4 collections related to Animal welfare

Educational publications, advertisements, informational pamphlets, correspondence, subscription forms and ephemera related to animal rights and animal welfare, especially anti-vivisection. This collection appears to originate from the West of England, with a particular focus on the Manchester area. However, the collection also contains material from throughout the United Kingdom and a few materials from the United States. Most of the material was produced and distributed by organizations such as the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection, the Animal Defence and Anti-Vivisection Society, the League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports, National Society for the Abolition of Cruel Sports, the Victoria Street Society for the Abolition of Vivisection, and others. Also included are Catholic, Quaker, and other religious pamphlets. The collection contains items written by Frances Power Cobbe, Henry Stephens Salt, H. E. Bates, George Bernard Shaw, and H. G. Wells. Members of the Bloomsbury Group, including Virginia Woolf and Clive Bell who are listed as subscribers to some groups, are represented here. There is also material related to and designed by cartoonist and animal rights activist Cyril Kenneth Bird, who went by the pen name 'Fougasse.' The material ranges in date from the 1870s to the 1950s and includes a quantity of material from the interwar period and the era surrounding and following World War II. Although anti-vivisection and animal rights were a concern in the United Kingdom as early as the eighteenth century, the first anti-cruelty law, "The Animal Protection Act" was passed in 1822, outlawing cruelty to cattle, horses, and sheep. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Anmials was formed two years later and had the distinction of being the first animal welfare society in the world, as well as the first law enforcement agency in the United Kingdom. In 1840, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals received the support of Queen Victoria and adopted the name the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Anti-vivisection movements increased in response to an increase in scientific and medical experimentation with mammals in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Despite the commonly held belief that animal rights reemerged as a primary concern in the 1970s, groups advocating for the rights and well-being of animals continued from the nineteeth century into the era following World War II with little stagnation. Less

The Arnold Arluke Collection of Animal Protection Printed Materials contains "Our Dumb Animals" journals, booklets, legal papers, letters and cards realted to animal rights and animal welfare. The collection ranges in date from 1876 to 1966. Arnold Arluke is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Northeastern University. He is a senior scholar at the Tufts Center for Animals and Public Policy. His research areas include, but are not limited to, human-animal relations, social psychology, and visual studies. Arluke has published more than 100 articles and 12 books regarding human-animal relations. Less

The items in this collection were assembled by John Ptak and relate to animal protection issues in the United States. John Ptak was the proprietor of J. F. Ptak Books, Maps, and Prints in Georgetown, Washington, D.C. The store specialized in used, rare, and antiquarian manuscripts, reprints, journals, maps, and prints in mathematics and the sciences. He relocated to Hendersonville, North Carolina and operates JF Ptak Science Books. Less