The Man Who Made Us Feel for the Animals

[MoonRiver]

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A TRAITOR TO HIS SPECIES
Henry Bergh and the Birth of the Animal Rights Movement
By Ernest Freeberg

In March 2019, drivers near Yankee Stadium were startled to find themselves sharing the expressway with a reddish-brown calf. Police officers trussed and tranquilized the terrified animal in front of rolling cameras, and the scene went viral on social media. The calf had escaped from a nearby slaughterhouse. Its bid for freedom reminded city dwellers that tens of thousands of animals die in New York each year.

It was once utterly impossible to ignore this fact. In 19th-century New York, cattle were driven through the streets to the stockyard on 40th Street, stray dogs were drowned by the hundreds in wire cages in the East River and trolley horses fell dead in their tracks. P. T. Barnum’s menagerie on Broadway burned to the ground three times, killing hyenas, big cats and hundreds of other animals. The trapped creatures screamed in a “horrible chorus” of “mortal agony,” The Times reported.

One man did more than any other to change the way New Yorkers — and Americans overall — treated their animals. In his vivid and often wrenching new book, “A Traitor to His Species,” the historian Ernest Freeberg tells the story of Henry Bergh, a wealthy New Yorker who braved ridicule, assault and death threats for over two decades as he sounded the alarm about animal suffering. Among Bergh’s many achievements, the most consequential was the founding in 1866 of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/16/books/review/a-traitor-to-his-species-henry-bergh-ernest-freeberg.html?fbclid=IwAR00eTk2_kVpvbYlHpWBuSxsVxhrFChofEF4GBT6wLlt0KU_bH5Z1jMas90

[abqtommy]

1. Thank you. I award this op the Inspiration Of The Day medal!

[MoonRiver]

8. I'm honored

[Yeehah]

2. I've never heard of this great man

Thank you for posting.

[lillypaddle]

3. K&R nt

[demmiblue]

4. K&R

Today, when a desperate creature manages to break loose and run through New York City, it reminds us of the hidden cost of our tastes.

[Codeine]

5. "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress

can be judged by the way it treats its animals.” - Gandhi

[crosinski]

6. Thank you for posting this.

[jaxexpat]

7. JFK's book "Profiles in Courage", while disingenuous in some aspects,....

inspired a TV series in which this man was featured. Brian Keith played Mr. Bergh in this episode. I recall the show very clearly. Kitty trapped in brick wall. It was on Saturdays at around 4:00 PM. Not an ideal time slot but, in retrospect, the broadcast syndicate was wholly owned by John Birch Society types in the American mid-west in those days.

May the circle of knowledge be unbroken.