Our Kindred Creatures: How Americans Came to Feel the Way They Do about Animals

<b>A compassionate, sweeping history of the transformation in American attitudes toward animals by the best-selling authors of <i>Rabid</i></b> <p/>Over just a few decades at the end of the nineteenth century, the United States underwent a moral revolution on behalf of animals. Before the Civil War, animals' suffering had rarely been discussed; horses pulling carriages and carts were routinely beaten in public view, and dogs were pitted against each other for entertainment and gambling. But in 1866, a group of activists began a dramatic campaign to change the nation's laws and norms, and by the century's end, most Americans had adopted a very different way of thinking and feeling about the animals in their midst. <p/>In <i>Our Kindred Creatures, </i> Bill Wasik, editorial director of <i>The New York Times Magazine</i>, and veterinarian Monica Murphy offer a fascinating history of this crusade and the battles it sparked in American life. On the side of reform were such leaders as George Angell, the inspirational head of Massachusetts's animal-welfare society and the American publisher of the novel <i>Black Beauty</i>; Henry Bergh, founder of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; Caroline White of Philadelphia, who fought against medical experiments that used live animals; and many more, including some of the nation's earliest veterinarians and conservationists. Caught in the movement's crosshairs were transformational figures in their own right: anima