Vegetarianism: Influence of Animal Rights

Another significant force for dietary change in North America has been the animal rights movement. Individual activists, such as John Woolman; Henry Bergh, founder of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (1866); J. Howard Moore, author of The Universal Kinship (1908); Curtis and Emarel Freshel, founders of the Millennium Guild, a vegetarian group; and Henry Spira have distinguished themselves in this fight.

Animal rights did not start to crystallize as a social movement, however, until the 1980s, with the founding of PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) and FARM (Farm Animal Reform Movement), both in 1981. In 1984, FARM started an annual spring event, the Great American Meatout, which is modeled after the Great American Smokeout (an attempt to rid Americans of their smoking habit). PETA, FARM, and other animal rights organizations, along with such books as Animal Liberation (1975), The Case for Animal Rights (1983), An Unnatural Order (1993), Judaism and Animal Rights: Classical and Contemporary Responses (1993), Slaughterhouse (1997), Rattling the Cages (2000), and Dominion (2002), have given enormous impetus to the spread of ethical vegetarianism in the United States.