it cannot be carried through the streets without fear of creating a disturbance,” then there is certainly “sufficient justification” for ongoing protests against the practice of vivisection.”118 However, some critics took issue with the “vulgar sensationalism” of the demonstration and

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noted that “it is well the police have stopped the exhibition of some of their offensive banners,” and that “kindness to animals does not need this sort of advocacy.”119 The British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection jumped into the fray, pointing out that it would not use Lind af Hageby’s visual tactics, thus widening the rift between different antivivisection organizations in Britain at this time. Writing on behalf of the BUAV, Beatrice Kidd responded to Paget’s complaints by distancing her organization from Lind af Hageby’s proposed banners. Kidd said that the BUAV was participating in another antivivisection demonstration later in July but would not be using “pictorial banners.”120 The demonstration to which Kidd referred was part of the Fourth Triennial International Congress of the World League Against Vivisection and for the Protection of Animals, which took place at Caxton Hall on July 19–24, 1909. That two large antivivisection congresses took place in the same city during the same month may at first seem odd, but when we consider the bitterness with which different factions of the antivivisection movement regarded one another, we can see some of the logic behind it. These divisions were largely between the “revisionists,” those who supported reducing and regulating vivisection through legislative and other similar methods, and the “abolitionists,” who would accept nothing but the complete abolition of vivisection. The abolitionists considered Lind af Hageby and her co-​organizers of the July 6–10 congress “shams and humbugs who did not really mean to help the animal world.” Lind af Hageby responded that it was “folly for any international congress to attempt to help suffering animals in physiological laboratories throughout the world by shutting out those friends of animals who could not go quite so far as themselves.” The organizers of the World League Against Vivisection conference “declared that not a single soul should not be allowed to enter its congress who was not a total abolitionist,” whereas Lind af Hageby’s congress had representatives from both the “revisionist” and “abolitionist” factions. Lind af Hageby regaled the press with the harassment that she and her supporters had received from rival antivivisection groups, members of which had sent letters to attendees of the earlier conference containing “erroneous statements . . . and allegations which should be foreign to any humane cause,” and avowed that she “could not understand the spirit of any worker in the greatest cause of mercy who could not to his enthusiasm for animals add a little charity towards his human fellow-​workers.”121

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Fig. 43  Delegates from the Fourth Triennial International Congress gather in Trafalgar Square after protest. Published in World League Against Vivisection, Fourth Triennial International Congress of the World League Against Vivisection and for the Protection of Animals, Held at Caxton Hall, Westminster, London, from July 19th to 24th, 1909 (London: J. Tamblyn, 1910). Image © The British Library Board.

The World League Against Vivisection and for the Protection of Animals was an international organization with member societies from several countries. As noted, the goal of this gathering was the total abolition of vivisection, and it brought together “men and women from far and near who are working from one common basis to one common end, who are united in one common bond of comradeship, and who are animated by one common and unanimous sentiment, and that is the total abolition of vivisection.” The BUAV declared the congress a “glorious success” and in particular praised a July 24 public demonstration. Like many other groups working in animal advocacy at this time, the BUAV felt that public demonstrations were a useful and important tactic because of the attention they drew to the issues—“no more effective means of arousing public interest can surely be devised.” The visual spectacle of a demonstration brought both media attention and public interest to the cause. Representatives of the BUAV described the July 24 procession as the “most impressive spectacle ever given on behalf

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Fig. 44  National insurance bill protest, 1911. Image © Hull University Archives, Hull History Centre and BUAV / Cruelty Free International.

of Antivivisection to the London populace.” Once again, thousands of people participated in the procession, which began in Hyde Park and ended in Trafalgar Square and featured more than a hundred colorful banners (fig. 43).122 In 1911, a proposed national insurance bill in Britain provoked another large-​scale antivivisection protest in London. The bill was intended to “provide workers with insurance and protection against unemployment, sickness and disability,” but it was attacked by antivivisection organizations because it also proposed to provide a significant amount of money for health-​care research. As Emma Hopley observes in her history of the BUAV, many saw this as a blow to the antivivisection position because these funds would finance experiments on animals.123 A large public demonstration against the national insurance bill was held on October 28, and it brought together a number of antivivisection groups that put aside their differences in order to fight the legislation (figs. 44, 45). Contemporary news reports estimated that between two and three thousand

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Fig. 45  National insurance bill protest, 1911. Image © Hull University Archives, Hull History Centre and BUAV / Cruelty Free International.

people took part, and the BUAV called it “the greatest anti-​vivisection procession and demonstration ever seen.”124 Participating organizations took out advertisements in the Times on the day before the demonstration, which not only gave basic information about the event, but also provided instructions on how to find the group people wished to align themselves with, as each organization was identified by the color of its banner. The BUAV supporters carried red and white banners, and the London and Provincial Anti-​ Vivisection Society carried blue and gold banners and asked their supporters to wear “a blue and gold rosette.” All told, there were forty large, colorful banners in the protest against the bill.125 Two men carrying a banner that declared simply “No Vivisection” led the loud and boisterous group through the streets of London, eventually ending up at Hyde Park. The demonstration also included a carriage carrying a bust of Queen Victoria, who had been the nation’s most prominent supporter of the antivivisection movement.126 Despite these efforts, the bill became law as the National Insurance Act.

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As we look back at the black-​and-​white photographs of this demonstration from our twenty-​first-​century vantage point, we might have to work to imagine the full extent of the spectacle. This was a colorful, loud, and enthusiastic gathering of people who came together to express their displeasure at the proposed legislation on the grounds that it would encourage an increase in vivisection. The public spectacle was a significant part of the politics of visuality informing life in the modern city. The visual politics of this event also included the surveillance of the demonstration, not just from curious passersby, but also from a law enforcement perspective—the photographs indicate a heavy police presence along the demonstration route. As we have seen, public art, demonstrations, exhibitions, and other visual spectacles were repeatedly used to draw attention to animal welfare, animal rights, antivivisection, and humane education campaigns. These visual tactics brought these issues to a broader audience and staked a claim for animal advocacy in terms of public discourse, thus serving as points of intersection between those committed to reform and those who perhaps had never given the matter serious thought. High-​profile cultural figures helped to lend support to these campaigns and kept the issues in the public eye. Visual technologies also played an important role in exposing things that were culturally invisible—things that were happening in plain view but were not being noticed because they were so normalized. Reformers like George T. Angell encouraged the use of visual technologies to police cruel behavior. Which actions were seen by whom—what Pachirat has termed “the politics of sight”—has always been an important aspect of animal advocacy.127 Finally, this chapter has underscored the point that the spaces in which these interactions took place were highly significant. From the village square in The Bell of Atri to Trafalgar Square in London, the proper treatment of nonhuman animals in the modern world was negotiated in very public sites. This is not to say, however, that this was the only way in which these issues were addressed. As the following chapter demonstrates, animal advocacy also took place within the private realm of the home.

5 ADV OCACY AT HOME

“A MU T E YE T ELOQUEN T PRO T E S T ”

In April 1892 the editors of the Philadelphia-​based Journal of Zoophily, a magazine designed “to enlighten the people as to what vivisection is, and why it should not exist,” published an article encouraging readers to display a reproduction of Gabriel von Max’s 1883 painting Der Vivisector in their homes (fig. 46).1 The editors of the magazine believed that “a copy of this admirable picture hanging in the drawing room of an anti-​vivisector would be a mute yet eloquent protest against this form of cruelty.”2 An 1881 article in the Art Journal described Max’s paintings as “soul pictures,” and Der Vivisector certainly fits this description.3 In this image, a vivisector sits at a table complete with apparatuses designed to hold the body of a nonhuman animal securely in place. His dark robes and white beard would, in other art-​historical contexts, suggest wisdom, but in Max’s antivivisection image, this traditional iconographic interpretation is negated as the figure shrinks away, blending into the shadows of the painting. The central figure in the painting is a woman whom William Schupbach, an art historian and the curator of medical exhibitions at London’s Wellcome Institute, describes as a “personification of virtue.” In one arm she cradles a puppy rescued from the vivisector’s table, and her other hand holds a scale. On the scale, a human heart outweighs a human brain. This compositional detail is a reference to the sentiment that “a good heart was worth more than a good brain.” The visual message that Max was attempting to convey here is clear: kindness

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Fig. 46  Michael Joseph Holzapfl after Gabriel von Max, Der Vivisector, 1886 print, 1883 painting. Image: Wellcome Library, London.

and compassion for other species is more valuable than knowledge gained through scientific experiments. This is, as Schupbach notes, a visual protest “of an animal-​lover against animal experimentation.”4 Art historian Karin Althaus echoes this point and argues that with this image Max intended to “openly criticize a method of research,” and that his picture stands as “a visual lament against this practice.”5 Shortly after The Vivisector was completed, it was exhibited at the Royal Odeon in Munich, although the artist was upset that the exhibition catalogue was not strong enough in its condemnation of the practice of vivisection.6 The painting was exhibited throughout Europe in 1884, and was then brought to London for an exhibition at the French Gallery in 1885. The London-​based Victoria Street Society for the Protection of Animals from Vivisection sold prints of the painting before its arrival in London, which helped generate a dialogue around the picture when it was finally exhibited there. Prints of the painting made their way to the United States, and we know that George T. Angell greatly admired it.7 By 1892, when the editors of the Journal of Zoophily were encouraging readers to purchase a print of

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this painting, Max’s image had been reproduced countless times. That no reproduction appeared with the Journal of Zoophily article suggests that the editors were fairly confident that readers were familiar with the picture and perhaps even had a copy of it hanging in their homes. The editors of the Journal of Zoophily had high praise for Max’s painting, noting in particular the contrast between the “soulful daughter of pity” and “the heartless experimenter.” They used the image to launch a discussion of the many American women who were also doing their part to stop vivisection—“we know that we have many women among us like Gabriel Max’s type of duty,” they wrote. They hoped that there was “no physiologist like Der Vivisector in this smiling land” but noted that the United States had lately been “making rapid progress in this undesirable direction,” and they vowed to continue the work of the American Anti-​Vivisection Society.8 Art critics, by contrast, were not much impressed by Max’s picture. As Schupbach notes, “Max’s painting was addressed to the hearts of the masses, not to the brains of art critics.”9 This painting was intended from the start to serve as a visual form of advocacy, to draw attention to the issue of vivisection in a very visible manner. Althaus notes the difficulties that Max may have encountered when setting out to paint this image, as antivivisection was a relatively new subject for artists, and a standardized visual vocabulary was not yet available. Max drew instead on existing iconography to convey his perspective—for example, using a female figure to connote kindness and sympathy, and including the scales of justice to situate the issue of vivisection in a long line of moral debates depicted in art. To this, Max added compositional details inspired by pamphlets and campaign materials produced by advocacy groups such as the International Antivivisection Alliance.10

DEC OR AT IN G T HE DR AW IN G ROOM

The suggestion that readers hang a reproduction of Max’s painting in their homes is significant. At the time in Britain and North America, the drawing room was understood to be the heart of the home, a space that “promoted domestic happiness” and “upheld morality.” As Judith Flanders has pointed out in her study of the Victorian home, “the drawing room was the centre of the house, literally and spiritually. It was the status indicator, the mark of gentility.” It was also a very gendered space, “the room from where the

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woman governed her domain,” as Flanders puts it.11 Given that the editors of the Journal of Zoophily drew a connection between the female figure in Max’s painting and the antivivisection work of American women, the suggestion to hang the picture in a room with strongly gendered connotations is significant. To place this particular picture in this particular space, then, spoke to the values held by someone who not only decorated the space but was in all likelihood responsible for the maintenance of domestic values within the house. It is important to remember, however, that the segregation of the spaces in the home along gender lines was a complex and fluid process. As Jane Hamlett notes in the context of domestic dwellings, “the gendering of space was constantly contested and negotiated.”12 Victorian commentators on the drawing room as a social space characterized it as a “place of rest and relaxation” and also as a “sort of museum” in which “domestic artistic productions and acquisitions are stored.”13 Art, in other words, was central to the understanding of a drawing room’s primary function, but there was not always unanimous agreement about what kind of art was best situated within this space. In their 1897 book The Decoration of Houses, Edith Wharton and Ogden Codman advised that the drawing room “should contain what is best worth looking at in the way of pictures, prints, and other objects of art,” and that “there should be nothing about its decoration so striking or eccentric as to become tiresome when continually seen.”14 A 1904 article by an art critic named Vallance Aymer in the Magazine of Art advised readers that, as a general rule, one should strive to select pictures matching the “brightness and fancy” of a typical drawing room, and to leave pictures of a more “monumental character”—like oil portraits of one’s ancestors, for example—“for the walls of the hall or the dining room.”15 In an 1877 article in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, art correspondent S. G. W. Benjamin stated that, owing to “the rather morbid tendency” of Max’s subjects, his paintings were “better suited, perhaps, to exhibition in a public gallery than in a private drawing-​room.”16 In the case of Der Vivisector, the editors of the Journal of Zoophily disregarded this advice, as the rescue of the puppy and the virtuous message presumably made this image suitable for the drawing room in their opinion. Had this been an image of vivisection in progress, it probably would not have been suggested as a possible drawing-​room decoration. The availability of reproductions was an important aspect of advocacy efforts, for it allowed those who lacked the means to purchase an oil painting from an artist like Max to align themselves with the artist’s politics in a very visible and material way. As we have seen, displaying artwork (even

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reproductions) in the drawing room was an expected and important aspect of decorating domestic interiors. As Thad Logan notes, it would be “unusual” for a home not to have pictures in the drawing room—“images of a world outside the home were an important part of its decoration.”17 The decorative and pictorial objects placed in the drawing room spoke volumes about the social standing and values of the inhabitants. As Katherine Grier reminds us in her insightful study Culture and Comfort, the decorative aspects of spaces like the drawing room allowed one to “create a representation of their desired public façade in a private room.”18 Further, there was the expectation that objects selected for display in these spaces were to have an educative or uplifting quality. As Flanders notes, “a cultivated and refined mind produced a cultivated and refined room; this room then acted in its turn on the people who used it, further improving them.”19 It is important, then, when examining the relationship between imagery and ideology, to consider what Logan describes as the “social practices of decoration” and how these could assert “a house-​hold’s social identity.”20 For those who participated in or supported animal advocacy groups and campaigns, the addition of a print like Der Vivisector to the home was a significant political gesture. It was a subtle but powerful outward manifestation of personal convictions that served at once to reaffirm the beliefs of the person who chose to place it there and to convey to visitors that this was a household in which animal advocacy was valued. It is also important to consider the “complex communication” of decorated interior spaces within the home. Logan persuasively argues for the need to be mindful of the “intersection of the social and the personal at the site of the domestic interior” when considering the ways in which visual culture functioned in spaces like this, and he notes that items in the drawing room “performed cultural work” indicative of some of the most pressing social and cultural questions of the day. Antivivisection, like animal advocacy in a more general sense, was a hot-​button issue, so it should come as no surprise that advocacy organizations encouraged their supporters to display related images in their drawing rooms. As Logan notes, the drawing room “expressed, enacted, and reproduced the conflicts inherent in major social phenomena . . . at the heart of private life.”21 Further, as Hamlett has argued, material objects in spaces like the drawing room played a “crucial role” in “creating meaning in the home.”22 How did these processes work when it came to animal advocacy? How would situating visual culture in the home be effective in changing the world for animals? As Sarah Richardson has noted, the home “could be an intensely

