Abstract
This open access book is the biography of one of Britain’s foremost animal welfare campaigners and of the world of activism, science, and politics she inhabited. In 1964, Ruth Harrison’s bestseller Animal Machines triggered a gear change in modern animal protection by popularising the term ‘factory farming’ alongside a new way of thinking about animal welfare. Here, historian Claas Kirchhelle explores Harrison’s avant-garde upbringing, Quakerism, and how animal welfare debates were linked to concerns about the wider ethical and environmental trajectories of post-war Britain. Breaking the myth of Harrison as a one-hit wonder, Kirchhelle reconstructs Harrison’s 46 years of campaigning and the rapid transformation of welfare politics and science during this time. Exacerbated by Harrison’s own actions, the decades after 1964 saw a polarisation of animal politics, a professionalisation of British activism, and the rise of a new animal welfare science. Harrison’s belief in incremental reform allowed her to form ties to leading scientists but alienated her from more radical campaigners. Many of her 1964 demands gradually became part of mainstream politics. However, farm animal welfare’s increasing marketisation has also led to a relative divorce from the wider agenda of social improvement that Harrison once bore witness to. this is the first book to cast light on the interlinked and frequently uneasy histories of post-war British animal welfare activism, science, and legislation. Its unique scope allows it to go beyond limited existing accounts of modern British animal welfare and will be of interest to those interested in animal welfare, environmentalism, and the behavioural sciences.
Highlights
It is a rare event for a 40-year-old member of the public to pick up the mail and decide to write a book on farm animal welfare
It is much to the credit of the RSPCA to have promoted this work and we wish to reassert our confidence in the value that behavioural studies have in the advancement of animal welfare.”116 a site visit by the new RSPCA Chairman Richard Ryder secured a final limited renewal of Dawkins’ grant,117 growing distrust between the Council and Farm Livestock Advisory Committee (FLAC) led to a dissolution of the unruly committee and its replacement with a new RSPCA Farming Department in 1979.118
Ruth Harrison would not have been surprised by the enduring influence of value-based judgement within animal welfare science
Summary
Part V From Éclat to Consensus (1979–2000) 203 11 From Protest to ‘Holy Writ’: The Mainstreaming of Welfare Politics205 Non-conform Evidence: The Impasse of 1990s Welfare. George Bernard Shaw by Clare Winsten, pencil on paper laid on board, 1949, NPG 6891 Dex Harrison’s pleasure gardens at the 1951 Festival of Britain (image courtesy of Jonathan Harrison). Leaflet by the Crusade Against All Cruelty To Animals pushed through Harrison’s letterbox around 1960 (image courtesy of Marlene Halverson). Animal Machines image of a veal calf looking out of its crate with the neighbouring crate shut (image courtesy of Jonathan Harrison) xxv xxvi List of Images. Image 11.1 Ruth Harrison and Klaus Vestergaard observe a sow at the Swedish Pig Park in 1988 (image courtesy of Bo Algers). Image 11.2 Ruth Harrison at a Danish mink farm in 1997 (image courtesy of Marlene Halverson)
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