The gospel of kindness [electronic resource] : animal welfare and the making of modern America / Janet M. Davis.
2016
HV4764 .D38 2016eb
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Title
The gospel of kindness [electronic resource] : animal welfare and the making of modern America / Janet M. Davis.
Author
Davis, Janet M., author.
ISBN
9780190609030 (electronic book)
Published
New York, NY (xiii, 302 pages) : Oxford University Press, 2016.
Language
English
Description
1 online resource : illustrations
Other Standard Identifiers
10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199733156 doi
Call Number
HV4764 .D38 2016eb
Dewey Decimal Classification
179.30973
Summary
"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.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Access Note
Access limited to authorized users.
Source of Description
Description based on print version record.
Available in Other Form
Gospel of kindess.
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Table of Contents
"A righteous man regards the life of his beast": The Roots of the Gospel of kindness in the Second Great Awakening and Antebellum Reform
"A World of Kindness is a Copy of Heaven": Animals, Moral Uplift, and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union
From Dog Eaters to Mule Beaters: Representing the Accused as Alien Other
An Empire of Kindness: American Animal Welfare Policy and Moral Expansionism Overseas
"A Country Rich in Cattle": Gospels of Kindness in Colonial South Asia
"So Thoroughly Un-American": Making Historical Sense of the Bullfight.
"A World of Kindness is a Copy of Heaven": Animals, Moral Uplift, and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union
From Dog Eaters to Mule Beaters: Representing the Accused as Alien Other
An Empire of Kindness: American Animal Welfare Policy and Moral Expansionism Overseas
"A Country Rich in Cattle": Gospels of Kindness in Colonial South Asia
"So Thoroughly Un-American": Making Historical Sense of the Bullfight.