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political space,” and this was certainly the case when it came to animal welfare, animal rights, antivivisection, and humane education.23 As we have seen with the Max example, this could be in the form of artwork, but it also could be in the form of illustrated books and other items of humane education. Illustrated periodicals played an important role in bringing the imagery of animal advocacy into the home, and many organizations either produced their own periodicals or urged their members to subscribe to periodicals produced by similar organizations. For example, a plea put out in 1873 by the Canadian SPCA “urgently request[ed] heads of families to subscribe either to the Animal World, a monthly periodical published by the London Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals . . . or Our Dumb Animals, published in Boston . . . and cause these papers to be read in their families.”24 In their discussion about how the visual and material culture of the antislavery movement similarly crossed the public-​private boundary, Lynne Walker and Vron Ware argue that “the decoration of the female body and home, the combination of the personal and the political, and the elision of the private and public spheres challenged binary gendered divisions of space and culture.” Walker and Ware acknowledge that the readings of abolitionist images are necessarily contextual and that different kinds of meanings can be generated, depending on where they are viewed. What happens, they ask, when “an image or a statement from one discourse . . . is viewed as part of the other?” Do the advocacy images brought into the home lose some of their political edge? Does the space of the home take on another layer of political meaning because of the presence of these politicized images? Walker and Ware argue that in the context of the abolitionist movement, both of these things happened: “The critical representations of racial slavery were to some extent sanitized and sentimentalized but they were also domesticated in the sense of made normal, legitimate, knowable, and their presence was capable of signifying powerfully subversive messages.” Putting images dealing with such politically charged subjects as slavery or cruelty to animals in a new context will always generate new meanings, and yet there is also the potential for further political engagement with the issue by making it more accessible and less threatening to some viewers. When reproductions of Der Vivisector were displayed in middle-​class drawing rooms, there was certainly the risk that Max’s strident antivivisection message would become diluted. This could in part be attributed to the picture’s status as a work of art, especially when we consider the “cultural capital” that art and exhibition techniques signified to many viewers at this time. In addition, the way in which art critics like

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Aymer emphasized the need to focus on decorative and aesthetic aspects when selecting imagery for the drawing room undoubtedly prompted many people to consider the way an image looked over the meanings it might generate. However, it is important to recognize that a shift in meaning can occur depending upon how and where the image was viewed—if a print of Der Vivisector were framed and hung in a central place on a main wall, it would be read differently than if it were unframed and placed in a cabinet or album next to unrelated images, for example. Further, the inclusion of politicized images in the relatively safe space of the drawing room had the potential to normalize discussions and debates that may have been uncomfortably subversive in their original contexts. Specifically, the inclusion of a print of Der Vivisector may have allowed debates about vivisection to reach a wider segment of the population, including people who would not normally attend an antivivisection meeting or demonstration. In this way, the “cultural practices of collecting, display and fashion” could potentially “facilitate a challenge to the status quo.”25 Hilda Kean reminds us that in the context of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-​century abolition movement, the practice of hanging antislavery images in private homes played another important role—namely, to bring into focus activities and actions that most people did not have the opportunity to witness firsthand. “Mass-​produced images of packed slave ships hung on walls all over Britain as visual reminders of what was not visible.”26 This was also the case with animal advocacy. Vivisection, for example, often took place behind closed doors, in particular after antivivisection sentiment began to grow in places like Britain.27 Images like Max’s Der Vivisector kept the focus on the issue even when it was taking place out of sight. While many supported antivivisection campaigns in Britain and North America, few of those supporters would have had access to the laboratories where the experiments were taking place. As we have seen, visual culture can never stand in as a surrogate form of the truth in any singular sense, but it can provide an important narrative and context from which to advance advocacy and educational campaigns.

T HE GOLDEN RULE COOK BOOK

When we think about what constitutes “home,” perhaps one of the most prevalent images is that of a family gathered around a table sharing a meal.

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The acts of preparing and sharing food are at once intensely personal and informed by broader social, cultural, economic, and political factors. Questions about how, what, and whom one eats are always inextricably connected to broader discourses and ideologies, even when meals are served and prepared in the privacy of one’s own home. In the context of animal advocacy, the ethics of eating animal flesh have long been debated. As historian Bernard Unti points out, “vegetarians dominated several animal organizations, including the Women’s Pennsylvania SPCA and the New England Anti-​ Vivisection Society,” although there has been far from unanimous adoption of a vegetarian diet among those working to make the world a better place for nonhuman animals.28 The deliberate avoidance of animal flesh for ethical reasons has a long history of being linked with social reform—as Adam Shprintzen notes in his history of vegetarianism, in the years leading up to the American Civil War, “vegetarianism was visualized as a catalyst for total social reform, including the emancipation of slaves, the extension of suffrage to women, and the end of oppressive economics. This period was marked by a belief in the power of personal food choices to benefit society at large.” Shprintzen’s study outlines the ways in which vegetarianism in this period “shifted from being a source of radical critiques of social injustice” to “a viable way to build individual character and personal health.”29 There were, however, those who continued to focus on a more ethical form of vegetarianism, including Maude (M. R. L.) Sharpe, who in 1907 published The Golden Rule Cook Book, “the definitive vegetarian cookbook for that time,” according to Carol J. Adams.30  Sharpe was a “decorative artist” who had been “formally educated in art and literature.”31  She was also the founder of the Millennium Guild, an organization that Unti describes as “the first American animal rights organization.”32 Sharpe’s home was the meeting place for the Millennium Guild, and in the room where the guild gathered, the words “Thou Shalt Not Kill” were boldly displayed on the wall.33 The Millennium Guild under Sharpe’s direction “harkened back to the movement’s roots, with an ideology focusing on social reform through vegetarianism.” Sharpe saw vegetarianism “as a means to reform society,” and in publishing The Golden Rule Cook Book she was attempting to offer practical advice and recipes for those who wanted to stop eating meat. Sharpe’s reasons for promoting vegetarianism focused on broad social issues such as the treatment of animals, the working conditions of those who labored in the meat industry, and “the possibility of diseased, tainted meat.” However, she

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was critical of those who promoted vegetarianism primarily for its health benefits and, as Shprintzen notes, her book offered an ethical alternative, one that “provided a strident critique of the established and growing vegetarian community.”34 Sharpe was also deeply critical of those who ate meat, specifically those who were “active in humane charities,” a point she made in the preface to her cookbook: “One marvels to see hundreds of consecrated workers in session, putting forth every effort for the enacting of laws for the amelioration of the sufferings of cattle travelling to slaughter by car and ship, who are still content to patronize the butcher shop to buy food supplied by the dead bodies of these tortured victims of a false appetite.” To give time and money to support animal advocacy and still eat meat was entirely disingenuous, according to Sharpe, and she likened it to “receiving stolen goods while denouncing theft.”35 In addition to providing recipes and critical commentary about the social ills related to meat consumption, Sharpe also gave advice about the kinds of visual imagery one should have in the home, specifically in the rooms in which food was prepared and consumed. The inclusion of paintings of hunting scenes or furniture adorned with carvings of dead animals in the dining room had long been a fashionable trend,36 but Sharpe argued that this kind of imagery was out of place and in poor taste. She criticized the types of artwork that people normally placed in their dining rooms, noting that “nothing less appropriate than those usually chosen as fit subjects for its walls can be imagined. . . . Engravings showing the gentle deer hunted to his death, with the dog’s fangs already buried in his flesh, stuffed heads of the same animal, and paintings of dead fish, ducks or grouse, hanging by their feet, should not give pleasure to or improve the appetites of humane people.” Instead, Sharpe advised hanging pictures “which depict life, joy, kindness, and beauty rather than cruelty, bloodshed, and death.”37 Had Sharpe’s vegetarianism been motivated by health concerns, she would not have offered this kind of advice. Her understanding of the ethics informing vegetarianism extended beyond diet, and she recognized the influence that visual culture could have in both shaping and challenging dominant social norms when it came to the treatment of nonhuman animals. She also understood the importance of the domestic space of the home when it came to fostering these ideas—her advice, in other words, was not to go out to see an exhibition of sympathetic pictures in a gallery or attend a rally in a public square. Rather, she focused on the interior decoration of the home alongside recipes inspired by a compassion for all species.

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Fig. 47  Underwood & Underwood, A Carnivorous Animal and Her Prey. Published in M. R. L. Sharpe, The Golden Rule Cook Book (Boston: Little, Brown, 1912). Collection of the author.

In the front matter of The Golden Rule Cook Book there is a photograph of a young girl holding the leads of two horned cattle, and the title under the photograph reads “a carnivorous animal and her prey” (fig. 47). The juxtaposition of a small child—a little girl in a white dress, her curly hair held back with a ribbon—with the words underneath is intended to unsettle the reader’s worldview, in which eating nonhuman animals is normal. This is not a graphic or gruesome image—it is pleasant, even cute, and, viewed in another context, it might signify innocence. This image was taken from a stereograph produced by the professional photography firm of Underwood & Underwood, and in the original context this photograph, of “a little farmer girl and a splendid pair of Herefords—bull and cow—stock farm, Kansas,” reinforces the production and consumption of animal bodies as a normal and natural activity. The original stereograph format indicates that it was to be a bit of innocent visual entertainment, but Sharpe’s appropriation of the image destabilizes the idea that the consumption of animal flesh is normal or natural. The addition of the caption, coupled with the subject matter of

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the book in which it appears, necessarily shifts the meaning of this image. Instead of a picture celebrating the innocence of childhood marked by a love of animals, we now have a cultural critique of a worldview that sees nothing wrong with serving this child a meal prepared from the bodies of the cattle with whom she has formed relationships. Laura Wexler has argued that “the institutions of production, circulation, and reception of photographs effectively discourage inquiry into how things got to be the way that they appear.” In the photo’s original context of mass-​produced, commercial entertainment, the inherent violence that characterizes life (and death) on a “stock farm” is not questioned or challenged. Indeed, the inclusion of this young girl in the frame serves to normalize the farming of animals for human consumption and convenience. There is, however, as Wexler points out, a “potential for reenvisioning” in even the most banal-​seeming of photographic images, and this potential is allowed to flourish in Sharpe’s appropriation of the image.38 This is yet another illustration of how the context of viewing is essential when thinking about how images can either shape or challenge dominant ideologies.

T HE IDEOLOGY OF HOME

As the images discussed so far in this chapter demonstrate, the visual culture of animal advocacy could be brought into domestic spaces in many different ways. From prints to illustrated cookbooks, imagery that disrupted dominant assumptions about appropriate treatment of nonhuman animals found its way into the homes of those who supported animal advocacy initiatives. How did this kind of visual material intertwine with dominant middle-​class understandings of “home” during this period? That expectations of domestic spaces are different from those of the public spaces explored in the previous chapter is, perhaps, a given. However, it is important to remember that “home,” at least in the ideal sense, was a space in which very particular ideologies about what constituted “proper” behavior, including “humane” treatment of animals, were taught and modeled. The discourse of “kindness” and modeling “good” behavior through visual culture was very much filtered through a white, heteronormative, middle-​class lens. As Darcy Ingram notes, “the ethical treatment of animals was also connected with the growth of middle-​class power.”39 This point is reinforced in Katherine Grier’s work on the “domestic ethic of kindness.” As Grier puts it, “this ethic made kindness

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to animals one of the identifying traits of respectable folk. It also connected this trait to other desirable characteristics in a properly home-​centered society.”40 The link between kindness to animals and being a “respectable” member not only of one’s family, but also of society was modeled in the imagery found in many animal advocacy publications. Humane education texts and the monthly magazines of the MSPCA, RSPCA, Toronto Humane Society, and similar groups frequently included images of nonhuman animal families behaving in ways that were considered proper for human families. Images in which humans were shown being kind to the nonhuman animals they lived with were also a standard visual trope in these publications. For example, in February 1875 an image titled Bessie and Her Pets was published in Our Dumb Animals, the official publication of the MSPCA (fig. 48). This image depicts a young girl tending to a number of birds. She has provided food for a mother hen and her chicks, and she gently caresses a dove who sits in her lap while another dove approaches Bessie’s outstretched hand. Bessie and her feathered friends are depicted in front of a brick house, an important compositional detail. Although the house is only partially visible, its presence reminds viewers that this tender interaction takes place in a domestic space. This is not a wild, untamed space but one that depends on order, domesticity, and kindness. The article accompanying this image emphasizes Grier’s domestic ethic of kindness: “Many of our young readers have pets of one kind or another, which we trust are kindly treated. The little girl in our picture is surrounded by her pets, and dearly does she love them. Kind and gentle words they are sure to hear when they come at Bessie’s call; and many are the sweet ‘coo’s’ she gets in return for them. Kind words are always echoed back.”41 The image and text underscore the importance of being kind to the animals in one’s care and were directed specifically at young children. The use of the term “pet” is important here, as pet keeping went hand in hand with ideals of domesticity—as Ivan Kreilkamp has persuasively argued, pets are “not just instances or proofs of domesticity, but constitutive of the concept.”42 As we saw in chapter 1, parents were encouraged to decorate “the walls of bedrooms and nurseries with instructive engravings and paintings such as will promote in the youthful mind a love of animals and birds.”43 Representations of nonhuman animals were found in books, wall coverings, textiles, toys, and other objects designed for the spaces occupied by children. These kinds of images reinforced the notion that certain types of animals could—and should—be a cherished part of the family unit. As Grier notes,

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Fig. 48  Bessie and Her Pets. Published in Our Dumb Animals, February 1875. Image courtesy of MSPCA Angell.

the inclusion of these images in these spaces “ratified the particular cultural values that made these images possible. . . . These artifacts suggested what normal interaction with pet animals should look like in very literal terms.”44 In her study of the history of the animal protection movement in the United States, Kathryn Shevelow argues that the culture of pet keeping was closely related to the rise of organized animal advocacy. Connections were made between the companion animals invited into the home and broader ideas about the treatment of animals in society.45 The implications of human relationships with domesticated animals in domestic spaces extended far beyond the walls of the middle-​class home. For many people, pets provide the first opportunity to think about the ways in which nonhuman animals experience the world, and interactions with pets demonstrate that these animals are capable of experiencing pain, pleasure, fear, joy, loyalty, bravery, and love. Further, as Jennifer Mason’s research has demonstrated, pets played an important role in the “discourse of child development,” specifically as a “means of cultivating empathy, self-​discipline, and other virtues.”46 Images like the ones published in Our Dumb Animals reinforced these notions.

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Fig. 49  Mother and Child. Published in Our Dumb Animals, October 1874. Image courtesy of MSPCA Angell.

Other images in these contexts emphasized the similarities between human and nonhuman families. The October 1874 issue of Our Dumb Animals ran an image of a cow and her calf under the heading Mother and Child (fig. 49). The accompanying article asks, “do animals love each other?” In answer, the text reads, “the cow lays her head over the back of her calf as tenderly as a human mother folds her arms about her baby.”47 The article goes on to emphasize that both human and nonhuman mothers have affection for their babies and suffer when they are taken away from them. Similarly, the May 1891 issue of Our Dumb Animals contained an image called Two Happy Mothers (fig. 50) in which a human mother carrying an infant walks on a path alongside a cow and calf. This peaceful pastoral scene not only illustrates the idea of two species living in harmony (even if that notion of harmony is anthropocentric), but, more importantly, also makes the pictorial argument that other animals experience the same kinds of maternal bonds with their children that humans do, and suffer similar pain and anguish when their babies are harmed or taken away.48 This recognition, it was hoped, would make viewers think twice when it came to the ways in which nonhuman animals were treated.

