Pets in America : a history / Katherine C. Grier.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Grier, Katherine C., 1953- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Pets--United States--History.

Pets.

Human-animal relationships--United States--History.

Human-animal relationships.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (390 pages) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

Chapel Hill, NC : University of North Carolina Press, [2006]

Summary:

Entertaining and informative, Pets in America is a portrait of Americans' relationships with the cats, dogs, birds, fishes, rodents, and other animals we call our own. More than 60 percent of U.S. households have pets, and America grows more pet-friendly every day. But as Katherine C. Grier demonstrates, the ways we talk about and treat our pets--as companions, as children, and as objects of beauty, status, or pleasure--have their origins long ago. Grier begins with a natural history of animals as pets, then discusses the changing role of pets in family life, new standards of animal welfare, the problems presented by borderline cases such as livestock pets, and the marketing of both animals and pet products. She focuses particularly on the period between 1840 and 1940, when the emotional, behavioral, and commercial characteristics of contemporary pet keeping were established. The story is filled with the warmth and humor of anecdotes from period diaries, letters, catalogs, and newspapers. Filled with illustrations reflecting the whimsy, the devotion, and the commerce that have shaped centuries of American pet keeping, Pets in America ultimately shows how the history of pets has evolved alongside changing ideas about human nature, child development, and community life. This book accompanies a museum exhibit, "Pets in America, " which opens at the McKissick Museum in Columbia, South Carolina, in December 2005 and will travel to five other cities from May 2006 through May 2008.

Contents:

Introduction: A modern pet owner

A natural history of pets

At home with animals

A dog obituary of 1866. The life and death of Ponto

The bunnie states of America

The domestic ethic of kindness to animals

The edges of pet keeping and its dilemmas

A pet in every home

Buying for your best friend

Epilogue: One view on pets in modern America.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9798890878182

9780807877142

080787714X