Nineteenth-century Britain was one of the birthplaces of modern
vegetarianism in the west, and was to become a reform movement
attracting thousands of people. From the Vegetarian Society's
foundation in 1847, men, women and their families abandoned
conventional diet for reasons as varied as self-advancement,
personal thrift, dissatisfaction with medical orthodoxy and
repugnance for animal cruelty. They joined in the pursuit of a
perfect society in which food reform combined with causes such as
socialism and land reform, stimulated by the concern that
carnivorism was in league with alcoholism and bellicosity. Gregory
provides a thorough exploration of the movement, with its often
colourful and sometimes eccentric leaders and grass-roots
supporters. He explores the rich culture of branch associations,
competing national societies, proliferating restaurants and food
stores and experiments in vegetarian farms and colonies. Of
Victorians and Vegetarians examines the wider significance of
Victorian vegetarians, embracing concerns about gender and class,
national identity, race and empire and religious authority.
Vegetarianism embodied the Victorians' complicated response to
modernity in its hostility to aspects of the industrial world's
exploitation of technology, rejecting entrepreneurial attempts to
create the foods and substitute artefacts of the future. Hostile,
like the associated anti-vivisectionists and anti-vaccinationists,
to a new 'priesthood' of scientists, vegetarians defended
themselves through the new sciences of nutrition and chemistry. Of
Victorians and Vegetarians uncovers who the vegetarians were, how
they attempted to convert their fellow Britons (and the world
beyond) to their 'bloodless diet' and the response of
contemporaries in a variety of media and genres. Through a close
study of the vegetarian periodicals and organisational archives,
extensive biographical research and a broader examination of texts
relating to food, dietary reform and allied reform movements, James
Gregory provides us with the first fascinating foray into the
impact of vegetarianism on the Victorians, the history of animal
welfare, reform movements and food history.
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