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Fig. 50  Two Happy Mothers. Published in Our Dumb Animals, May 1891. Image courtesy of MSPCA Angell.

In her study of the inclusion of nonhuman animals in the home (both in images and in actual pets) and how this helped shape middle-​class notions of family, Grier argues that “equating animal and human families” had two consequences. First, it “suggested that middle-​class family life was timeless and natural, rather than a construction with a relatively recent history.” Second, it “suggested that the integrity of animal families deserved respect, and the feelings of animal parents, consideration.”49 Many of the images used by animal advocates in this era reinforce these points. Harrison Weir contributed many pictures of this nature to publications like Our Dumb Animals. In April 1875, his picture The Mother’s Nine was published in the “Children’s Department” of the MSPCA’s magazine (fig. 51). In this image, a mother pig and her nine piglets explore an open, grassy field, and the accompanying text emphasizes the “maternal affection” the mother demonstrates as she protects her offspring while “leading them into a green field to enjoy themselves.” The text notes that many people fail to provide proper living conditions for their pigs: “most people seem to believe that any place is good enough for a pig.” Readers are encouraged to provide “a dry

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Fig. 51  Harrison Weir, The Mother’s Nine. Published in Our Dumb Animals, April 1875. Image courtesy of MSPCA Angell.

pen, clean straw, good, sweet food, clean water, a frequent bath, and other comforts” for the animals in their care. This advice is offered as a counter to the common complaint that pigs are filthy animals; the editors of Our Dumb Animals point out that this is largely because of how human caregivers treat their pigs. They also equate a neglected human child with a neglected family of pigs: “Some children that we have heard of would not have clean faces and hands, and neat finger-​nails and well-​brushed hair, if their mothers or aunts did not furnish them with clean water, soap and towels. Is it right to expect more of a pig?”50 In addition to drawing these parallels, this short piece reinforces the notion that caregiving is something that should be done by women—“mothers or aunts” are charged with ensuring that a child is neat, clean, and well brought up. As noted above, it is common to accept the dominant perception that space was divided clearly along gender lines, that public spaces were the domain of men and domestic spaces the purview of women. Certainly, articles and images like this did much to reinforce this notion. However, as Grier notes, “everyday life could not be, and never was, divided into such tidy domains, but the ideal of separate arenas for male

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and female authority set the parameters of the normal.”51 In other words, when critically revisiting images and text from previous historical eras, it is important to be attuned to the gaps that may have existed between the ideal and the actual when it came to gendered spaces. Landseer’s Sick Monkey (fig. 14) was reproduced in a number of animal advocacy publications, including the February 1891 issue of Our Dumb Animals with the caption “There’s No Place Like Home.” This image shows a young monkey being comforted by his mother, and another monkey from the same family enjoys a meal in the background, seemingly oblivious to the plight of his relatives. The maternal love was what made this picture of particular interest to the editors of Our Dumb Animals, and the addition of the caption underscores the point. Here, the “home” the monkeys occupy is a cage, a space that is barren and sparse compared to the natural habitat of these animals. They are in a zoo enclosure, far removed from the kind of landscape that would constitute a proper home for them.52 But Our Dumb Animals was referring not to the cage but to the tender connection between mother and child; this emotional bond conveyed the idea of “home” in this context. Landseer’s painting received much attention when it was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1870. It was described as “one of the best illustrations of monkeydom,”53 and viewers empathized with the mother and child, noting that the mother was “very sad-​looking” and that her body language and facial expression indicated that she was “utterly distressed.” The Athenaeum, a highly regarded nineteenth-​century literary magazine, pointed to the “ineffably tender and maternal” care given to the young monkey, and noted that “the misery of the little one and the love of the mother are rendered with intense pathos”; Landseer had “never painted better.” The painting was included in Philadelphia’s Centennial International Exhibition in 1876, and a review noted that of all the work in the British section, this picture was “the most note-​worthy.”54 When the editors of Our Dumb Animals chose to reproduce the image, they knew that it would be a crowd-​pleaser even twenty-​one years after its creation. Collectively, these images and many others like them visually reinforce the idea that kindness, compassion, and kinship were important components of “home” in its ideal sense. As Grier notes, “the domestic ethic of kindness . . . made gentle treatment a necessary part of the character of respectable people.”55

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HOMELE S S ANIM AL S

If the ideology of “home” was a dominant part of animal advocacy during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the idea of “homelessness” also had significant influence, as  reformers sought to address the overwhelming numbers of “stray” animals that populated the city streets of Britain and North America. The definition of a “stray” or “homeless” animal was very species-​specific. So-​called wild animals (squirrels, raccoons, skunks, and other small mammals, songbirds, deer, wolves, and so on) were not usually included in the category of animals thought to be in need of a home. “Homeless” animals meant those who were more frequently classified as “pets,” dogs and cats in particular.56 The home was an important space of socialization, a space in which child rearing took place and in which middle-​class family values were fostered and affirmed. As Lydia Murdoch has argued, however, the very idea of what constituted a family or a home was contested during this era. Murdoch’s research points to examples of children from poor and working-​class families who were classified as “orphans” within broader social and cultural systems because they were not living in settings that matched preconceived ideas about what a home was supposed to look like.57 The home was also, as we have seen, a place where kindness to animals was valued, at least in an ideal sense. The lack of a perceivable home (by middle-​class standards) signified an absence of important values cherished by the middle class in Britain and North America, even when it came to nonhuman animals. There is a long history of “stray” and “homeless” dogs and cats in the urban spaces of Britain and North America.58 Earlier in the nineteenth century, much of the concern about these animals could be linked to human health concerns, including the fear of rabies.59 However, by the late Victorian era, other reasons for caring for homeless cats and dogs had begun to gain ground. Stories about these animals being rounded up and used in vivisection laboratories fueled much concern.60 In addition, getting homeless dogs and cats off the street became an extension of Grier’s notion of a domestic ethic of kindness. In practical terms, bringing cats and dogs into the home was facilitated by the invention of products that made this transition easier and more tolerable. As David Grimm points out, “before the advent of medicated soaps in the 1880s, it just wasn’t sanitary, or aromatically acceptable, to keep animals indoors.”61 Caring for “stray” cats and dogs was closely linked to child welfare campaigns concerned with ensuring that human children had proper homes in

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which to be socialized in ways acceptable to dominant middle-​class interests. This conflation of vulnerable children and animals who had the potential to be “pets” also took place on a wider scale, and, as Arnold Arluke and Clinton Sanders have noted, there is at times a sense of interchangeability, in that both categories depend on a “caretaker who is presumed to be competent and in control.”62 In terms of lobbying for benevolent treatment of these charges, many of the early animal welfare organizations initially combined advocacy for both nonhuman animals and children. As Susan J. Pearson writes, “the regime of kindness consigned both beasts and babes to a similar position in the household’s affective economy, assigning them a mutual role as objects of sentimental investment.” Reformers such as Henry Bergh in New York City and J. J. Kelso in Toronto saw the welfare of nonhuman animals and children as related, and this perspective shaped many of the early “humane” societies.63 The home was a central space for both child rearing and pet keeping, and both activities were informed by a broader public discourse on citizenship and the state, even though they occurred largely in the seemingly private space of the home. The establishment of animal shelters like the Battersea Dogs Home in London (founded in 1860) underscored the idea that “a home was the dog’s proper place.” The name here is significant—as Hilda Kean notes, “what was established was a ‘home,’ a domestic venue, rather than a place of custody or imprisonment. In its title alone, the Battersea Dogs Home showed the extent to which the status of dogs was becoming inextricably linked with the respectable family.”64 When Mary Tealby founded the Battersea Dogs Home, she made an important contribution to the changing conversation about the humane treatment of domesticated animals within the urban landscape.65 In January 1889, an illustrated article about the Battersea Dogs Home ran in the Pall Mall Budget. It featured images by “the well-​known animal painter J. Yates Carrington” and was intended not only to draw attention to the work being done at Battersea, but also to raise much-​needed funds for these efforts through donations and the sale of Carrington’s original drawings for the article.66 These “admirable and heartrending studies” depicted “some of the inmates of the lost dog’s home at Battersea” through the sad tale of a dog named Jack (fig. 52). A correspondent for the Western Mail in Perth, Australia, gave the following description of the dogs represented in Carrington’s images: “One sitting against the corner of its prison kennel, with its handsome countenance dejected and sorrowful, its ribs showing through a shaggy coat, tells its own story. It is puny, has been petted, has

Fig. 52  “To Every Lover of a Dog,” featuring images by J. Yates Carrington. Published in the Pall Mall Budget, January 10, 1889. Image © The British Library Board.

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strayed, and now hoping against hope awaits its doom—the lethal chamber. A time worn wretched face looks out of its bars, saying wistfully, ‘Have you come for me?’ A whilom pet spaniel sits up begging, saying, ‘Won’t you help us?’ ”67 Here, visual imagery was used to appeal directly to the emotions of those who saw Carrington’s pictures, encouraging them not only to make a donation to the Battersea Home but to consider opening their own home to an animal in need. Carrington was a natural choice of artist for this campaign. His artwork frequently featured dogs, especially in the years after he adopted a fox terrier who became the subject of an illustrated book called Teufel the Terrier.68 In 1889, Carrington painted The Orphans, a picture of two dogs in a wooden cage.69 The dogs look imploringly at the viewer, their paws and faces visible through the bars of the enclosure. Beneath one of the dogs, on the left side of the canvas, is a leaflet tacked to the wooden slats of the cage that reads, “2619 DOGS. Removed from the Streets of London During the Month of September. DOGS’ HOME” (fig. 53). This image praises the tremendous efforts of the Battersea Dogs Home and underscores the real need for assistance from the community in helping to care for these animals.70 These dogs, the title tells us, are orphans, and they are in desperate need of a loving home. The addition of text to this image through the inclusion of the painted leaflet stresses that these two dogs are not alone in their predicament, that there are many others in need. In the twenty-​first century, Carrington’s work has continued to be used in fund-​raising events aimed at helping animals. The Orphans was included in the 2006 “Dog Art Sale” hosted by Bonhams New York. As part of that event, Bonhams partnered with the American Kennel Club to host “Barkfest at Bonhams,” a “charity brunch and private viewing of the prestigious collection of dog art” to be auctioned off in the Bonhams “Dog Art Sale.” The proceeds from the event were “donated to AKC’s charitable public art programme, DOGNY—America’s tribute to Search and Rescue Dogs.”71 This chapter has focused on the ways in which discourses of animal advocacy were enacted in the domestic spaces of private homes. The border between what constitutes “public” and “private” space is certainly porous, but the home was an important site from which to advocate for nonhuman animals. At the most basic level, the home was a space in which reformers met and strategized about more public aspects of their advocacy. The Millennium Guild and the societies that would later become the Royal Society

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Fig. 53  Print of J. Yates Carrington’s The Orphans, 1889. Published as Prisoners at the Bar. Private collection. Image © Look and Learn / Illustrated Papers Collection / Bridgeman Images.

for the Protection of Birds are examples of organizations that can trace their roots back to meetings held within the homes of their founders. The home was also where Grier’s “domestic ethic of kindness” developed. Pet keeping was one way that this was enacted, though children were also taught that nonhuman animals deserved kindness and compassion through pictures, illustrated magazines, and humane education books. Adult members of the family were also educated when prints like Der Vivisector were added to the décor of the drawing room. Given the private nature of family life, it is more challenging to assess the specific ways in which images were encountered in the home than to evaluate visual culture in public spaces. Far more newspaper and magazine articles covered the Brown Dog Memorial and the banners in protests at Trafalgar Square than images on the walls of drawing rooms and nurseries.

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We must therefore draw more on speculation than on actual eyewitness accounts when we consider the visual culture of animal advocacy in the home. Although speculation is obviously more imprecise, the frequency with which these kinds of images would have been found in domestic spaces makes this an important area of consideration all the same. There was the chance that the intended message of these kinds of images became diluted or altered when they were viewed in the home, though the reverse is also true—viewing these images in a safe and familiar space may have encouraged deeper engagement with the issues than encountering the same images in a public space would have done. In addition to modeling kind and humane behavior, these images provided a visual reference for what a “proper” middle-​class family looked like. This was reinforced through the discourses of homelessness that aligned child welfare and animal advocacy. Images of happy and harmonious families of nonhuman animals behaving in ways considered respectable by human standards not only drew parallels between species; they also reinforced proper conduct for men, women, and children in the modern era. In this way, discourses of domesticity and family values were articulated and reinforced on the pages of illustrated publications produced by those working in animal advocacy.

CONCLUSION: WHAT MIGHT BE

This book has explored some of the ways in which visual culture was used in animal advocacy during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In addition to outlining how imagery was thought to be central to education and “civilizing” projects during this period, it has explored two related binaries central to discussions about how visual culture can work in advocacy and activist contexts: truth/fiction and private/public. As I hope to have demonstrated, the borders between these categories were fluid, and images functioned in complex ways within the context of animal welfare, animal rights, antivivisection, and humane education campaigns. Late nineteenth- and early twentieth-​century animal advocacy efforts were robust, often overlapping, and always contested. As is the case today, animal advocacy during this period was not a cohesive movement but was composed of different points of view and approaches. One thing that united the campaigns to improve the condition of nonhuman animals, however, was the importance placed on visual culture. Art for Animals has explored the central role of visual culture in campaigns aimed at changing the ways in which animals were treated, and has asked how the process of visualizing cruelty or kindness to animals becomes further complicated by the circulation and consumption of visual images. As we have seen, the “politics of sight” has always been a central aspect of organized animal advocacy. W. J. T. Mitchell argues that “images introduce new forms of value into the world, contesting our criteria, forcing us to change

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our minds. . . . Images are not just passive entities that coexist with their human hosts.”1 This is an important recognition in the case of advocacy and social justice issues, and this point is as relevant to campaigns from previous eras as it is today. Visual culture plays an active role in determining what is appropriate when it comes to relationships with nonhuman animals—images can normalize a particular behavior, but they can also challenge and unsettle the status quo. The centrality of visual culture in social activism requires that we pay close attention to how images work if we want to enact change. Animal advocacy in the twenty-​first century is also steeped in visual culture. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine how one might engage in this kind of activism without imagery. Some might even argue that visual culture is even more significant today than it was in the past. Given the vast differences in the ways in which images are created and circulated today, I am not sure that this question can be answered definitively. Certainly, however, social media platforms have opened up more channels for sharing and distributing the visual culture of animal advocacy today. Protests, marches, vigils, and demonstrations against animal cruelty are defined by their sense of visual spectacle—not only are they highly visible in terms of drawing attention, but it is also now almost a requirement that participants photograph or film their participation and share the resulting imagery on social media. Further, the growth of the “Save” movement into a global phenomenon puts the act of bearing witness at the forefront of discussions relating to animal advocacy in the twenty-​first century.2 In a broader sense, clever images and carefully crafted logos adorn T-​shirts, buttons, hats, and tote bags—indeed, entire businesses have sprung up to supply such items to those who profess to care about animals. These objects are designed to craft a sense of visual identity for the person wearing them, an identity steeped in the politics of compassion and caring for all creatures. There are, of course, some significant differences between the images used by activists today and those taken up by reformers in the time period explored in this book. It is hard to imagine that a reproduction of a Landseer painting could command the same level of attention in activist circles today! Many of the images used in these earlier campaigns might today be dismissed as too sentimental or as not representative enough of the complexities of our current activist context to be considered effective. What, then, is the value of learning this history? Why do these historical uses of visual culture on behalf of animals matter?

