John J. Loeper

Henry Bergh was the founder of the ASPCA. This book, Crusade for Kindness, is aptly named as it captures the essence of his life. He fought for all animals that didn’t have a voice. Even children were swept up in his Kindness Crusade. Henry Bergh lived an interesting life and the highlights were captured in this biography by author John Loeper. I found this book adequate but aged in a way that requires an update.
The story of Henry Bergh is rather remarkable since he never owned an animal or fathered any children. Yet, he spent his life speaking up for those without voices to give decency to all animals on earth. Henry came from a posh upbringing. He traveled the world and witnessed animals being treated poorly. He couldn’t stand seeing horses being brutally whipped or elephants punished with rods and hooks. A revolution began on his trip to Russia and followed him to America. A great quote from Henry sums up his feelings, “Mankind is served by animals and in turn they receive no protection”. Well, they do now and hopefully will forever thanks to Henry’s passion. All “god’s dumb creatures” have a voice.
I found many things amusing about Henry’s story. He created the first ambulance service ever and it was for horses. Humans had to wait for Henry’s kind eye to turn to them before they would get their own ambulance. Once, he jumped through a hole in a roof in order to break up a dog fighting ring. He was involved in a feud with P.T. Barnum over his ring of fire horse trick featuring Salamander the Fire Horse. A young child, Mary Ellen, told a story of horrible abuse that made Henry care for children’s rights.
But, he was a hypocrite. Henry wanted to protection for animals and advocated for vegetarianism. He followed this path by eating meat and wearing fur coats. When it came to children, he was cool with children being beaten over a whipping post. Oh, he also liked capital punishment. I can accept this as a sign of the times. Henry was a revolution that, “knew men will be just to me when they are kind to animals”.
This book was published in 1991 and is it shows. It features a drab almost colorless cover, a few black and white photos, a table of contents, index, and bibliography. Mr. Loeper is an astute historian that has written 10 books that deal with American life in the 18th and 19th century. Most of the sources he used in the book came before WWII. I don’t doubt the scholarship one bit but feel this book lacked details that could have made the book a fun read. Instead, it was a straight to the point biography that was light on anecdotal information. I would’ve liked Mr. Loeper to include more quotes from the politicians, writers, and P.T. Barnum would’ve filled the story with levity. I like the pictures that were chosen because they gave a voice to the people that dealt with Henry. The story in the pictures provided additional information not covered in the book, such as the horse crane Henry made.
A great story in a decent book. I would keep it in a classroom to offer children additional information about children’s welfare and animal rights. It’s an easy breezy read that could be done in a hour and may draw students to a new passion.… (altro)

This book provides an in-depth history of the founding of the ASPCA and Henry Bergh's efforts to increase awareness of animal welfare issues in the United States. The book appeared to be accurate and was organized chronologically for the most part. It goes into great detail about living conditions for animals at the turn of the 20th century. I already knew a lot about how horrible things were back then, but I was overwhelmed by the widespread ignorance and blatant abuse that occurred with regard to dogs, horses, pigs, cows and other livestock and animals. I think the history is really important to emphasize in learning and teaching about animal rights, but I couldn't bring myself to read anymore. Likewise, I had planned to use an excerpt from this book for the animal welfare unit I'm writing but I found instead that another book I checked out, Rescuing Rover, provided a solid history of the ASPCA and conditions for animals, as well as societal outlook, but with a softer touch. The Rescuing Rover book was also more kid friendly in design, layout, topics, and sidebars.… (altro)