Bill Wasik & Monica Murphy - Our Kindred Creatures
Joining me for this episode is author and editorial director of The New York Times Magazine, Bill Wasik and author and veterinarian Monica Murphy. We have a chat about their latest book, Our Kindred Creatures. The book provides readers with a fascinating and historical account of how Americans came to feel the way they do about animals – domestic, farm and wild animals. We also discuss how two authors can successfully team together to write such a detailed and historical book. Have a listen, learn and find out more about the history of how we view and treat animals in America. Enjoy!
Listen to Episode #214 Now:
BIO:
BILL WASIK is the editorial director of The New York Times Magazine. MONICA MURPHY is a veterinarian and a writer. Their previous book, Rabid: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus, was a Los Angeles Times best seller and a finalist for the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. They live in Brooklyn, New York.
Transcript:
00:00:02.140 --> 00:00:03.940
Announcer: This is Pet Life Radio.
00:00:03.940 --> 00:00:05.560
Announcer: Let's talk pets.
00:00:07.480 --> 00:00:11.120
Tim Link: Welcome to Animal Writes on Pet Life Radio.
00:00:11.120 --> 00:00:15.360
Tim Link: This is your host, Tim Link, and I'm so excited that you're joining in today.
00:00:15.360 --> 00:00:17.940
Tim Link: We've got a fantastic couple of authors.
00:00:17.940 --> 00:00:25.440
Tim Link: So it's always cool when we have a couple of authors who have joined together to create such a wonderful book and masterpiece here.
00:00:25.440 --> 00:00:37.700
Tim Link: Of course, we're talking about Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy, who's written the latest book, Our Kindred Creatures, how Americans can came to feel the way they do about the animals, about our animals.
00:00:37.700 --> 00:00:39.160
Tim Link: So it's always interesting.
00:00:39.300 --> 00:00:43.400
Tim Link: I was just born with it, I thought, but maybe there's more to it than that.
00:00:43.400 --> 00:00:50.200
Tim Link: So we'll talk to Bill and Monica a little bit about the book itself, and then we'll talk about the writing of the book and how easy that was, I'm sure.
00:00:50.200 --> 00:00:54.540
Tim Link: And yeah, learn a lot and have a lot of fun with it as well.
00:00:54.540 --> 00:00:55.480
Tim Link: So everybody hang tight.
00:00:55.480 --> 00:00:57.300
Tim Link: We'll come back right after this commercial break.
00:00:57.740 --> 00:01:01.380
Tim Link: You're listening to Animal Writes on Pet Life Radio.
00:01:02.940 --> 00:01:05.420
Announcer: Take a bite out of your competition.
00:01:05.420 --> 00:01:10.220
Announcer: Advertise your business with an ad in Pet Life Radio podcasts and radio shows.
00:01:10.220 --> 00:01:17.420
Announcer: There is no other pet-related media that is as large, and reaches more pet parents and pet lovers than Pet Life Radio.
00:01:17.420 --> 00:01:33.760
Announcer: With over 7 million monthly listeners, Pet Life Radio podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms, and our live radio stream goes out to over 250 million subscribers on iHeartRadio, Audacy, TuneIn, and other streaming apps.
00:01:33.760 --> 00:01:40.600
Announcer: For more information on how you can advertise on the number one pet podcast and radio network, visit petliferadio.com/advertise today.
00:01:44.880 --> 00:01:47.380
Announcer: Let's talk pets on petliferadio.com.
00:01:50.360 --> 00:01:53.100
Tim Link: Welcome back to Animal Writes on Pet Life Radio.
00:01:53.920 --> 00:02:01.820
Tim Link: Joining me now is the editorial director of The New York Times Magazine, Bill Wasik, and veterinarian and writer, Monica Murphy.
00:02:01.820 --> 00:02:09.420
Tim Link: Talk to us about the latest book, Our Kindred Creatures, How Americans Came to Feel the Way They Do About Animals.
00:02:09.420 --> 00:02:11.500
Tim Link: So Bill and Monica, welcome to the show.
00:02:11.500 --> 00:02:11.860
Bill Wasik: Hi there.
00:02:11.860 --> 00:02:12.660
Monica Murphy: Thank you.