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One reason why we need to pay attention to the roots of animal advocacy is to acknowledge that it has a long history. By acknowledging this history, we are actively participating in the rejection of a narrative that uses the excuse of “that is the way we have always done it” to justify and normalize the exploitation of animals. There has long been resistance to animal cruelty (even though what we mean by “animal cruelty” has changed over time), and to write, learn, talk, and think about those involved in this resistance is to refocus the historical narrative in such a way as to allow a reexamination of the cultural, social, economic, technological, and political forces that have made animal exploitation a given. Moreover, the human treatment of nonhuman animals has been shaped by visual culture—images both sustain and challenge our relationships with animals. Images can make certain practices seem inevitable, but they can also create a space in which new possibilities are imagined. As Rebecca Solnit has so eloquently argued, “there are usually cracks somewhere in the inevitable and the obvious.”3 These “cracks” emerge when we take seriously the ways in which activists of previous generations stood up for animals in a very visible way, and when we look at how the images they used offered alternative narratives about the relationships between human and nonhuman animals. As in previous historical periods, images are both central and highly contested in the context of today’s activism. Although we live in a very different social, cultural, and political context than the reformers discussed in this book, earlier advocacy efforts continue to influence twenty-​first-​century activists. And despite vast changes in the technologies of image production and circulation, there are many similarities between the visual tactics of those early reformers and those in use today. Photographs are still frequently understood as unmediated lenses through which to see “the truth,” and a single image is often still offered as evidence of a broader context. Likewise, the contested status of photography and film is as significant to animal advocacy today as it was when Ada Cole and Captain Fairholme photographed abused horses in the early years of the 20th century. Cole and Fairholme were roughed up and threatened for reasons remarkably similar to those given by people who support “ag gag” legislation today. In addition, debate persists about whether shocking and disturbing images can be effective tools for change. When Frances Power Cobbe implored people to look at the graphic images in her antivivisection publications—“Do Not Refuse to Look at These Pictures!”—and when Ernest Thompson Seton told the International Anti-​Vivisection Congress in 1913

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that “pictures of tortured animals do no good,” they anticipated much of the discourse of twenty-​first-​century animal rights activism.4 As activists today know all too well, many people turn away from graphic images of violence. I have heard many people who work for animal rights organizations express frustration at the apparent complacency of so many people in our contemporary world—“if only they could see what was really going on,” they lament. But, as we have seen, the insistence that a single image can provide evidence of “the truth” presents some challenges. Drawing on Jennifer Tucker’s work, I have suggested that we need to reframe activist imagery in ways that move beyond a simplistic true/false binary. We need a more nuanced understanding of how any given image is made, used, and circulated in an activist context. The methods by which visual culture has defined and challenged what counts as kind, cruel, or humane behavior toward nonhuman animals are complex. Insisting that we move past a simplistic understanding of an image as the truth is not the same as declaring that image false or fabricated. I do not question the integrity of the artists and photographers who create the images that are adopted as part of the iconography of animal advocacy. My interest is broader—I am interested in thinking critically about how these images work in these already highly charged contexts. To see the visual culture of animal advocacy as part of a broader discursive system is not to dismiss the effort or commitment of any individual image maker. Rather, locating this work within the larger conversation permits the kinds of critical and complex dialogues required to address the urgent issues of animal advocacy today. When we pay close attention to how images work and we seek to become more visually literate, we occupy a better position from which to create effective visual narratives. And this is not just an academic or theoretical concern—we need always to be mindful that visual representations have real-​life consequences for living, breathing animals. Photographs and film footage will continue to be challenged precisely because of the insistence upon a true/false binary. Those who make these kinds of images in the context of animal advocacy will insist on their truthfulness and accuracy, and those who are photographed or filmed acting in a way society deems “cruel” will fight to suppress the images and, when that fails, will deny their accuracy (“this is an isolated incident”; “you don’t have the full story”). Important legislative change has come about because of graphic imagery captured in undercover investigations—for example, the images that Ada Cole obtained of conditions in the live-​export industry helped usher in the Exportation of Horses Act in Britain in 1914. But is there

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room for more nuanced dialogue? What if Captain Gee had not recanted his statement about Cole’s credibility? The law would still have been on the books, but how would the legacy of Gee’s allegation have shaped public perception of the issue, future investigations, and animal advocacy more generally? What if Cole had put more emphasis on Peiser’s paintings (fig. 18) than on the photographs and film footage? Would she then have gained more or less public support for the issue? How would this have shaped the conversation? It is impossible to know the answers to these questions, but raising them does force us to think about how different kinds of images open up a variety of issues and talking points. In his thoughtful study Bending the Frame: Photojournalism, Documentary, and the Citizen, Fred Ritchin makes the case for rethinking the role of camera-​ generated images. Rather than ask this kind of imagery to stand simplistically for “the truth,” visual culture needs “to be employed rhetorically to build a case and to persuade,” Ritchin says. “Rather than routinely indicate what is (as records of the visible),” these images “increasingly point to what might be—with the potential for much deeper understanding, as well as for a particularly subversive simulation designed to mislead.”5 This idea of “what might be” is important, as the double meaning of this phrase underscores the complexities of the visual culture of activism—a single image can suggest future potential (imagine what a future without this kind of atrocity might look like), but can also engender a sense of skepticism (this might be true, or it might not be). Ritchin correctly argues that we must consider how images relate to “what might be,” but when we look at late nineteenth- and early twentieth-​century animal advocacy campaigns, we see that this was the case then too. Early animal advocates often adopted images in which a sense of “sympathetic imagination” was encouraged. Can we think of ways in which these kinds of images might work today? As we have seen, previous advocacy efforts often combined different types of visual culture. It is equally important for activists today to be open to seeing visual culture not just as providing “evidence,” but also as a site where questions about “what might be” can arise. This suggestion may make some people uncomfortable, as it implies uncertainty about the meaning a viewer might take away from her encounter with an image. However, as I have argued throughout this book, there is simply no way to guarantee that the intended meaning of an image will be the one that a viewer will arrive at. A certain level of uncertainty is always already part of the experience of

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engaging with visual culture. The context and location in which an image is viewed, along with the viewer’s background, subject position, and previous experiences, all influence the meaning-​making process. This is as true of photographs as it is of cartoons, and it is equally the case whether the image is viewed in a public space or in the relative privacy of one’s home. Visual culture can foster what Lori Gruen calls “entangled empathy,” which she defines as “a type of caring perception focused on attending to another’s experience of wellbeing.” As we have seen, imagery can serve as a way to begin this process. Gruen posits that fostering an empathic connection with nonhuman animals requires both research and imagination, and this observation is highly relevant when we are thinking about the visual culture of animal advocacy.6 Research, or contextual information, helps provide a broader understanding of a given issue, and images that allow for an imaginative interpretation can open the door to compassionate connections. This can happen no matter how “realistic” any given image looks. In terms of contemporary documentary photography, Jo-​Anne McArthur’s work is a good example of imagery that can foster a sense of entangled empathy. McArthur’s We Animals project moves beyond the limitations of traditional binaries of “true” and “false” to present more complex ways of thinking about our relationships with nonhuman animals.7 The We Animals project is a photographic archive focusing on the experiences of nonhuman animals at factory farms, zoos, slaughterhouses, laboratories, and sanctuaries. McArthur attempts to photograph situations from the perspective of nonhuman animals, an effect achieved through cropping, camera angles, and the use of selective focus. By creating a “rabbit’s-​eye” (or dog’s-​eye, or mink’s-​ eye, or cow’s-​eye) perspective, the viewer is encouraged to empathize with the species depicted. The situation is not fabricated, but the point of view is unexpected. There is a necessary imaginative leap as viewers reflect on what it might feel like to be the animal depicted in the photograph—the pig awaiting slaughter, the dog rescued from a puppy mill, the hen enjoying the feeling of warm sun on her body. We are encouraged to empathize with these animals because, as the title of the project suggests, we also are animals. McArthur’s work builds on the legacy of earlier animal advocacy images in that it encourages viewers to make empathic connections with the animals represented in the pictures. In The Empathic Civilization, Jeremy Rifkin argues that films like Bambi and Babe and programs on channels like Animal Planet “awakened the imagination of millions . . . to the plight of other creatures, opening up a new domain for human consciousness.”8 It is this

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imaginative potential of work like McArthur’s that I think is most significant here. To talk about the imaginative qualities of a documentary photograph may seem like a contradiction in terms, but it is a way of framing that breaks from a true/false dichotomy and permits a complex and nuanced understanding of the relationships between human and nonhuman animals. As I stated in the introduction, my intention is not to amass an exhaustive catalogue of all of the images used by late nineteenth- and early twentieth-​ century animal advocacy groups. Rather, I see Art for Animals as the start of what I hope will be an ongoing conversation not only about the rich visual history of animal advocacy, but also about how we might rethink some of the visual politics related to contemporary efforts to make the world a kinder, gentler place for all species. What can we learn from the past? What might be?

NOTES

INTRODUCTION

1. Such vigils continue in other locations now, as the “Save” movement has spread across Canada and into other countries. For a very thoughtful commentary on the work of Toronto Pig Save, see Bekoff, “Babe, Lettuce, and Tomato.” For historical commentary on the history of the slaughterhouse in Toronto, see Kheraj, “Living and Working with Domestic Animals.” 2. Our Dumb Animals, “Be Kind to Animals Week.” 3. Trollope, Domestic Habits of the Americans, quoted in Cincinnati Federal Writers Project, They Built a City, 79. 4. Ibid., 86. 5. Mizelle, “Visibility and Invisibility of Pigs.” 6. Cobbe, Light in Dark Places, 3. 7. American Anti-​Vivisection Society, Illustrations of Vivisection, 3. 8. Pachirat, Every Twelve Seconds, 15. 9. The so-​called ag-​gag laws that have been introduced in several U.S. jurisdictions underscore the relevance of visuality in our own era. These controversial laws seek to make the act of filming or photographing animal abuse on large-​scale farms a felony. In recent years, a number of these initiatives have been defeated. 10. Mitchell, What Do Pictures Want, 105. 11. Kean, Animal Rights, 11. 12. Ibid., 94. 13. James, Debt of Honour, 33. 14. Burt, Animals in Film, 36. 15. For a discussion of the ways in which an intersectional analysis can consider both human and nonhuman animals, see Kim, Dangerous Crossings. 16. Anderson, Creatures of Empire, 7. 17. Kean, Animal Rights, 26–27. 18. Trist, preface, Under Dog, ix. 19. Hansen, Picturing Medical Progress; Hansen, “New Images of a New Medicine,” 78. 20. Burt, Animals in Film, 22. 21. Donald, “Beastly Sights,” 514. 22. Cambridge (Mass.) Tribune, “Crusade Against Blinders.” 23. Beers, For the Prevention of Cruelty, 14. 24. It was rare (but not unheard of) for those working in animal advocacy at this time to flat-out reject the eating of meat. It was much more common to focus on things like humane methods of slaughter or transportation that reduced animal suffering.

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Notes to Pages 8–20

25. See Burt, Animals in Film. 26. Johnston, “Introduction: A Critical Overview of Visual Culture Studies,” in Seeing High and Low, 3. 27. Nead, Haunted Gallery, 2. 28. Mitchell, What Do Pictures Want, 49–50. 29. Thompson, Seeing Power, vii. 30. Kemble, Further Records, 49. 31. Punch, “Artists at Bow Street.” 32. Cambridge (Mass.) Tribune, “Humane Worker Again Voices Protest,” 4. 33. Li, “Union of Christianity,” 280n3. 34. Donald, “Beastly Sights,” 529. After it was published in the Voice of Humanity, Cruikshank’s etching was reproduced in other journals and was issued as a print for purchase. 35. London Literary Gazette, Review of New Books. 36. McLagan and McKee, Sensible Politics, 12. 37. Thomas, Pictorial Victorians, 28. 38. Meyer, America’s Great Illustrators, 11. 39. Thomas, Pictorial Victorians, 10, 12–13. 40. See, for example, Kean, Animal Rights. 41. Coleman, Humane Society Leaders, 36. 42. Lederer, Subjected to Science, 32. 43. Coleman, Humane Society Leaders, 204. 44. Doughty, Feather Fashions, 45. 45. For example, a certificate in the John Joseph Kelso fonds at Library and Archives Canada (R5352-U-3-E) attests to Kelso’s standing as a “Corresponding Member” of the American Humane Association, an organization formed in 1877. 46. Ingram, “Beastly Measures,” 222. 47. For a good discussion of the Hogarth prints, see Donald, “Beastly Sights,” 524–26. 48. Anderson, Creatures of Empire, 8. 49. Grier, Pets in America, 77–78. 50. Hopley, Campaigning Against Cruelty, 6–7. For more on the Victoria Street Society, see Williamson, Power and Protest, 126. 51. For more on the different positions taken by antivivisection activists, see Unti, “Doctors Are So Sure,” 175, 184. 52. Hopley, Campaigning Against Cruelty, 6, 17. 53. Lederer, Subjected to Science, 32, 33. 54. Shevelow, For the Love of Animals, 13. See also Moss, Valiant Crusade, 198. 55. May, Fox-​Hunting Controversy, 59, 62. 56. Hopley, Campaigning Against Cruelty, 2. 57. Lansbury, Old Brown Dog, 64. 58. Coleman, Humane Society Leaders, 174. See also Jones and Rutman, In the Children’s Aid. 59. Kean, Animal Rights, 31. 60. Cherry, Beyond the Frame, 2. 61. See Otter, Victorian Eye; Nead, Victorian Babylon; Crary, Techniques of the Observer. 62. Mason, Civilized Creatures, 22. 63. Hodgins, Aims and Objects, 22. 64. New York Times, “Odd Protest to Kaiser.”

