Since 1866, the ASPCA has worked to stop the cruelties committed upon animals involved in the food production process. In the late 1800s, early ASPCA agents had their hands full inspecting New York City's stockyards and slaughter- houses, while ASPCA founder Henry Bergh was exhaustively pursuing legislation to ensure that animals raised for human consumption were handled humanely. Today, as the industry has fallen out of the hands of small farmers and into the hands of large corporations, the issue of cruelty remains—and the ASPCA continues its efforts to create distress-free lives for the many animals who are raised for food.
Here is a glimpse of the work the ASPCA has done for farm animals since its inception:
1866-1878: The ASPCA campaigns against swill milk, the germ-laden milk obtained from dairy cows kept in unsanitary conditions
1867: The ASPCA operates the first ambulance in New York City for injured horses, two years before Bellevue Hospital put the first ambulance for humans into service.
1873: The ASPCA supports a newly effective federal law regulating rail transport of cattle. The law calls for a minimum five-hour rest, water and feeding period for any animal in transport for more than 28 hours.
1875: Henry Bergh invents a canvas sling for rescuing horses who get stuck in mud or fall into the river.
1884: The ASPCA publication Our Animal Watch reprints the penal code stating the proper size of a chicken coop and the number of fowl it can legally carry.
1902: The ASPCA begins operating a motorized horse ambulance.
1916: The ASPCA starts a formal humane education program for school children. Money is raised to help care for the 934,000 horses serving in World War I.
1939: The ASPCA inspects the 2,000 animals on exhibit at the New York World’s Fair.
1942: ASPCA agents continue to inspect the handling of fowl in the NYC Wholesale Poultry Terminal in Long Island City, watching for overcrowded and undersized crates, and ensuring that coops are gently placed, not thrown, onto loading docks.
1953: The ASPCA grants the James Hopkins Award to Hormel for its development of a “sleep tunnel,” which sends hogs through a carbon dioxide-filled tunnel before slaughter, inducing sleep within seconds.
1955: ASPCA General Manager Warren McSpadden publishes an introduction to a long-awaited Humane Slaughter of Food Animals Bill presented to Congress by Minnesota Senator Hubert Humphrey. A progressive measure fails to pass, but Congress declares a watered-down policy encouraging acceptance of humane slaughter methods.
1956: The ASPCA grants the James Hopkins Award to the maker of the Remington Humane Stunner, which renders animals senseless without causing injury or pain.
1957: The ASPCA is able to report on the country’s first humane slaughter law, which takes effect in 1960 and calls for slaughter that renders “animals insensible to pain by a single blow or gunshot or an electrical, chemical or other means that is rapid and effective before they are shackled, hoisted, thrown, cast or cut.”
1959: The ASPCA grants the Hopkins Award to the maker of the Thor stunner for rendering animals senseless without causing injury or pain.
1960: The Humane Slaughter Law takes effect, but does not include poultry under its protection.
1963: An ASPCA-patented holding pen, which eliminates the shackling and hoisting of farm animals, is promoted.
1964: A model holding pen to be used on steers, cows and bulls is patented by the ASPCA and offered to meat packers throughout the world, with no royalty or profit to the ASPCA. The pen, which holds animals in an upright position off the floor, in conformity with federal sanitary regulations, becomes the first device appropriate for kosher slaughter, and is endorsed by the Rabbinical Council of America. Prototypes of a small animal version are later tested at the Ohio State University College of Agriculture.
1987: The ASPCA chooses the veal calf as Animal of the Year, seeking to impress upon people that the individual choice to seek out humanely produced foods does make a difference.
1988: The ASPCA wins the International Film and TV Festival of New York Silver Apple Award for documenting factory farms in its 12-minute film, The Other Side of the Fence.
1990: The ASPCA sponsors a monograph on the presence of antibiotic residues in farm animals. The writing is authored by noted authority Jim Mason.
1991: The ASPCA co-sponsors Farm Animal Conference at the University of Maryland
1992: The ASPCA supports the introduction of The Downed Animal Protection Act in Congress. The act requires that downed animals, who are too sickly and weak to board transportation vehicles, be humanely euthanized, rather than pushed, shoved, prodded and bulldozed onto vehicles. The act would prohibit the sale of these animals and force farmers to market animals who are fit for transport.
1998: The ASPCA puts out its first issue of the Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science.
2003: ASPCA President, Ed Sayres, joins the board of directors for Humane Farm Animal Care; Dr. Stephen Zawistowski, Ph.D., ASPCA Executive Vice President, joins the Scientific Committee of the Certified Humane Raised and Handled® program.
2006: ASPCA gives Lifetime Achievement Award to Adele Douglass, founder of the Virginia-based nonprofit organization Humane Farm Animal Care, for her more than 25 years of advocacy for children and animals’ rights.
2007: The ASPCA awards a $400,000 grant to Humane Farm Animal Care to aid in its efforts to improve life for farm animals.
2008: The ASPCA awards $15,000 in grants to Humane Farm Animal Care.
2008: The ASPCA, along with other animal protection groups, lobbies successfully for the passage of California's Standards for Confining Farm Animals Act (otherwise known as Prop 2). Effective 2015, the act will ban the practice of confining veal calves, breeding pigs and laying hens in cages and crates so small that they cannot turn around, lie down, stand up or fully extend their limbs.
2009: The ASPCA awards $150,000 in grants to Humane Farm Animal Care.
2009: The ASPCA, along with other animal protection groups, lobbies successfully for the passage of CA SB 135 to ban the docking of dairy cows' tails in California.