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.
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