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65. Rothfels, “Introduction,” in Representing Animals, xi. 66. Kean, Animal Rights, 48. 67. See, for example, Carlisle, Picturing Reform; Cherry, Beyond the Frame; Huneault, Difficult Subjects; McAllister, “Picturing the Demon Drink”; McInnis, Slaves Waiting for Sale; Pace, “Staging Childhood”; Tickner, Spectacle of Women; Willis and Krauthamer, Envisioning Emancipation; and Wood, Horrible Gift of Freedom. 68. See McAllister, “Picturing the Demon Drink.” 69. Skelly, Addiction and British Visual Culture, 10. 70. Smith-​Shank, “Lewis Hine,” 37. See also Denzer, “Documentary Imagination.” 71. Willis and Krauthamer, Envisioning Emancipation, 3. 72. Tickner, Spectacle of Women, ix. 73. Dunaway, Seeing Green, 1. See also DeLuca, Image Politics. 74. See, for example, Friedmann, Bestiary for Saint Jerome; Peck, “Animal Symbolism”; Cohen, “Animals in the Paintings of Titian”; Baker, Picturing the Beast; Baker, “Animals, Representation, and Reality”; Kalof, Looking at Animals; Fudge, Renaissance Beasts; Donald, Picturing Animals in Britain; Shukin, Animal Capital; Burt, Animals in Film; and Thompson, Becoming Animal. 75. Malamud, Introduction to Animals, 12–13. 76. See Donald, “Beastly Sights”; Donald and Munro, Endless Forms; Donald, Picturing Animals in Britain. 77. Broglio, Surface Encounters; Thompson, Becoming Animal; Baker, Postmodern Animal. 78. See Cronin, “Animal Histories”; Young, “(Mis)reading Revelations.” 79. Oliveira, “Ex-​Worker Faces Arson Charge.” CHAP TER 1

1. Moss, Valiant Crusade, 41. 2. Band of Mercy Advocate, “Sir Francis Burdett,” 44–46. 3. See Kean, Animal Rights, 55. 4. Band of Mercy Advocate, “Sir Francis Burdett,” 46; Carey, Twelve Notable Good Women, 167. 5. Kean, Animal Rights, 55. As Kean notes, the water was provided not only for health, but also for temperance reasons. See also Kean, “Exploration of the Sculptures.” Greyfriars Bobby was a Scottish Skye terrier reputed to have stood guard on his human companion’s grave for fourteen years before dying himself. 6. Band of Mercy Advocate, “Sir Francis Burdett,” 46. 7. A. H. M., “Harrison Weir.” 8. Callingham, “Sir Edwin Landseer,” 59–60. 9. Illustrated Review, “Sir Edwin Landseer,” 138. 10. For more on this connection, see Donald, “Introduction,” in Donald and Munro, Endless Forms, 23. See also Cronin, “ ‘Popular Affection.’ ” 11. Lennie, Landseer, 162. 12. Times, “Sir Edwin Landseer.” 13. Illustrated Review, “Late Sir Edwin Landseer,” 308. 14. Donald, Picturing Animals in Britain, 127. 15. Bell’s Life, “Influence of Landseer.” 16. Lennie, Landseer, 7. 17. Donald, Art of Thomas Bewick, 179.

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Notes to Pages 32–42

18. Lennie, Landseer, 85. 19. Ibid.; Fairholme and Pain, Century of Work for Animals, 120. 20. “Handbook to the Pictures,” 348. 21. Bell’s Life, “Influence of Landseer.” 22. This painting is also known as The Highland Shepherd’s Chief Mourner and is in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington, London. For more on this image, see Donald, Picturing Animals in Britain, 155–58. 23. See Illustrated Review, “Sir Edwin Landseer,” 142. 24. Ruskin, Modern Painters, 9. 25. Bell’s Life, “Influence of Landseer.” 26. Our Dumb Animals, “Our March Paper.” 27. Animal World, “Shepherd and Dog.” 28. Illustrated Review, “Sir Edwin Landseer,” 142. 29. Gray, Dog in the Dickensian Imagination, 58. 30. Ormand, Sir Edwin Landseer, 111–12. 31. Spielmann, “Distinguished Member,” 12. See also Hurll, Landseer, 49. 32. Bondeson, Amazing Dogs, 172. 33. Ibid.; Mackay, Notes of the Week, 324; Gray, Dog in the Dickensian Imagination, 58. 34. Royal Humane Society, “Out of the Archives,” 22. The same report notes that the RHS owns two large engravings of Landseer paintings—one of A Distinguished Member of the Humane Society and one of Saved! Mr. Lambton Young, the RHS secretary from 1859 to 1879, asked Landseer for the engravings, as he was “anxious to secure and add to our collection anything which has given celebrity to the Society.” Landseer sent the two engravings, signed “with E Landseer’s respects—for the boardroom of the Royal Humane Society” (22–23). 35. French, Antivivisection and Medical Science, 380. 36. Williamson, Power and Protest, 126. The Victoria Street Society was originally known as the Society for the Protection of Animals Liable to Vivisection. In 1898 it changed its name to the National Anti-​Vivisection Society, the name under which it still operates today. For more, see http://​www​.navs​.org​.uk​/about​_us​/24​/0​/299/. 37. Ritvo, Animal Estate, 162. 38. Illustrated Review, “Late Sir Edwin Landseer,” 310; Royal Humane Society, “Out of the Archives.” 39. Callingham, “Sir Edwin Landseer,” 59. 40. Bennett, Birth of the Museum, 21. For more on this aspect of museums and art galleries, see also Black, On Exhibit; Duncan, Civilizing Rituals; and Hill, Culture and Class. 41. Kean, Animal Rights, 40. 42. Animal World, “Dog’s Place in Art.” The quotations in the following three paragraphs are from this one-​page article. 43. Animal World, “Day at the Royal Academy,” 147. 44. Ibid., 149. 45. For more on the life and career of Stokes, see Evans, Utmost Fidelity. 46. Argus, “Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy.” 47. Meynell, “Mrs. Adrian Stokes,” 244. 48. Evans, Utmost Fidelity, 25. 49. The separation of two childhood friends by death was a theme Stokes explored again in 1889 with her painting Go, Thou Must Play Alone, My Boy, Thy Sister Is in Heaven. In this case, both protagonists are human, but the scene of a young boy alongside the

Notes to Pages 42–48

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funeral casket of his sister evokes a similar sense of sorrow. Stokes based the painting on a poem by the British poet Felicia Hemans titled “The Child’s First Grief.” While most viewers of the 1889 painting would have thought the death of a human child unjust, it is interesting to speculate about how many of them would have felt that way about the death of a bovine child. The Animal World piece hints at that conclusion, and many readers of that magazine undoubtedly considered the question. For more on Go, Thou Must Play Alone, My Boy, see Evans, Utmost Fidelity, 44. 50. Animal World, “Day at the Royal Academy,” 147. 51. It is important to note that the RSPCA was not lobbying against meat eating per se. Its concern at this time was to find more “humane” ways of raising and killing animals; it also voiced concerns about food safety and eliminating “tainted” meat and milk products. 52. Graphic, “Parting.” 53. Argus, “Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy.” 54. While there is no evidence that Stokes was a supporter of animal advocacy efforts, we do know that she was interested in political reform; she was a member of the Artists’ Suffrage League and participated in the Woman Suffrage Procession of June 1908 (Evans, Utmost Fidelity, 67). 55. This notion continues to be used by many animal advocacy organizations today. For a good critique of the idea that nonhuman animals are “voiceless,” see Corman and Vandrovcová, “Radical Humility.” 56. Ritvo, Animal Estate, 60. 57. Stewart, Thomas Sidney Cooper, 1–2. See also Sartin, Thomas Sidney Cooper; Westwood, Thomas Sidney Cooper, 1. 58. Animal World, “Day at the Royal Academy,” 147. 59. Velten, Beastly London, 14. 60. Animal World, “Day at the Royal Academy,” 147. 61. Eisenman, Cry of Nature, 173, 184. 62. Donald, “Beastly Sights,” 530. 63. Velten dates this image to 1838, but Donald dates it to 1840. The Animals’ Friend Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was founded by Lewis Gompertz in 1832. Gompertz had been a founding member of the RSPCA but started this radical breakaway group when he disagreed with the more moderate policies and actions of the RSPCA. The Animals’ Friend was the publication associated with this new group. The same title would be used by a different organization later in the century. 64. Donald, “Beastly Sights,” 532. 65. The word “vegan,” coined by Donald Watson in 1944, is now used to describe the abstention from all animal products. When describing people or situations prior to the 1940s, I have opted for the term “ethical vegetarian”; while “vegan” obviously was not used in the late nineteenth century, there were certainly people who advocated what we now call a vegan lifestyle. 66. Ritvo, Animal Estate, 127. 67. RSPCA, “Are We Still a Nation of Animal Lovers?” That initial meeting took place on June 16, 1824, at Old Slaughter’s Coffee House in London. The building that once housed Old Slaughter’s is now a Pret A Manger sandwich and coffee shop, and it was the site for commemorative activities marking the RSPCA’s 190th anniversary in 2014. 68. Morris, “John McLure Hamilton.” 69. Spielmann, “Art in December,” 10; Schupbach, “Select Iconography,” 350; Art Journal, “Winter Exhibitions.”

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Notes to Pages 48–53

70. Kean, Animal Rights, 148–49. See also Kean, “Exploration of the Sculptures,” 370n21. 71. Kiralfy, Victorian Era Exhibition, 32. 72. Quoted in Morris, “John McLure Hamilton,” 343. 73. Langley, letter to the editors. The Animals’ Friend of the 1890s was different from the one started by Gompertz in the 1830s. 74. The title was sometimes printed as the Animal’s Friend. Trist was also involved with the Battersea Dogs Home. 75. Quoted in Neave, “Friend to Dumb Animals,” 564. 76. Animals’ Friend, “Record of the Month.” 77. Neave, “Friend to Dumb Animals,” 563. 78. Animals’ Friend, “An Open Letter,” 59. 79. J. J. Kelso, the founder of the Toronto Humane Society (1887), also worked on this project. In a handwritten note in the John Joseph Kelso fonds at Library and Archives Canada (R5352-U-3-E), Kelso noted that he “spent six months planning for this book. Collected most of the material and illustrations and obtained from Miss Gwynne the $1,700 necessary for publication. Went over all the proofs, made arrangements with printers. . . . Notwithstanding this, Dr. Hodgins, whose assistance I had invited, selfishly and unfairly claimed all the credit.” 80. Hodgins, Aims and Objects, v. 81. Miss Gwynne of Parkdale provided $1,700, but even this substantial donation fell short. 82. Hodgins, Aims and Objects, v. 83. Ibid., 34, 178. 84. Alcott’s father, Bronson Alcott, was a “dietary reformer” and eschewed animal products for ethical reasons. He founded Fruitlands, “a utopian, socialist experiment in meatless living” in rural Massachusetts in the 1840s. Bronson Alcott considered “animal welfare central to dietary reform” and linked dietary reform to broader issues of social justice. Louisa May Alcott wrote a fictional account of life at Fruitlands in an 1873 story called “Transcendental Wild Oats.” While she was obviously touched by the kindness she witnessed in the two young girls who took pity on the sheep, Louisa May Alcott did not follow in her father’s footsteps in terms of dietary reform. For more on Bronson Alcott, Louisa May Alcott, and the Fruitlands experiment, see Shprintzen, Vegetarian Crusade, 47–55. 85. Quoted in Hodgins, Aims and Objects, 197. 86. The THS also issued the story as a separate illustrated pamphlet. The story was originally published in 1870 in an illustrated periodical called Merry’s Museum for Boys and Girls, of which Louisa May Alcott was the editor at the time. See also Alcott, “Little Sisters of Charity.” 87. Eddy, Songs of a Happy Life, 170–71. 88. Cambridge (Mass.) Chronicle, “Big Campaign of Education.” 89. Journal of Zoophily, The Library, 61. 90. Bird Notes and News, “ ‘Egret’ Poster,” 80. 91. Quoted in Steele, Angel in a Top Hat, 169. 92. C. S., Mother’s Lessons on Kindness, iii–iv. 93. Cambridge (Mass.) Chronicle, “Big Campaign of Education.” 94. Globe, “Toronto Humane Society,” January 1, 1897. 95. Packard, “Humane Education.” 96. Globe, “Toronto Humane Society,” May 15, 1897.

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97. Beers, For the Prevention of Cruelty, 87. Some humane education efforts have been geared toward adults. Beers recounts one striking instance in which the American Humane Association sponsored an “evangelical-​style educational tour” in the southern United States in 1919. 98. Unti and DeRosa, “Humane Education.” 99. Our Dumb Animals, “American Humane Education Society Report.” 100. Practical Teacher, “School Band of Mercy,” 396. 101. Hodgins, Aims and Objects, 193. 102. “The Animals’ Friend School Pictures,” inside back cover of The Hunter Otter, Animals’ Friend Pamphlet Series 5 (London: Animals’ Friend, 1911). 103. Krause, Moral and Humane Education, 22. 104. Ibid., 23. 105. The museum closed in 1953 and much of the collection was taken over by the Manchester City Art Gallery. The gallery held an exhibition celebrating Horsfall’s influence on the art and culture of Manchester, Art for All: Thomas Horsfall’s Gift to Manchester, June 7, 2013–June 1, 2014. 106. Waterfield, “Art for the People,” 41. 107. W.E.A.A., “Art Galleries for the People,” 275. 108. British Architect, “Art Galleries for the People,” 221. 109. Horsfall, Use of Pictures, 7. 110. Sperry, “Art Teaching,” 206. 111. British Architect, “Art Teaching.” 112. Britten, “Art and the People,” 384. 113. Ritvo, Animal Estate, 131, 132. 114. Globe, “Humane Feeling Grows.” 115. Band of Mercy, “Late Mr. T. B. Smithies,” 67. 116. Nead, Haunted Gallery, 50, 52. 117. Globe, “Toronto Humane Society,” January 1, 1897, 6. 118. Globe, “Chit Chat.” 119. Animals’ Guardian, “Practical Lessons in Humanity.” 120. Rowley, “Moving Picture.” Rowley took over the leadership of the MSPCA in 1910, following the death of its founder, George T. Angell. 121. Urban, Cinematograph in Science, 13, 37–40. For more on Urban’s life, career, and influence on the motion picture industry, see McKernan, Charles Urban. 122. S. S. W., “Educate Them Artistically.” 123. Lane and Zawistowski, Heritage of Care, 64. 124. Coleman, Humane Society Leaders, 137, 264. 125. Journal of Zoophily, “Comments and Reflections,” September 1906, 98. 126. The winning entries, including Morley’s design, were exhibited in London in July 1906. 127. Sekula, “Invention of Photographic Meaning,” 84. 128. Krause, Moral and Humane Education, 88. Interestingly, during the same month’s lesson plans (November), students at this level were instructed to study Landseer’s Monarch of the Glen for the “art” component of their curriculum. 129. Ingersoll, “Sport Without a Gun.” 130. Our Dumb Animals, “Shooting Without a Gun.” 131. This argument is not quite as straightforward as it may seem, as I discuss in Manufacturing National Park Nature. For the purposes of this discussion, however, it is sufficient

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to note that many working in animal advocacy sought to persuade people to choose the camera over the gun. 132. Animals’ Friend, “Our Amateur Photography Competition.” 133. Our Dumb Animals, “Prizes for Original Contributions.” 134. Fairholme and Pain, Century of Work for Animals, 120–21. 135. SPB, “Publications.” For more on Watts and his dedication to the RSPB and its advocacy efforts, see chapter 3. 136. Lemon, “Story of the R.S.P.B.,” 68. 137. Kean, Animal Rights, 108. 138. Shprintzen, Vegetarian Crusade, 175. For more on Sharpe and these projects, see chapter 5. 139. Mayer, “Ruskin, Vivisection,” 200, 207; Cook, Life of John Ruskin, 482; British Architect, “Mr. Ruskin’s Will”; Zoophilist and Animals’ Defender, “Ruskin and the Vivisectionists.” 140. Quoted in Mayer, “Ruskin, Vivisection,” 202. 141. Tonutti, “European Animal Protection,” 13. 142. Paget, “Vivisection and Aesthetics,” 13, 15. 143. Parker, “Talk with Mrs. Haweis.” 144. Animal World, “Day at the Royal Academy,” 147. CHAP TER 2

1. Spectator, “Miss A. M. F. Cole.” Cole was committed to alleviating the suffering of animals in other contexts as well. She supported antivivisection causes and became a vegetarian. After her death, the Ada Cole Memorial Stables were established and continue to provide a home for animals in need. For more on these aspects of Cole’s life, see Rushen, She Heard Their Cry. 2. Paton, “Brave Woman Who Gave Poor Horses a Voice.” 3. Cole, “Export of Horses to Belgium.” 4. Ibid. For a discussion of the modernization of slaughterhouses in Britain, see Otter, “Civilizing Slaughter.” 5. Rushen, She Heard Their Cry, 49. 6. Times, “Traffic in Old Horses.” 7. Rushen, She Heard Their Cry, 52. See also Moss, Valiant Crusade, 98. 8. The RSPCA was formed in 1824, though at that time it did not yet have royal patronage and was known simply as the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Queen Victoria approved the addition of “Royal” in 1840, and it has been known as the RSPCA ever since. 9. Rushen, She Heard Their Cry, 50. 10. Ibid. 11. Fairholme, “Decrepit Horse Traffic,” 68. 12. Moss, Valiant Crusade, 98. 13. Fairholme, “Campaign to Improve the Conditions,” 64. 14. Fairholme, “Decrepit Horse Traffic,” 69. 15. Fairholme, “Campaign to Improve the Conditions,” 65. 16. Rushen, She Heard Their Cry, 50–51. 17. Fairholme, “Horse—Hero or Beggar,” 31. 18. Illustrated London News, “Disgraceful Traffic.” 19. Rushen, She Heard Their Cry, 53.

