L.A.'s National Museum of Animals & Society Focuses on Animal Rights

The National Museum of Animals & Society, is a new museum in Los Angeles, featuring an active roster of exhibits and events focused on representing the animal rights movement.

There are many other social justice movements, like women's suffrage, civil rights, etc., and various labor movements have museums--or sections of museums--dedicated to those causes, but there has never been any museum that focuses on animals and animal rights. 

Beyond animal rights, the museum focuses on events where animals and society intersect through the arts, humanities, science, and humane education.

Current Exhibits at Animals & Society

Light in Dark Places was their first exhibit this summer. (The exhibit is open one final weekend, closing on August 3.) The show, curated by writer and animal advocate Julia Orr, traces the history of the Anti-Vivisection movement from Victorian England to modern day. The Anti-Vivisection Society was originally created to end various types of medical testing on animals. Experimenting on animals has been done through the ages, and pre-dated any type of anesthesia for humans or animals. The extent of inhumane treatment knew no bounds. Today Anti-Vivisection Societies still exist in this country and worldwide to fight to end animal testing done by medical and cosmetic groups.

The exhibit documented the involvement of notables such as Mark Twain and George Bernard Shaw, both of whom used their influence to stand up for this cause. Caroline Earle White (1833-1916) is among the many women who are highlighted. Ms. White was the founder of the first animal shelter in the United States.

The next exhibit is Dog, Cat, Mouse, which features work by three California artists showing the art they have produced featuring dogs, cats, and a rodent. A percentage of the proceeds of any art sold will be donated to the SPCA of Los Angeles. The opening reception will be on August 9 at 7 p.m.

Other Exhibits of Interest

The museum sends representatives into schools and they host field trips on site for parents, teachers, and educators. Be Kind: A Visual History of Humane Education 1880-1945 is a popular program; there is also a pop-up exhibit on this subject that can be sent out on loan.

My Dog is my Home was among the early exhibits at the Museum of Animals and Society and also exists as a traveling show. It tells the story of homeless people and their animal companions and the very important bond between them.

There was another exhibit titled Uncooped. This exhibit explored the origins of and the cultural attitudes towards one of the most common--yet most often overlooked--of all domesticated animals: the chicken. For this exhibit, the museum hosted a chicken adoption event and found homes for 93 rescue hens.

Enriching the Lives of Both Animals and People

The goals of the museum also include enriching lives of animals and people. A year ago they coordinated the largest service fair on Skid Row for people and their companion animals. The animals received free grooming, veterinary care, food, and supplies. Food and supplies were donated and made available for the people as well. 

The museum is located at 4302 Melrose, Los Angeles, but for those not in the Southern California area, there is a website. Visit the National Museum of Animals and Society and My Dog is My Home.

Pleasurable Kingdom: Animals and the Nature of Feeling Good

 

 

Pleasurable Kingdom, by Jonathan Balcombe, presents new evidence that animals--like humans--enjoy themselves. From birds to baboons, insects to iguanas, animals feel good thanks to play, sex, touch, food, anticipation, comfort, aesthetics, and more. Combining rigorous evidence, elegant argument and amusing anecdotes, leading animal behavior researcher Jonathan Balcombe shows that the possibility of positive feelings in creatures other than humans has important ethical ramifications for both science and society.

 

Animal Wise: The Thoughts and Emotions of Our Fellow Creatures

 

 

Animal Wise takes us on an odyssey into the inner world of animals, from ants to elephants to wolves, and from sharp-shooting archerfish to pods of dolphins. With 30 years of experience covering the sciences, Virgina Morell uses her gifts as a story-teller to transport us to field sites and laboratories around the world, introducing us to pioneering animal-cognition researchers and their surprisingly intelligent and sensitive subjects; the unique personalities of the pioneering researchers involved; the moral and ethical issues raised; and the dilemmas involving how we can accurately uncover animals' cognitive abilities like memory, feelings, personality and self-awareness – traits that many in the 20th century felt were unique only to human beings. By standing behaviourism on its head,  She explores how this rapidly evolving, controversial field has only recently overturned old notions about why animals behave as they do. She probes the moral and ethical dilemmas of recognizing that even “lesser animals” have cognitive abilities such as memory, feelings, personality, and self-awareness--traits that many in the twentieth century felt were unique to human beings.

 

There are stories about the researchers and their creative studies involving slugs, chimps, voles, hummingbirds, ants and many other creatures.

 

Most people have no idea that dolphins are self-aware, rats love to be tickled, chimps grieve, killer whales have cultures, and octopuses have personalities, dogs have extensive vocabularies and birds practice songs in their sleep. Voles love, jays plan ahead. A moth remembers its life as a caterpillar. 

 

Animal Wise: The Thoughts and Emotions of Our Fellow Creatures takes us on this journey into the minds and emotions of animals through the unusual, bright, and committed researchers who study them.


Animals in Religion, Science, and Ethics

 

This is a fabulous book on animals and spirituality, and it covers other topics relating to animals as well. Leading animal experts "consider how major religious traditions have incorporated animals into their belief systems, myths, rituals, and art...Their findings offer profound insights into humans' relationships with animals and a deeper understanding of the social and ecological web in which we all live....They explore issues such as animal consciousness, suffering, sacrifice, and stewardship in innovative methodological ways. They also address contemporary challenges relating to law, biotechnology, social justice, and the environment."

For more information on this book, check it out here:

A Communion of Subjects: Animals in Religion, Science, and Ethics