00:02:12.660 --> 00:02:16.560
Tim Link: Yeah, excited to have you on here because it's obviously a very interesting topic.
00:02:16.560 --> 00:02:32.920
Tim Link: And I think when I first looked at them, like, I don't know how many people have actually stopped to think about how do we become such kindred spirits and human companions in some cases to animals in our domestic life as well as all the animals around us.
00:02:32.920 --> 00:02:36.720
Tim Link: So tell us a little bit about the book and how it came to be.
00:02:36.720 --> 00:02:46.060
Bill Wasik: Yeah, well, when we say how Americans came to feel the way they do about animals, we sort of mean the really contradictory attitudes that we have towards animals.
00:02:46.340 --> 00:02:51.300
Bill Wasik: So, you know, dogs and cats increasingly become sort of like members of the family.
00:02:51.300 --> 00:02:57.540
Bill Wasik: We've become, you know, in many cases very concerned about wildlife species, about conservation issues.
00:02:57.540 --> 00:03:14.320
Bill Wasik: And yet, then, of course, there are all these animals, especially food animals, that are sort of off there, kind of out in a shadow realm where we benefit from them and we use them, but we're often really not very aware of or concerned about their treatment.
00:03:14.760 --> 00:03:45.480
Bill Wasik: So, you know, I think what we saw during the period we write about, which is from essentially 1866 until the end of the 19th century, about three decades there, is that we really see the development of those, that complex of contradictory attitudes around animals, where you see the rise of pampered pet keeping, but you also see things like rise of medical research on animals, the rise of the industrial meat industry, even as you also have the rise of veterinary medicine, the rise of the early conservation movement.
00:03:45.480 --> 00:03:54.340
Bill Wasik: And we've tried to sort of braid those stories to make what we hope is a really compelling narrative of how American attitudes changed during that time.
00:03:54.340 --> 00:04:18.500
Tim Link: Yeah, and I thought it was fascinating in the book, many fascinating things about it, but one thing that was the sort of the chronological, or the historical history dating back to, like you said, 1866 to say present time, the real shift that we've seen in our domestic animals, and then also just how we treat animals for things like consumption, as well as research and testing.
00:04:18.500 --> 00:04:19.300
Monica Murphy: That's right.
00:04:19.300 --> 00:04:33.140
Monica Murphy: The beginning of this period, which was before the animal welfare movement, was here in America, or just as it was coming, animals were considered property.
00:04:33.140 --> 00:04:47.660
Monica Murphy: In some cases, they were considered companions, but sort of in any official sense, or any sort of mutually acknowledged sense across society, animals' feelings weren't really considered at all.
00:04:47.660 --> 00:04:54.340
Monica Murphy: So that impacted how humanely the horses who were freight around were treated.
00:04:54.340 --> 00:04:59.240
Monica Murphy: It impacted how sort of excess dogs and cats were treated.
00:04:59.260 --> 00:05:08.600
Monica Murphy: And it meant that the animals who contributed to the food we eat and so on, I mean, their well-being wasn't really considered at all.
00:05:09.400 --> 00:05:28.060
Monica Murphy: So a lot of the change we're documenting is very sort of welcome to modern sensibilities because it's the origin of the idea that even the animals who feed us or move our stuff around deserve to be treated with some degree of compassion, some basic, you know, humanity.
00:05:28.060 --> 00:05:34.140
Monica Murphy: And some amongst those animals, we sort of take into our homes to make part of our families.
00:05:34.140 --> 00:05:34.460
Tim Link: Right.
00:05:34.460 --> 00:05:36.080
Tim Link: And where do you see a shift?
00:05:36.180 --> 00:05:40.560
Tim Link: Was there a certain period of time that there was a drastic shift?
00:05:40.560 --> 00:05:51.120
Tim Link: Or did it come about more of just a series of organizations and groups looking at more of the, say, cruelty to animals, we'll say, or at least animal welfare?
00:05:51.120 --> 00:05:56.880
Tim Link: Was there a particular set of shifts or was this over a gradual period of years, hundreds of years?
00:05:56.880 --> 00:06:02.920
Bill Wasik: Well, you know, we're just focused, we're focused mostly on the 30 years right after the Civil War.