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20. Times, “R.S.P.C.A. Demand an Inquiry.” 21. Rushen, She Heard Their Cry, 53. 22. Cole, “Worn-​Out and Diseased Horses,” 9–10. 23. Athenaeum, “Under Dog, Edited by Sidney Trist.” 24. Rushen, She Heard Their Cry, 54. See also Cole, “Traffic in Worn-​Out Horses.” 25. Cole, “Worn-​Out and Diseased Horses,” image between pp. 6 and 7. 26. Ibid., 15. 27. Quoted in Times, “R.S.P.C.A. Demand an Inquiry.” 28. Moss, Valiant Crusade, 102. 29. Times, “R.S.P.C.A. Demand an Inquiry.” Pathé Frères was founded in France in 1896, and Pathé News was established in Britain in 1910. For more on the broad influence of Pathé in this era, see Nead, Haunted Gallery, 3. 30. Paton, “Brave Woman Who Gave Poor Horses a Voice.” 31. Cole, “Traffic in Worn-​Out Horses.” 32. Moss, Valiant Crusade, 102. 33. Times, “Film of the Decrepit Horse Traffic.” 34. Burt, Animals in Film, 168. 35. Times, “R.S.P.C.A. Demand an Inquiry.” 36. Rushen, She Heard Their Cry, 59. 37. Paton, “Brave Woman Who Gave Poor Horses a Voice”; Rushen, She Heard Their Cry, 66–67. Cole and her sister were both arrested by the Germans in August 1918 and charged with “distributing propaganda.” They were sentenced to a year in a German prison but were soon released with the Armistice in November. 38. Times, “R.S.P.C.A. Demand an Inquiry.” 39. Rushen, She Heard Their Cry, 109. 40. Times, “R.S.P.C.A. Demand an Inquiry.” 41. Cole, “Traffic in Worn-​Out Horses.” 42. Times, “R.S.P.C.A. Demand an Inquiry.” 43. Quoted in Rushen, She Heard Their Cry, 110. 44. For more on these projects, see Bogre, Photography as Activism, 9–34. 45. Otter, Victorian Eye, 128. 46. Burt, Animals in Film, 169. 47. Nead, Haunted Gallery, 108, 112. 48. Burt, “Illumination of the Animal Kingdom,” 210. 49. Sekula, “Invention of Photographic Meaning,” 85. 50. Ritchin, Bending the Frame, 48. 51. Linfield, Cruel Radiance, 25. 52. See, for example, C. K., “Fallacies of Photography”; Jelf, “Photography as Evidence”; and British Architect, “Photographs and Pictures.” This is but a small sampling of the contemporary literature. 53. Tucker, Nature Exposed, 4, 7. 54. Throughout the history of photography, there have been experiments with producing color photographs, although few were commercially viable until the twentieth century. Pigment was often added to the surface of black-​and-​white photographs through a process known as hand-​coloring, which reinforces the point that nineteenth-​century audiences understood that photographs were not exact mirror images of the world. 55. Tucker, Nature Exposed, 8, 14, 240. 56. Ibid., 7–8.

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Notes to Pages 84–97

57. Lansbury, Old Brown Dog, 27. 58. As Chris Otter notes, while for most people the spectacle of slaughter was removed further and further from view, the rise of the public abattoir actually increased the ease with which government officials could inspect the slaughtering process. This visual inspection system was concerned primarily with sanitation, not with cruelty to the animals. See Otter, Victorian Eye, 110, 129; Otter, “Civilizing Slaughter.” 59. Burt, Animals in Film, 37. 60. Lansbury, Old Brown Dog, 49, 40. 61. This material would later be published as Shambles of Science. 62. Mason, Brown Dog Affair, 13. See also Henderson, Life of Ernest Starling, 62. 63. Our Dumb Animals, “Protection of Animals by Kodaks.” 64. Margaretta Lemon, one of the founders of the RSPB, credits Henry Salt with coining the term “murderous millinery.” See Lemon, “Story of the R.S.P.B.,” 68. 65. Doughty, Feather Fashions, 18. 66. Ibid., 13. 67. Bird Notes and News, “Egret’s Nest.” 68. Bird Notes and News, “Story of the Egret,” September 28, 1909. 69. See Mattingley, “Visit to Heronries.” 70. For Mattingley’s account of the slaughter’s aftermath, see “Plundered for Their Plumes.” 71. Birkhead, Wimpenny, and Montgomerie, Ten Thousand Birds, 398. 72. Bird Notes and News, “Story of the Egret,” December 31, 1909. 73. RSPB, Feathers and Facts, 59. 74. Buckland, “Horrors of the Plume Trade,” 22. 75. Doughty, Feather Fashions, 53, 55. 76. RSPB, Feathers and Facts, 30–32. 77. Recent scholarship by Kendra Coulter, among others, argues that labor and animal advocacy need not be seen as opposing interests. Coulter argues that we need “humane jobs,” jobs that are good for both human and nonhuman animals. See Coulter, Promise of Interspecies Solidarity. 78. Bird Notes and News, “Story of the Egret,” June 24, 1910; Doughty, Feather Fashions, 65; Mattingley, “Plundered for Their Plumes.” 79. Doughty, Feather Fashions, 15. 80. Rowley, “Slaughter House Reform,” 49. As noted above, Rowley took over as president of the MSCPA in 1910. 81. This photograph is reproduced in Rowley’s essay “Slaughter House Reform,” included as part of a photo insert between pp. 48 and 49. It did not appear in Rowley’s 1900 pamphlet Slaughter-​House Reform in the United States, which indicates that the photograph was taken between 1900 and 1913. 82. Ibid. 83. Lederer, Subjected to Science, 57, 58. 84. Keen, Animal Experimentation, 269, 270. 85. Derbyshire Times and Chesterfield Herald, “Photography Suggested in Cruelty Cases.” 86. Tagg, Burden of Representation, 5. 87. See, for example, Hogarth’s series The Four Stages of Cruelty (1751), Cruikshank’s The Knacker’s Yard (1831), and Bewick’s Waiting for Death (1827–28). For more on these artists, see Uglow, Hogarth; George, Hogarth to Cruikshank; Donald, Picturing Animals in Britain and Art of Thomas Bewick; Robinson, Thomas Bewick; and Patten, George Cruikshank’s Life.

Notes to Pages 97–106



207

88. E. B., “Miss Frances Power Cobbe.” 89. Kean, Animal Rights, 103. 90. Cobbe, Light in Dark Places, 3. 91. “Review: Illustrations of Vivisection.” 92. For more on Cobbe’s use of images, see Cronin, “ ‘Mute Yet Eloquent Protest.’ ” 93. Thomas, Pictorial Victorians, 161. 94. See Pachirat, Every Twelve Seconds. CHAP TER 3

1. Quoted in SPB, “Shuddering Angel.” See also Bills and Bryant, G. F. Watts, 267. 2. Times, “New Gallery,” April 22, 1899. 3. Times, “New Gallery,” May 9, 1888. 4. Art Journal, “New Gallery Summer Exhibition,” 186. 5. Doughty, Feather Fashions, 49. The woman who modeled for this painting was Lilian Chapman, Watts’s adopted daughter. See Hilary, Picture in Focus, 7. 6. Stephenson, “Anxious Performances,” 8, 9. 7. Art Journal, “New Gallery Summer Exhibition,” 185. 8. “Art Chronicle.” 9. Times, “New Gallery,” May 9, 1888, and April 27, 1888. 10. Burlington Magazine, “New Gallery,” 253. 11. N. N., “Passing of the New Gallery,” 197. 12. Art Journal, “New Gallery Summer Exhibition,” 185. See also Times, “New Gallery,” May 9, 1888. 13. “Art Chronicle.” 14. Blackburn, New Gallery Notes, 3. 15. Donald, “Beastly Sights.” See also Eisenman, Cry of Nature, 184. 16. For more on the development of shopping districts in London during this period, see Flanders, Consuming Passions. 17. Rappaport, “Art, Commerce, or Empire,” 95, 99. 18. Walford, “Regent Street and Piccadilly,” 250. 19. Rappaport, “Art, Commerce, or Empire,” 99–100. 20. Stephenson, “Anxious Performances,” 7, 8. 21. For an in-​depth analysis of this fashion trend and its associated economic, environmental, and cultural factors, see Doughty, Feather Fashions. 22. Gates, Kindred Nature, 116, 117. 23. Doughty, Feather Fashions, 49. 24. Hilary, Picture in Focus, 6. 25. Bateman, G. F. Watts, 21. 26. MacCarthy, “England’s Michelangelo.” 27. Bateman, G. F. Watts, 30, 54. 28. The painting was later displayed in the Watts Gallery. It also was part of the Watts Memorial Exhibition that went on tour in the United Kingdom in 1905. For more on this exhibition, see Hilary, Picture in Focus, 7; Doughty, Feather Fashions, 49n91. 29. Times, “New Gallery,” April 22, 1899. 30. For more on this event, see Butlin, “International Congress of Women.” 31. Lemon, “Dress in Relation to Animal Life,” 170, 175. When the SPB turned the text of Lemon’s address into a pamphlet, readers were encouraged to go to Watts’s studio on

208

Notes to Pages 106–117

Melbury Road, Kensington, to see the picture, as the pamphlet was printed after the New Gallery exhibit had closed. 32. In the acknowledgments to the published poem, Blunt thanked Watts not only for allowing him to reproduce the picture as the frontispiece, but also for “many emotional hours in high communings on Life and Death and the tragic Beauty of the world.” He referred to Watts as a “heroic” worker in the “cause of the good.” See Blunt, Satan Absolved, vii–viii. 33. Gould, G. F. Watts, 316, 330. See also Hilary, Picture in Focus, 5; SPB, “Publications.” 34. Daly, Demographic Imagination, 174. 35. Morrison, “Victims of Woman’s Vanity,” 207. 36. Hilary, Picture in Focus, 8. 37. Quoted in BBC News, “Four Anti-​Fur Protesters Arrested.” 38. Beierl, “Sympathetic Imagination,” 215. 39. Bell’s Life, “Influence of Landseer.” 40. Lind af Hageby, “Animal Protection,” 162. 41. Beierl, “Sympathetic Imagination,” 216, 219. 42. Greensboro (N.C.) Everything, “Why Not?” 43. The question of whether nonhuman animals had souls and went to heaven had been debated for some time. See Cohen, “Chardin’s Fur.” 44. Our Dumb Animals, “Is It Only a Dream?” 45. As Rod Preece points out, the idea that nonhuman animals did not have a soul was not universally held among Christians. Martin Luther, John Wesley, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and other prominent Christians “ascribed immortal souls to animals.” See Preece, “Darwinism, Christianity,” 400. 46. Greensboro (N.C.) Everything, “Why Not?” 47. Our Dumb Animals, “Is It Only a Dream?” 48. Animals’ Guardian, “Christ in the Laboratory,” May 1902. 49. See Animals’ Guardian, “American Friends and Our Cartoon,” 109. 50. Animals’ Guardian, “Christ in the Laboratory,” May 1902. 51. Organized animal advocacy in the early nineteenth century was heavily influenced by Christian tradition. Later in the century, other cultural influences (including those, like Darwinian theories, that conflicted with Christian teachings) shaped animal advocacy, but the early Christian influence was never far from the surface during this period. For more on the relationship between Christianity and animal advocacy, see Li, “Union of Christianity”; Feuerstein, “ ‘I Promise to Protect Dumb Creatures’ ”; Preece, “Darwinism, Christianity”; and Davis, Gospel of Kindness. 52. Journal of Zoophily, “Comments and Reflections,” June 1901, 61. 53. Flegel, “ ‘How Does Your Collar Suit Me,’ ” 247. 54. For more on animal autobiographies and other works in which nonhuman animals do the talking, see Cosslett, Talking Animals; Mangum, “Dog Years, Human Fears,” 35–47; and DeMello, Speaking for Animals. 55. Grier, Pets in America, 205. 56. Woman’s Signal, “Beautiful Joe.” 57. Grimm, Citizen Canine, 55. 58. Beierl, “Sympathetic Imagination,” 214. 59. Quoted in Kean, Animal Rights, 79. 60. Coleman, Humane Society Leaders, 106. 61. May, Fox-​Hunting Controversy, 66. 62. Lansbury, Old Brown Dog, 64.

Notes to Pages 117–133

209

63. See David, “William Thomas Smedley.” 64. Twain, “Dog’s Tale,” 18, 19. 65. Fishkin, Mark Twain’s Book of Animals, 28; Saturday Review, Novels, 425; New York Times, Topics of the Times. 66. Saturday Review, Novels, 425. 67. New York Times, Topics of the Times. 68. DeMello, “Introduction,” in Speaking for Animals, 10. 69. Calmour, Rumbo Rhymes, 18. 70. Ibid., 25. 71. Dombowsky, Illustrated Books by Walter Crane, 4. 72. Art Journal, Recent Publications, 384; New York Times, “Rumbo Rhymes”; Athenaeum, “Book Review”; Bookman, “Rumbo Rhymes.” 73. Collins, Voices of the Dumb Creation, 10, 46. The fictional gathering takes place in Chicago in 1893, presumably as part of the World’s Columbian Exposition held in that city that year. 74. Daston and Mitman, “Introduction,” 3, 2. 75. Banta, Barbaric Intercourse, 3, 4. 76. Lemon, “Story of the R.S.P.B.,” 68. 77. Gates, Kindred Nature, 120. 78. Bird Notes and News, “Linley Sambourne and the Birds,” 25. 79. This image was reproduced again in the Animal World, the official publication of the RSPCA, in April 1910. Fairholme, “Campaign to Improve the Conditions,” 63. 80. Attempts to suppress the spread of rabies through the control and killing of dogs has a contentious history. See Howell, At Home and Astray; Pemberton and Worboys, Rabies in Britain; Wasik and Murphy, Rabid. 81. Journal of Zoophily, “Cartoons Bluecoat.” CHAP TER 4

1. Howitt, Our Four-​Footed Friends, 48–49. See also Longfellow, “Alarm-​Bell of Atri,” 2. 2. In Howitt’s version of the story, the setting is an unidentified village. In Longfellow’s retelling of the story in “The Alarm-​Bell of Atri,” the setting is Atri, a town in Italy’s Abruzzo region. 3. See “The Coming Christmas Book,” an advertisement for Howitt’s book in the Athenaeum, October 26, 1867, 546. 4. Claims of Animals, 79. 5. British Friend, “Some Reminiscences,” 56. 6. Our Dumb Animals, “Bell of Justice.” 7. Howitt, Our Four-​Footed Friends, 44. 8. Eisenman, Cry of Nature, 139–40. The “R” was added to the SPCA in 1840. For discussion of this image, see Donald, Art of Thomas Bewick, 171–79. 9. Robinson, Thomas Bewick, 163. The engraving was based on an earlier illustration by Bewick from 1785, which appeared in his 1818 edition of Fables of Aesop. See Eisenman, Cry of Nature, 139. 10. Robinson, Thomas Bewick, 164. 11. Donald, Art of Thomas Bewick, 172. 12. Howitt, Our Four-​Footed Friends, 48. 13. Longfellow, “Alarm-​Bell of Atri,” 2.

