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

Includes index.

"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.

Machine generated contents note: -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Chapter One: "A righteous man regards the life of his beast": The Roots of the Gospel of -- Kindness in the Second Great Awakening and Antebellum Reform -- Chapter Two: "A World of Kindness is a Copy of Heaven": Animals, Moral Uplift, and the -- Woman's Christian Temperance Union -- Chapter Three: From Dog Eaters to Mule Beaters: Representing the Accused as Alien Other -- Chapter Four: An Empire of Kindness: American Animal Welfare Policy and Moral -- Expansionism Overseas -- Chapter Five: "A Country Rich in Cattle": Gospels of Kindness in Colonial South Asia -- Chapter Six: "So Thoroughly Un-American": Making Historical Sense of the Bullfight -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Index.