00:06:02.920 --> 00:06:05.820
Bill Wasik: You know, the arrival of these organizations.
00:06:05.940 --> 00:06:10.120
Bill Wasik: So, you know, most of your listeners will know the name, the ASPCA.
00:06:10.120 --> 00:06:14.980
Bill Wasik: When it originally started, it was the first animal welfare organization in the country.
00:06:14.980 --> 00:06:21.580
Bill Wasik: And even though it was called the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, it actually was just active in New York State.
00:06:21.580 --> 00:06:33.240
Bill Wasik: And the founder of that group, Henry Berg, went to Albany and passed a law to basically make it possible to for his own group to prosecute cases of cruelty to animals.
00:06:33.700 --> 00:06:47.880
Bill Wasik: And what we find is that when that group starts, and then a number of them start up all around the country to the point where even 10 years after that, you then have most of the country protected by these new groups and these new anti-cruelty laws, they really make a difference.
00:06:47.880 --> 00:06:52.440
Bill Wasik: Not just because they changed the laws, but also they really changed the norms.
00:06:52.620 --> 00:07:00.420
Bill Wasik: It used to be seen as you could sort of treat your horse the way you wanted to in the street and nobody would really judge you for it.
00:07:00.420 --> 00:07:08.400
Bill Wasik: And these organizations, it wasn't just prosecution, it was the fact that they kind of created the sense that, hey, you know, that's not okay anymore.
00:07:08.400 --> 00:07:16.560
Bill Wasik: And so, you know, in our, in the research that we've done, the changes can happen pretty fast.
00:07:16.560 --> 00:07:19.680
Bill Wasik: You know, some of the other changes that we've written about happen very slowly.
00:07:19.680 --> 00:07:29.340
Bill Wasik: So, for example, the rise of the industrial meat industry, you know, you start to see centralization with the stockyards happening right after the Civil War.
00:07:29.800 --> 00:07:42.260
Bill Wasik: And then, you start to see the rise of meatpacking, which allows for the animals not just to be, to all be raised in the middle of the country, but to also be slaughtered in the middle of the country, and their meat shipped by rail.
00:07:42.260 --> 00:08:06.440
Bill Wasik: And then, sort of, by the time you get to the end of this time period, you suddenly have a system where millions of animals are being raised, they're being slaughtered, their meat is being shipped, and it's all happening outside of kind of traditional human communities in these places where it's just an entire city basically devoted to raising and killing animals.
00:08:06.440 --> 00:08:17.220
Bill Wasik: And it's not to say that they were, you know, trying to be cruel to the animals, but it was just a very different way of thinking about how food animals were treated.
00:08:18.000 --> 00:08:30.040
Bill Wasik: And we do think that it had the consequence of kind of allowing some of our own kind of responsibility for how those animals were treated to kind of fall away because we now live in a world where they're all so far from us.
00:08:30.460 --> 00:08:36.900
Bill Wasik: So to answer your question, I think sometimes these things happen really relatively quickly and sometimes they happen very slowly and kind of subtly.
00:08:36.900 --> 00:08:37.360
Tim Link: Yeah.
00:08:37.360 --> 00:08:49.860
Tim Link: And looking back on it, you know, when we're talking even say a hundred years ago, I would say that when you look at, say, a farm, for instance, the life there was a central part of life.
00:08:49.860 --> 00:08:51.100
Tim Link: It was their living.
00:08:51.100 --> 00:08:55.580
Tim Link: And I would say that oftentimes the animals were treated with respect.
00:08:55.940 --> 00:09:08.140
Tim Link: And maybe more humanely, because, you know, a farmer may only have X number of cows or sheep or goats or whatever it may be, right there on site that they have to take care of on a daily basis.
00:09:08.140 --> 00:09:22.960
Tim Link: Where compared to what we've seen later in the years and presently, like you had mentioned, it seems to be more spread out and less per se, similar to where it was in the olden days, we'll say.
00:09:22.960 --> 00:09:24.120
Tim Link: Would that be a fair statement?
00:09:24.520 --> 00:09:25.160
Monica Murphy: I think so.
