ABSTRACT
Henry Bergh galvanized the nineteenth-century animal protection movement. Yet, his crusade to prevent cruelty to animals destined to become food is unrecognized today. Bergh was not a vegetarian, but he was repulsed by how animals were transported, housed, and slaughtered. America had not enacted any state or federal animal protection laws at the outset of the nineteenth century, and animal cruelty actions arose from common law. Nineteenth-century legal commentator Joel Prentiss Bishop wrote: “[M]an has always held in subjection the lower animals, to be used or destroyed at will, for his advantage or pleasure.” Bergh continued to bring the concept of animal-related health issues to the public’s attention by focusing on the “swill milk” operators who sold diseased milk produced by cows fed upon distillery slops and garbage. By exposing the unsanitary conditions that produced swill milk and diseased meat, Bergh also revealed the industry’s brutal treatment of these animals.
