Our Kindred Creatures, Bill Wasik
Our Kindred Creatures, Bill Wasik
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Our Kindred Creatures
How Americans Came to Feel the Way They Do About Animals

Author: Bill Wasik, Monica Murphy

Narrator: Tanis Parenteau

Unabridged: 13 hr 46 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/23/2024

Synopsis

A compassionate, sweeping history of the transformation in American attitudes toward animals by the best-selling authors of Rabid

Over just a few decades at the end of the nineteenth century, the United States underwent a moral revolution on behalf of animals. Before the Civil War, animals' suffering had rarely been discussed; horses pulling carriages and carts were routinely beaten in public view, and dogs were pitted against each other for entertainment and gambling. But in 1866, a group of activists began a dramatic campaign to change the nation’s laws and norms, and by the century’s end, most Americans had adopted a very different way of thinking and feeling about the animals in their midst.

In Our Kindred Creatures, Bill Wasik, editorial director of The New York Times Magazine, and veterinarian Monica Murphy offer a fascinating history of this crusade and the battles it sparked in American life. On the side of reform were such leaders as George Angell, the inspirational head of Massachusetts’s animal-welfare society and the American publisher of the novel Black Beauty; Henry Bergh, founder of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; Caroline White of Philadelphia, who fought against medical experiments that used live animals; and many more, including some of the nation’s earliest veterinarians and conservationists. Caught in the movement’s crosshairs were transformational figures in their own right: animal impresarios such as P. T. Barnum, industrial meat barons such as Philip D. Armour, and the nation’s rising medical establishment, all of whom put forward their own, very different sets of modern norms about how animals should be treated.

In recounting this remarkable period of moral transition—which, by the turn of the twentieth century, would give birth to the attitudes we hold toward animals today—Wasik and Murphy challenge us to consider the obligations we still have to all our kindred creatures.

Cover painting: Peaceable Kingdom, 1834 (detail) by Edward Hicks. Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

About The Author

BILL WASIK is the editorial director of The New York Times Magazine. MONICA MURPHY is a veterinarian and a writer. Their previous book, Rabid: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus, was a Los Angeles Times best seller and a finalist for the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. They live in Brooklyn, New York.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Hannah on May 09, 2024

Highly informative but difficult to read as an animal lover (more on this below). 🐈🐤🐎🥰 "It took thirty years to get there—from 1866, when New York killed stray dogs by drowning them in an East River tank, to 1896, when the ASPCA, in its brand-new shelters in Manhattan and Brooklyn, euthanized the unc......more

Goodreads review by Jennifer ~ TarHeelReader on July 04, 2024

As an ardent animal lover, I knew I had to read this book, which covers the relatively recent history of animal advocacy in the United States. Going into the book, I knew it was a recent history, but I don’t think it truly registered just how recent. Sometimes you think something as deeply ingrained......more

Goodreads review by GrahamReads on February 13, 2025

Just finished: New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2024. A history of the animal rights movement from 1868 to the early 1900s. While I think this book has value, I like "A Traitor to his Species" about Henry Bergh was the better read. Not my best review but I would recommend this book if you want to know more......more

Goodreads review by Kim on July 01, 2024

The authors, Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy, want their book, Our Kindred Creatures, to make the case that the decades from 1866 to 1896 “saw the birth of the modern attitudes toward the animals in their midst.” (p. 360) The book succeeds in its mission well. Wasik and Murphy explain the nascent socia......more

Goodreads review by John on April 28, 2024

Imagine it is 1866 and you are strolling the streets of New York City. The first thing you might notice are the hundreds upon hundreds of horses pulling people in packed trolleys up and down the streets and avenues, the closest thing at the time to subway cars. You may find yourself suddenly surround......more

Quotes

“Our Kindred Creatures, a superb blend of science, cultural history and essayistic grace, returns us to a time when advocacy for animals became a moral imperative.”—The Wall Street Journal

"[A] meticulously researched history of the dawn of the animal-rights movement."—The Atlantic

"[A] powerful new book"—The New York Times Book Review

“Our Kindred Creatures is the most elegantly written, rigorously researched, and morally nuanced portrait of America's early animal advocates I've ever read. More important, it's the story of how widespread social change happens. Anyone who cares about human-animal relationships should put this book at the very top of their reading list.”—Bronwen Dickey, author of Pit Bull

“A revelatory, beautifully crafted account of the rise of animal-rights activism in the United States…Elegant, meticulous and urgent, Our Kindred Creatures is social history at its finest.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune

“A colorful menagerie of characters fills this radiant history of the tumultuous first three decades (1866–1896) of America’s animal welfare movement… a scintillating overview of how animals earned legal rights and moral sympathy in the latter half of the 19th century.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review*

“Extensively researched... Of obvious appeal to animal lovers, this engaging account will also resonate with readers who enjoy in-depth looks at the history and shaping of contemporary American values.”—Kathleen McBroom, Booklist, starred review*

“[Our Kindred Creatures] is at once a model of historical recovery and a bracing takedown of our own attitudes toward those we caress and those we devour.”—Anne Matthews, The American Scholar

"Our Kindred Creatures chronicles one of the great shifts in perspective of the 19th century: the recognition that the suffering and well-being of animals belong to the sphere of human morality. Populated by a cast of mesmerizing characters (and creatures), the book gives us a thrilling secret history of the 19th century, helping us understand how a new, world-changing idea first takes flight."—Steven Johnson, author of The Ghost Map

"The authors of Rabid return with an examination of the historical shift in attitudes of Americans toward animals...A well-researched account that strikes a nice balance between description and analysis."—Kirkus Reviews

"I had no idea when I opened Our Kindred Creatures that I would be taken on a wild ride through the splendor, horror, and sheer strangeness of late-19th-century America. Nor did I realize that the authors would convince me that the fight against cruelty to animals played a key part in the American story, like abolitionism and the labor movement. This book is a wonder, as entertaining as it is instructive." —Charles C. Mann, author of 1491

"This fascinating, important book traces an awakening in American culture—to the moral dimension of human behavior toward animals. It’s a vivid narrative, panoramic, rich in surprises, scientifically grounded, deftly written, and tinctured with continuing moral challenge for all of us." —David Quammen, author of Breathless

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