First Animal Shelter in U.S. Due to Caroline Earle White Kate Kelly
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he first animal shelter in America came about due to the efforts of Caroline Earle White (1833-1916) of Philadelphia. White was also the power behind several other animal protection organizations. She was among the first to launch the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and she created an offshoot of that organization to create a welcoming environment where women, too, could work for animal welfare. Later she became aware of the medical testing that was being done on animals, and she was first to establish the American Anti-Vivisection Society in the United States. Early Life Caroline Earle White was raised in a well-to-do Quaker family. Her father was an attorney and fully devoted to abolishing slavery. Her mother, a cousin of suffragist advocate Lucretia Mott, worked for suffrage as well as abolition. Both Caroline’s parents placed high value on education, so Caroline had more learning opportunities than most girls her age. In addition to a general educa- fast enough. As a young girl, Caroline tion, she studied astronomy and learned hated witnessing scenes like this, and she then tried to avoid walking down five languages other than English. certain streets that had caused her particular pain. Marriage Offers More Opportunity In 1854 she married out of the Quaker religion, marrying Philadelphia attorney Richard P. White, a Catholic. At that time, Women’s branch of PSPCA Protestants and some Quakers found Catholic beliefs to be objectionable, but Caroline’s parents were open-minded and felt that whatever religion Caroline followed would be fine. (Caroline did eventually convert to Catholicism.) Richard White was very supportive of his wife. He recognized her sincere interest in animal welfare, and he knew that Animal Life in the Mid-1800s well-to-do New York businessman HenDuring the mid-1800s, horses and ry Bergh had just formed the American mules were work animals and were Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to vital to the delivery of goods within a Animals (1866). White encouraged Carcity. Any big street would have been oline to set up a meeting with Bergh, filled with horse- or mule-drawn wag- which she did. ons. It was not uncommon for drivers Bergh offered suggestions on what to beat the animals when they felt the needed to be done to get an organizaanimals weren’t pulling the heavy loads tion launched in Philadelphia. Caroline Spring 2021
