Social Reform and Gender: Henry Bergh, "Manliness", and the Early Animal Rights Movement in America

In 1867, New York resident and philanthropist Henry Bergh founded the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (better known now the ASPCA). He was responsible for creating the first animal cruelty society of its kind in the United States, only a few years after the United States had abolished slavery and decades before women would be given the right to vote. While Bergh's work would start a revolution into the way Americans treated animals legally, he did not do so without controversy.