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Notes to Pages 133–141

14. Keller, Triumph of Order, 13. 15. Keller, “Grass Is Always Greener,” 190. 16. Our Dumb Animals, “ ‘Our Fair’ Record.” 17. Our Dumb Animals, “Summer Work of Our Society.” 18. Krause, Moral and Humane Education, 33. 19. Roberts, “Dramatization.” 20. Our Dumb Animals, “Bell of Atri” and “Bell of Atri Film in France.” 21. Richardson, Political Worlds of Women, 3. 22. Midgley, Women Against Slavery, 202. 23. Morgan, Victorian Woman’s Place, 4–5. 24. Kean, Animal Rights, 67. 25. Globe, “Humane Societies.” 26. Ottawa Citizen, “Humane Journal.” 27. Saturday Review, “Notes of the Week,” 36. 28. Cahen, letter to the editor. 29. Kheraj, “Living and Working with Domestic Animals,” 123. 30. Brown, City Is More Than Human, 126–27. See also Kheraj, “Animals and Urban Environments.” 31. Coleman, Humane Society Leaders, 100. 32. Kean, Animal Rights, 54–55. 33. Ibid., 149. 34. Nicholson, “Sources of Supply,” 126. 35. Animal World, News and Notes, March 1, 1904. 36. Globe, “Toronto Humane Society,” January 1, 1897. 37. Hopley, Campaigning Against Cruelty, 14. 38. Journal of Zoophily, Extracts from the Press. 39. Nicholson, “A.-V. Exhibit Notes,” 260. 40. Bird Notes and News, “Lantern Entertainments.” 41. Animals’ Guardian, “Lantern Lecture at London.” 42. Animals’ Guardian, “Lantern Lecture.” 43. This position was not universally shared by antivivisection activists. For example, as Williamson notes, Frances Power Cobbe favored showing graphic images of vivisection “in all their gory detail.” Power and Protest, 148. 44. Cambridge (Mass.) Chronicle, “Big Campaign of Education.” 45. Cambridge (Mass.) Chronicle, “Grand Opera House”; Cambridge (Mass.) Sentinel, “Boston Grand Opera House”; Cambridge (Mass.) Tribune, “American Music Hall.” 46. Hopley, Campaigning Against Cruelty, 23. 47. Our Dumb Animals, “Prizes to Amateur Photographers.” 48. Nead, Haunted Gallery, 111–12. 49. Croll, “Street Disorders, Surveillance, and Shame,” 254, 260. 50. Mason, Brown Dog Affair, 10. 51. Auckland Star, “Science and Slander.” 52. Mason, Brown Dog Affair, 17. Mason estimates that this fine would be the equivalent of approximately £250,000 today. Fishkin suggests that Mark Twain’s story “A Dog’s Tale” might have been written in response to the trial. The trial took place in November 1903 and Twain’s story was published the following month. Coleridge was so taken by the story that he ordered several copies of the issue of Harper’s in which it appeared. See Fishkin, Mark Twain’s Book of Animals, 275–77.

Notes to Pages 142–151

211

53. Mason, Brown Dog Affair, 23, 37; Times, “Anti-​Vivisectionist Monument.” 54. Lansbury, Old Brown Dog, 14, 17–18. 55. Kean, “Exploration of the Sculptures,” 363. 56. Grimm, Citizen Canine, 53. 57. Kean, “Exploration of the Sculptures,” 363. 58. Times, “Brown Dog,” March 21, 1910. 59. Mace, Trafalgar Square, 15. 60. Mason, Brown Dog Affair, 31. For more on the history of the Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, see Jenkins, Home of Their Own; and Howell, At Home and Astray. 61. Kean, “Exploration of the Sculptures,” 355, 364–65. 62. Grimm, Citizen Canine, 53; Kean, “Exploration of the Sculptures,” 366. 63. “New Antivivisectionist Libellous Statue.” 64. Kean, “Exploration of the Sculptures,” 367. 65. Ibid., 368. 66. Mason, Brown Dog Affair, 105. 67. Hopley, Campaigning Against Cruelty, 14. 68. Fliotsos and Vierow, American Women Stage Directors, 173. For more on Fiske’s advocacy work, see Binns, Mrs. Fiske and the American Theatre, 267–71. 69. Daly, Demographic Imagination, 185; Fliotsos and Vierow, American Women Stage Directors, 172; Binns, Mrs. Fiske and the American Theatre, 267–69. 70. New York Daily Tribune, “Anti-​Vivisection Exhibit,” November 23, 1909. 71. She more typically went by her initials M. R. L. (often spelled out as “Emarel”). Her last name had been Sharpe before her marriage to Curtis Freshel in 1917. She promoted vegetarianism under these various names. 72. Shprintzen, Vegetarian Crusade, 178. 73. Iacobbo and Iacobbo, Vegetarian America, 149. 74. Sargent, “More Animal Legends,” 4. A very similar legend is told about Saint Eustace. 75. Iacobbo and Iacobbo, Vegetarian America, 149. 76. Boston Sunday Post, “Women for ‘Perfect’ Life.” Freshel made many of the animal-​ free “furs” and fashions that the members wore, and the proceeds from the sale of these items went toward funding guild activities. 77. Binns, Mrs. Fiske and the American Theatre, 271. 78. Our Dumb Animals, “Catharine Smithies, of London.” 79. Journal of Zoophily, “Story of Results.” 80. See, for example, Lawrence (Mass.) Democrat, “Opponents of Vivisection Meet.” 81. In 2014, the Animal Museum in Los Angeles used this photograph to promote an exhibit called Light in Dark Places: Anti-​Vivisection from the Victorian Era to Modern Day. 82. The previous meetings were held in Sweden (1906), London (1909), and Copenhagen (1911). 83. Washington (D.C.) Times, “Urge Restrictions on Vivisectionists.” 84. Washington (D.C.) Times, “World’s Friends of Animals Meet”; Washington (D.C.) Herald, “Delegates Here for Convention”; Washington (D.C.) Times, “Urge Restrictions on Vivisectionists.” 85. Washington (D.C.) Times, “Urge Restrictions on Vivisectionists”; Waring, “Motion Pictures and Stereopticon Views,” 15. For more on the story of these dogs, see Hyde, “Great St. Bernard Pass,” 316–17. 86. Seton, “Cruel Methods of Trapping,” 43–45.

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Notes to Pages 151–160

87. See Hopley, Campaigning Against Cruelty, 9, 26; Times, “British Anti-​Vivisection Society.” The tactic of using shop spaces was also employed by women’s suffragists. See Atkinson, Suffragettes in Pictures, 97–98. 88. Cambridge (Mass.) Chronicle, “Big Campaign of Education.” 89. Lederer, Subjected to Science, 42. 90. White, “History of the Anti-​Vivisection Movement,” 33. 91. Schupbach, “Select Iconography,” 340. 92. Journal of Zoophily, “Story of Results,” 49. 93. Easby, “Report of the Chairman.” 94. Journal of Zoophily, “Apropos of Anti-​Vivisection Exhibits.” 95. Journal of Zoophily, “Story of Results,” 50. 96. “Antivivisection Exhibition,” 2102. 97. Ibid., 2103, 2102. 98. Nicholson, “A.-V. Exhibit Notes,” 282–83. 99. Ibid., 282. 100. “Anti-​Vivisection Exhibit,” 639. 101. Pittsburgh Daily Post, “Anti-​Vivisection Fight in New York.” 102. Unti, “Doctors Are So Sure,” 177. See also Buettinger, “Antivivisection and the Charge,” 281. 103. “Some of the Special Things at the Great Lancaster Fair,” advertisement in the York Daily, September 23, 1912, 6. 104. Our Dumb Animals, “ ‘Our Fair’ Record.” 105. Our Dumb Animals, “Art Table.” 106. The Toronto Industrial Exhibition took place between 1879 and 1903. After 1903, the name was changed to the Canadian National Exhibition, an annual event that is held in Toronto to the present day. See Walden, Becoming Modern in Toronto, ix. 107. Globe, “Record Day.” The Royal Humane Society was formed in Britain in 1776 and was focused on acts of human bravery and lifesaving. Today, it is common to refer to organizations that rescue and adopt out companion animals as “humane societies,” but this terminology does not indicate a direct link to the RHS, a decidedly human-​focused organization. A Canadian branch of the RHS was established in 1894. See Price, Everyday Heroism, 203. For more on Kelso and the establishment of the THS and the Children’s Aid Society, see Jones and Rutman, In the Children’s Aid; and Chen, Tending the Gardens of Citizenship. As for Bengough, he was best known for his work in Grip, a late nineteenth-​century satirical magazine published in Canada. For more on both Bengough and Grip, see Cumming, Sketches from a Young Country. 108. Animal World, News and Notes, July 1, 1904. 109. Animal World, “R.S.P.C.A. Stand at the Church Congress.” 110. For more on world’s fairs and international exhibitions, see Greenhalgh, Fair World; Greenhalgh, “Art and Industry of Mammon”; Rydell, All the World’s a Fair. 111. Our Dumb Animals, “Mr. Geo. T. Angell.” 112. Journal of Zoophily, “Anti-​Vivisection Exhibit at Paris.” 113. Animal’s Defender and Zoophilist, Notes and Notices. 114. Keller, Triumph of Order, xvi. 115. Lind af Hageby, Animals’ Cause. The public demonstration took place in central London on the last day of the gathering, July 10, 1909. 116. Lind af Hageby, “Anti-​Vivisection Procession.” The information and quotations in this and the following four paragraphs are from this piece and from two letters to the Times by Stephen Paget, July 6 and July 9, 1909.

Notes to Pages 161–173

213

117. Times, “Anti-​Vivisection Congress,” July 12, 1909. 118. Cahen, letter to the editor. 119. Saturday Review, “Notes of the Week.” 120. Kidd, letter to the editor. 121. Times, “Anti-​Vivisection Congress,” July 12, 1909. 122. World League Against Vivisection, Fourth Triennial International Congress, 193, 339, 338; British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection, Twelfth Annual Report, 87. 123. Hopley, Campaigning Against Cruelty, 24. 124. Times, “Anti-​Vivisectionists’ Protest,” October 30, 1911; Times, “British Anti-​ Vivisection Society.” 125. See, all in the Times, “Insurance Bill and Vivisection”; “Anti-​Vivisection Demonstration”; and “Anti-​Vivisectionists’ Protest,” October 28, 1911. 126. Hopley, Campaigning Against Cruelty, 25. 127. See Pachirat, Every Twelve Seconds. CHAP TER 5

1. Lovell, “Anti-​Vivisection Movement.” 2. Journal of Zoophily, The Library, 62. Caroline Earle White, one of the founders of the Pennsylvania SPCA, edited the magazine for many years. See Lederer, Subjected to Science, 32–33. 3. Atkinson, “Gabriel Max,” 174. 4. Schupbach, “Select Iconography,” 352. 5. Althaus, “Vivisector,” 80. 6. Ibid., 81. 7. Schupbach, “Select Iconography,” 351, 353–54. 8. Journal of Zoophily, The Library, 61, 62. 9. Schupbach, “Select Iconography,” 353. 10. Althaus, “Vivisector,” 81. 11. Flanders, Victorian House, 137, 131. 12. Hamlett, “Dining Room Should Be the Man’s,” 582. 13. Musical World, “Drawing Room Art,” 405. 14. Wharton and Codman, Decoration of Houses, 129. 15. Aymer, “Good Furnishing and Decoration,” 112. 16. Benjamin, “Contemporary Art in Germany,” 9. 17. Logan, Victorian Parlour, 140. 18. Grier, Culture and Comfort, ii. 19. Flanders, Victorian House, 136. 20. Logan, Victorian Parlour, 76. 21. Ibid., 93, 106, 140. 22. Hamlett, “Dining Room Should Be the Man’s,” 578. 23. Richardson, Political Worlds of Women, 15. 24. Allan and McCord, “Ladies’ Humane Education Committee.” 25. Walker and Ware, “Political Pincushions,” 58, 70, 72. For more on the concept of “cultural capital” and its relationship to art and museums, see the writings of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. 26. Kean, Animal Rights, 27. 27. Phelps, Longest Struggle, 141–42. Phelps notes in particular that Claude Bernard, the vivisector toward whom Frances Power Cobbe directed much of her campaign energy,

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Notes to Pages 174–184

stopped having public demonstrations in his laboratory after the rise of antivivisection sentiment. He began to offer demonstrations only to “sympathetic audiences of serious students of physiology” (142). 28. Unti, “Peace on Earth,” 185. For more on the history of vegetarianism, see Gregory, Of Victorians and Vegetarians; Stuart, Bloodless Revolution; Unti, “Vegetarian Roots”; and Iacobbo and Iacobbo, Vegetarian America. Although Donald Watson did not coin the word “vegan” until 1944, there were people prior to this date who followed what we now call a vegan diet. 29. Shprintzen, Vegetarian Crusade, 4, 5. 30. Adams, Sexual Politics of Meat, 123. 31. Shprintzen, Vegetarian Crusade, 175. 32. Unti, “M. R. L. Freshel.” 33. New York Times, “Bar Products of Death.” See also Boston Sunday Post, “Women for ‘Perfect’ Life.” Sharpe was not alone in inviting like-​minded reformers to her home; this was a common practice among animal advocates during this period. In Britain, for instance, the RSPB began as two separate organizations, which originally met in the homes of Emily Williamson (Didsbury) and Eliza Phillips (Croydon). These two groups eventually merged to become the RSPB. See Gates, Kindred Nature, 114. 34. Shprintzen, Vegetarian Crusade, 175, 177. 35. Sharpe, Golden Rule Cook Book, 12–13. 36. See Ames, Death in the Dining Room. 37. Sharpe, Golden Rule Cook Book, 35. 38. Wexler, Tender Violence, 5. 39. Ingram, “Beastly Measures,” 224. 40. Grier, Pets in America, 143, 164. 41. Our Dumb Animals, “Bessie and Her Pets.” 42. Kreilkamp, “Emotional Extravagance,” 73. 43. Band of Mercy Advocate, “Sir Francis Burdett,” 46. 44. Grier, Pets in America, 199. 45. Shevelow, For the Love of Animals, 53, 58. 46. Mason, Civilized Creatures, 14. 47. Our Dumb Animals, “Mother and Child.” 48. This image was reproduced in an article about the THS that appeared on the front page of the Toronto Globe under the heading “When the Cows Come Home.” See Globe, “Toronto Humane Society,” February 11, 1893. 49. Grier, “Eden of Home,” 339. 50. Our Dumb Animals, “Mother’s Nine.” 51. Grier, Pets in America, 172. 52. The original title of this painting was Doctor’s Visit to Poor Relations at the Zoological Gardens. 53. Architect, “Sir Edwin Landseer,” 177; Eminent Persons, 93. 54. “Art Gallery,” 71; Athenaeum, “Royal Academy,” 680. 55. Grier, Pets in America, 143. 56. For a discussion of how these categories have shifted over time, see Grimm, Citizen Canine. 57. See Murdoch, Imagined Orphans. 58. See Jenkins, Home of Their Own, 37; Howell, At Home and Astray; Grier, Pets in America, 277.

