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The gospel of kindness : animal welfare and the making of modern America / Janet M. Davis.

1 online resource

Includes index.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Cover; The Gospel of Kindness; Copyright; Dedication; Contents; Acknowledgments; Introduction; 1. "A Righteous Man Regards the Life of His Beast": The Roots of the Gospel of Kindness in the Second Great Awakening and Antebellum Reform; 2. "A World of Kindness Is a Copy of Heaven": Animals, Moral Uplift, and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union; 3. From Dog Eaters to Mule Beaters: Representing the Accused as Alien Other; 4. An Empire of Kindness: American Animal Welfare Policy and Moral Expansionism Overseas; 5. "A Country Rich in Cattle": Gospels of Kindness in Colonial South Asia.
6. "So Thoroughly Un-��American": Making Historical Sense of the BullfightConclusion; Notes; Index

This book investigates the historical significance of the American animal welfare movement at home and overseas from the Second Great Awakening to the Second World War, a time span encompassing the nation's shift from muscle power to motorization. Dedicated primarily to laboring animals at its inception, the humane movement grew to include virtually all areas of human/animal interaction. Embracing animals as brethren through biblical concepts of stewardship, humane activists worked with temperance groups, educators, missionaries, religious leaders, civil rights activists, policy makers, and anti-imperialists to create an expansive transnational "gospel of kindness" in hopes of building a more merciful nation and world. Ultimately, animal protectionists defined kindness to animals as an American humanitarian ideal. Their interpretation of this "gospel" extended beyond the New Testament to preach kindness as a secular and spiritual truth. As an ideological and tactical product of antebellum evangelical revivalism and reform, as well as the rights revolution of the Civil War era, animal kindness became a barometer of free moral agency, higher civilization, and Americanization. Yet given the enormous intersectional diversity of the United States, its empire, and other countries of contact, standards of kindness and cruelty were culturally contingent and therefore controversial: those accused of cruelty invoked their own culturally specific ideas regarding their rights of self-determination to defend culturally specific animal practices, such as cockfighting, bullfighting, songbird consumption, and kosher slaughter that animal protectionists judged repugnant. Animal welfare, therefore, was and remains in the crosshairs of cultural and political contestation in a pluralistic society.-- Provided by publisher./"When we consider modern American animal advocacy, we often think of veganism, no-kill shelters, Internet campaigns against trophy hunting, or celebrities declaring that they would "rather go naked" than wear fur. Contemporary critics readily dismiss animal protectionism as a modern secular movement that privileges animals over people. Yet the movement's roots are deeply tied to the nation's history of religious revivalism and social reform. The Gospel of Kindness explores the broad cultural and social influence of the American animal welfare movement at home and overseas from the Second Great Awakening to the Second World War. Dedicated primarily to laboring animals at its inception in an animal-powered world, the movement eventually included virtually all areas of human and animal interaction. Embracing animals as brethren through biblical concepts of stewardship, a diverse coalition of temperance groups, teachers, Protestant missionaries, religious leaders, civil rights activists, policy makers, and anti-imperialists forged an expansive transnational "gospel of kindness," which defined animal mercy as a signature American value. Their interpretation of this "gospel" extended beyond the New Testament to preach kindness as a secular and spiritual truth. As a cultural product of antebellum revivalism, reform, and the rights revolution of the Civil War era, animal kindness became a barometer of free moral agency, higher civilization, and assimilation. Yet given the cultural, economic, racial, and ethnic diversity of the United States, its empire, and other countries of contact, standards of kindness and cruelty were culturally contingent and potentially controversial. Diverse constituents defended specific animal practices, such as cockfighting, bullfighting, songbird consumption, and kosher slaughter, as inviolate cultural traditions that reinforced their right to self-determination. Ultimately, American animal advocacy became a powerful humanitarian ideal, a barometer of inclusion and national belonging at home and abroad that endures to this day"-- Provided by publisher./"From Sarah McLachlan as spokesperson in ASPCA commercials to Animal Cops television shows, the prevention of cruelty against animals seems a core value in American society. Yet flogging horses, betting on cockfights, and shooting species of birds to extinction to adorn women's hats were once common. After the Civil War a culture of animal advocacy developed in the United States. How and why a social movement centered on the defense of animals came about--and how this changed American culture--is the subject of Janet Davis' wide-ranging book. Janet Davis describes a period during which animal power was gradually being replaced by industrial power. Animal welfare organizations developed out of an urban setting, as humane societies mandated the humane treatment of laboring horses and oxen, combated vivisection, demanded care of animals bound for stockyards and for circus shows, and called for an end to the needless killing of birds for fashion. Advocates also preached the gospel of kindness abroad in India, Morocco, Turkey, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines, seeing kindness toward animals as a crucial part of modern American values that should replace the ways of backward cultures. Drawing heavily on religious faith, animal humanitarians connected animal welfare with virtually all facets of life--food, sanitation, entertainment, literature, labor, transportation, and many other topics--and made those they reached with their message think carefully about what divides humans and animals"-- Provided by publisher./

Animal welfare, United States, History.
Animal rights, United States, History.
Social values, United States, History.
HISTORY, United States, General.
NATURE, Animal Rights.
PHILOSOPHY, Ethics & Moral Philosophy.
Animal rights.
Animal welfare.
Social conditions.
Social values.
United States, Social conditions.
United States, History.
United States.

Print version : Davis, Janet M. Gospel of kindness. Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, [2016] 9780199733156

9780199908882 0199908885 9780190609030 0190609036