Notes to Pages 184–195

215

59. For more on how the fear of rabies shaped the ways in which homeless animals were treated, see Grier, Pets in America, 193–277; Jenkins, Home of Their Own, 100; Howell, At Home and Astray, 153–59; Pemberton and Worboys, Rabies in Britain; Ritvo, Animal Estate, 168; and Wasik and Murphy, Rabid. 60. Rushen, She Heard Their Cry, 24. This practice was eventually outlawed in Britain through the 1906 Dog’s Act. 61. Grimm, Citizen Canine, 56. 62. Arluke and Sanders, Regarding Animals, 172. 63. Pearson, Rights of the Defenseless, 22, 21. For more on Bergh’s work, see Steele, Angel in a Top Hat. For more on Kelso’s, see Jones and Rutman, In the Children’s Aid; and Chen, Tending the Gardens of Citizenship, 46–69. 64. Kean, Animal Rights, 88. 65. For a full history of the Battersea Dogs Home and Tealby’s work, see Jenkins, Home of Their Own. 66. Pall Mall Budget, “To Every Lover of a Dog.” Carrington’s illustrations raised £360 for the home. 67. Western Mail, Ladies’ London Gossip. 68. H. T. W., “J. Yates Carrington.” See also Literary World, New Novels and Editions. 69. Reproduced as a print under the title Prisoners at the Bar. 70. It started as the Temporary Home for Lost and Starving Dogs; the name then changed to the Battersea Dogs’ Home and finally, in 2002, to the Battersea Dogs and Cats Home. 71. World Collectors Net, “How Much Is That Doggy?” CONCLUSION: WHAT MIGHT BE

1. Mitchell, What Do Pictures Want, 92. 2. See https://​thesavemovement​.org/. 3. Solnit, Hope in the Dark, 106. 4. American Anti-​Vivisection Society, Illustrations of Vivisection, 3; Seton, “Cruel Methods of Trapping,” 45. 5. Ritchin, Bending the Frame, 6. 6. Gruen, Entangled Empathy, 3, 102. 7. For more information, see http://​weanimals​.org/. 8. Rifkin, Empathetic Civilization, 470

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INDE X

Alcott, Louisa May, 50–51, 202n84 American Anti-​Vivisection Society, events organized by, 150 founding of, 18 use of imagery, 95, 137 See also Journal of Zoophily; shop campaigns American Humane Association, 54 American Humane Education Society (AHES), 15, 33, 53, 66, 112, 134 American Kennel Club, 187 American Medical Association, 94 American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), 15, 16, 18, 52, 62–63 Angell, George T., 12, 15, 137, 148, 166, 168 Bands of Mercy, formation of, 58 and Black Beauty, 116 humane education, 53 involvement with other reform campaigns, 19 use of photography, 85–86, 139–40 World’s Fair in New Orleans, 158 animal autobiographies, 116–20 Animal Defence and Anti-​Vivisection Society, 48 Animal Protective League, 138 Animals’ Friend, 46, 49, 66 Animals’ Guardian, 49, 60, 63, 65, 112 Animal World, 39–47 anthropomorphism, 120–24 antivivisection, as antithetical to art-​making, 68–69 exhibitions, 146, 151–56, 158–59, 168. See also shop campaigns in the home, 167, 171 letters to the editor, 160–65 in literature, 117–19, 120, 123



meetings, 138, 149–50 motion pictures, 60 organizations, 18 paintings, 47–49, 167–68, posters, 137 reproduction of images, 3–4, 37, 97–98, 167, 169 See also Brown Dog Affair Anti-​Vivisection, 148 appropriation of images, 33, 37, 176–77 art galleries. See museums Audubon Society, 89 Band of Mercy Advocate, 29, 58 bands of mercy, 56–58, 85 banners, 143, 159, 160–62, 164, 165 Battersea, 142–144 Battersea Dogs Home, 144, 185–87 Bayliss, William, 85, 141–45 Beautiful Joe, 116 Bengough, John Wilson (J.W.), 157 Bergh, Henry, 15, 18, 52, 148, 185 Bewick, Thomas, 97, 131 Black Beauty, 116–17, 139, 145 Bonheur, Rosa, 23, 54, 156 Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, 155 British Medical Journal, 144 British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV), banners, 162 events organized by, 162–65 exhibitions, 151–52, 154. See also shop campaigns founding of, 18 meetings, 138 sculpture, 144 and Shaw, George Bernard, 139 Brown Dog Affair, 85, 141–45, 210n52

244

Index

Burdett-​Coutts, Angela, 15, 27–29 Burne-​Jones, Edward, 67 Calmour, Alfred C., 120 Cambridge Chronicle, 51 Canadian Department of Agriculture, 59 Canadian Federation of Humane Societies, 136 Carrington, J. Yates, 185–87 cartoons, 125–29, 154 Centennial International Exhibition (Philadelphia, 1876), 183 Chalon, Henry Bernard, 27–29 Chicago Anti-​Cruelty Society, 54 Christianity, 110–113, 150, 158, 208n45, 208n51 cinema. See motion pictures Cobbe, Frances Power, Light in Dark Places, 3–4, involvement with other reform campaigns, 19 organizations founded, 18, 37, 67 portrait of, 148 relationship with White, Caroline Earle, 15 use of imagery, 10–11, 97, 119, 192 Cole, Ada, 70–71, 73–79, 192, 193–94, 204n1, 205n37 and Gee, Robert, 78–79, 81 motion pictures, 77–78, 79 and Peiser, Kurt, 75–77 photography, 73–75, 83, 91, 108 and the RSPCA, 71, 77 and Ruhl, Jules, 74–75 surveillance, 75 witnessing, 70–71, 83 Coleman, Sydney, 62, 116 Coleridge, Stephen, 141–45 Cooper, Thomas Sidney, 43–46 Crane, Walter, 56, 120–22 Crosby, Gertrude H., 138 Cruelty to Animals Law, 141 Cruikshank, George, 12, 97 drawing room, 169–73 Duntley, W.L., 110–112 Dwight, Henrietta Latham, 68

Eddy, Sarah J., 51 engravings. See graphic art exhibitions. See museums; New Gallery; shop campaigns; Royal Academy of Arts Exportation of Horses Act, 78, 193 Exposition Universelle (Paris, 1900), 158–59 Fairholme, Captain Edward George (E.G.), 71–73, 79, 83, 192. See also Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) fashion, 146–48, 191 alternatives to animal products, 147, 211n76 feathered fashions, 86–87, 91, 100, 104, 106–108, 125–127 fur, 146, 150 film. See motion pictures. Fiske, Minnie Maddern, 145–46 Freshel, Maude. See Sharpe, Maude (M.R.L.) Gee, Captain Robert, 78–79, 81, 194 Golden Age Cook Book, 68, 173–77 Golden Rule Cookbook, 67, 174–177 graphic art, 31, 49–52, 97–98, 131–34, 167, 170, 173, 177. See also cartoons graphic imagery, 139, 150–51, 153, 158–59, 161, 175, 192–93, 193, 210n43 Greyfriars Bobby, 29 Grosvenor Gallery, 102 Hamilton, John McLure, 47 Harper’s Monthly Magazine, 117 Harris & Ewing, 149 Haweis, Mary Eliza, 68 Hicks, Nicola, 144–45 Hodgins, George, 50 Hogarth, William, 16, 97 homeless animals. See stray animals Horsfall, T.C., 55–56 Howitt, Mary, 131–32 humane education, 52–56, 63–65, 134, 178, 203n97. See also American Humane Education Society; bands of mercy Hyde Park, 143, 164–65

Index

Illinois Anti-​Vivisection Society, 148, 159 Illustrated London News, 73 illustrations. See graphic art Importation of Plumage Prohibition Bill, 90 International Anti-​Vivisection Congress, 149–51, 152, 160, 162, 192 International Congress of Women, 106, 136 Ingersoll, Ernest, 65 James, Geraldine, 145 Journal of Pathology, 160–61 Journal of the American Medical Association, 154 Journal of Zoophily, 30, 52, 148, 154, 158, 167–69, 170, 213n2 Keen, William Williams, 94–96 Kelso, John Joseph (J.J.), 15, 19, 157, 185, 202n79 Koekkoek, H.W., 73 Krause, Flora Helm, 54–55, 134 Landseer, Sir Edwin, 23, 29, 30–38, 155, 158, 200n34, on cropping the ears of dogs, 67 A Distinguished Member of the Humane Society, 34–37 images used in advocacy campaigns (general), 9, 14 Old Shepherd’s Chief Mourner, 33–34, 39, 108 Saved!, 34–35, 37 Sick Monkey, 56–57, 183 work with the RSPCA, 67 lantern slides, 59–60, 126, 138 Latchmere Recreation Ground. See Battersea Lemon, Margaretta, 106, 125 Life, 154 Lind af Hageby, Lizzy, 85, 109, 141–45, 149, 153, 160–61 London and Provincial Anti-​Vivisection Society, 33, 118, 139, 165 London Slaughterhouse Act, 84 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 60, 131, 134 Marks, Henry Stacy, 67 Maryland Anti-​Vivisection Society, 138, 150

245

Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (MSPCA), 15, 16, 112, 178 archive, 25 events organized by, 134, 151, 156 humane education, 53, 178 pamphlets, 51 photography, 85, 139–40, use of imagery, 7, 12, 33, 67, 112, 151 See also, Angell, George T; Our Dumb Animals; Rowley, Francis Mattingley, A.H.E., 87–92, 108 McArthur, Jo-​Anne, 2, 195–96 Metropolitan Drinking Foundation and Cattle Trough Association, 29 Millais, John Everett, 39 Millennium Guild, 67, 147, 174, 187 millinery industry, 86–91 Morley, Robert, 63, 112–13, 153 motion pictures, 60–61, 77–78, 81, 134, 139, 150, 192, 193 museums, 38, 55, 211n81 music, 59, 139 National Anti-​Vivisection Society (NAVS), 18, 144 National Canine Defence League, 48 National Insurance Act, 164–65 National Society for the Humane Regulation of Vivisection, 150 New England Anti-​Vivisection Society, 150, 174 New Gallery, 100, 102–4, 105–6, 107, 146 New Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, 20 New York Anti-​Vivisection Society, 156 New York Public Library, 63 Our Dumb Animals, 51, 61, 66–67, 110–11, 114–16, 131, 137, 178–183. See also, Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Paget, Lady Walburga, 68 Paget, Stephen, 11, 160–61 painting, 36, 39, 62, 75–76, 100–102, 105, 108

246

Index

Partridge, Bernard, 127 Pathé, 77–79, 205n29 Peiser, Kurt, 75–77, 194 Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, 52, 123, 148, 174 pets, 7, 178–179, 181 photography, 24, 79–86, 139–40, 176–177, 192–193, 195–96, 205n54 contests, 66–67 hunting with the camera, 63–66 and the fight against feathered fashions, 87–97 and the live export trade, 71–72 See also, Harris & Ewing; Underwood & Underwood prints. See graphic art printmaking. See graphic art Priest, J.H., 134, 156 Protection of Animals Act, 84 protests, 143, 159–66, 191 Punch, 11–12, 125–28 Queen Victoria, 146, 165 rabies, 128–29, 209n80 Research Defence Society, 160 Rowley, Francis, 92–94 Royal Academy of Arts, 41, 102, 183 Royal Humane Society of Britain, 34, 48 Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), 11, 138 accusations by Gee, Robert, 78–79, 81 art made in support of, 131 Band of Mercy Advocate, 58 bands of mercy, 58 and Cole, Ada, 77–78 design competition, 157 founding of, 16, 18–19, 201n67, 204n8 Ladies’ Committee, 28 Landseer, 32, 67 humane education, 178 use of photography, 96 promotion of art, 69 surveillance, 84–85, 140 See also, Animal World; Fairholme, Captain Edward George

Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) founding of, 104, 187–88, 214n33 importance of imagery, 52, 138 lantern slides, 126, 138 music, 139 use of photography, 86–87, 89–90 See also, Sambourne, Linley Ruhl, Jules, 74–75, 78 Rumbo Rhymes, 120–23 Ruskin, John, 33, 68 Sambourne, Linley, 125–27 Sargent, John Singer, 11 satire, 11, 120–23 Saunders, Margaret Marshall, 116 Savigny, Annie G., 59–60 Schartua, Leisa, 85, 141–45 sculpture, 39, 61–62, 142, 144–45 Seton, Ernest Thompson, 150–51, 192 Sewell, Anna, 116, 139, 148 Sharpe, Maude (M.R.L.), 67, 147–48, 174–76, 211n71 Shaw, George Bernard, 139, 145 shop campaigns, 146, 151–56 Smedley, W.T., 117–19 Smithfield Market, 43–47 Smithies, Catherine, 58, 148 Smithies, Thomas Bywater (T.B.), 58 social media, 2, 191 Sperry, George T., 55–56 Stokes, Marianne, 41–43, 200n49, 201n54, stray animals, 184–187 Tealby, Mary, 144 theater, 139, 146 Toronto Art Gallery, 138 Toronto Humane Society, 54, 59, 178 displays, 157 founding of, 16, 19 use of imagery, 33, 50, 138, 178 See also, Kelso, John Joseph Toronto Pig Save, 1–3, 191 Trafalgar Square, 134, 143–44, 165, 166 Trist, Sidney, 6, 49, 74–75 Twain, Mark, 117–19, 146, 210n52

Index

Underwood & Underwood, 176 Urban, Charles, 60 vegan, 174–175, 201n65, 204n1 vegetarian, 174–175, 201n65, 204n1 Victorian Era Exhibition, 47–48 Victoria Street Society for the Protection of Animals from Vivisection, 18, 33, 67, 68, 168 vivisection. See antivivisection Vivisection Investigation League, 150 von Max, Gabriel, 167–69

247

Watts, George Frederic, 67, 100–107, 108, 146 Watts Gallery, 106 Weir, Harrison, 23, 29, 30, 58, 131–32, 134 White, Caroline Earle, 15, 18, 149, 152, 213n2 White, Helen Maynard, 153 Whitehead, Joseph, 142, 142–145 Wilberforce, William, 84 World League Against Vivisection and for the Protection of Animals, 162–63 World’s Fair (New Orleans, 1884–85), 158