00:09:25.160 --> 00:09:39.820
Monica Murphy: I mean, a lot of the sort of before and after you described is really has to do with the phenomenon of urbanization, which is very much happening during the time period we research.
00:09:39.820 --> 00:09:55.360
Monica Murphy: And urbanization not only changes the way people were living with livestock, but also, interestingly, their reliance on horses because the cities were big economic centers, and there was a lot of movement of goods.
00:09:55.640 --> 00:10:06.300
Monica Murphy: And even as industrialization was creating new machines to power industry, there were horses bringing coal to fuel the machines.
00:10:06.300 --> 00:10:12.780
Monica Murphy: So there is a sort of before and after affecting livestock and other animals.
00:10:13.120 --> 00:10:16.600
Monica Murphy: And some animals are sort of at a greater remove.
00:10:16.600 --> 00:10:24.100
Monica Murphy: Some animals are closer because when you live in an apartment, you don't have a yard dog anymore.
00:10:24.100 --> 00:10:37.200
Monica Murphy: So I think that we examine these phenomena, sort of considering different kinds of animals in turn and the various ways the relationships are transformed.
00:10:37.340 --> 00:10:46.580
Monica Murphy: But this is all being informed at the time by also new beliefs about animals that more or less resemble a lot of the beliefs we have today.
00:10:46.580 --> 00:10:56.680
Tim Link: Do you feel the beliefs came about just through societal changes, or was it better access to information and awareness of the animals?
00:10:56.680 --> 00:10:59.580
Tim Link: How did you see that shift sort of start to really...
00:10:59.580 --> 00:11:04.760
Tim Link: Because the way I envision it is, as you said, early days, a lot of them were working animals.
00:11:04.940 --> 00:11:07.300
Tim Link: They weren't necessarily treated with respect.
00:11:07.300 --> 00:11:09.600
Tim Link: As a matter of fact, they weren't treated with respect.
00:11:09.600 --> 00:11:17.640
Tim Link: And then there seemed to be this shift, so I envision it like this giant boulder going down a hill, and it just picked up steam over and over.
00:11:17.640 --> 00:11:23.340
Tim Link: And almost like people realized, you know what, I always wanted to treat the animals with respect.
00:11:23.340 --> 00:11:24.640
Tim Link: I didn't think anybody else did.
00:11:24.640 --> 00:11:28.720
Tim Link: But now that I know there are others, it seems to be moving forward.
00:11:28.720 --> 00:11:41.360
Tim Link: So do you think it's more of because just society changes and infrastructure changes, or is it more of the access to more research and more people around you that may be more like-minded to take care of the animals?
00:11:41.360 --> 00:12:32.740
Monica Murphy: Well, I think it's largely a function of activism and the work of specific people who really got it about animals and brought a message to everybody using laws and the press and really just getting out there in the streets where people could see them, that animals experience cruelty and suffer and deserve to be treated in a decent way and that they brought this message home to many people across society and their tools we write about, I think, are kind of interesting because they really did, just as a lot of successful activists do now, love theatricality and really inviting public interest through controversy.
00:12:32.740 --> 00:12:39.820
Monica Murphy: And so it was not a process that sort of was happening on its own or with its own momentum.
00:12:39.820 --> 00:12:54.520
Monica Murphy: Although there was some of that once it got going, it really was activists like Henry Berg and George Angel and Carolyn Earl White who brought this idea to the United States and really put it in front of people's faces.
00:12:55.100 --> 00:13:04.140
Bill Wasik: One of the, just to piggyback on that, one of the stories that we tell in the book is about the novel Black Beauty, which lots of people read as children even today.
00:13:04.140 --> 00:13:15.280
Bill Wasik: And one of the remarkable stories from the book is that it was only 13 years after that book came out in England, that it really became a sort of mega bestseller around the world.
00:13:15.280 --> 00:13:31.340
Bill Wasik: And that was because George Angel, who was the head of the Massachusetts SPCA, started pirating the book basically and just printing tens of thousands of copies of it at a time, and selling them for relatively cheap, and really created a whole sensation around it.
00:13:31.340 --> 00:14:14.800
Bill Wasik: But coming back to your question, I think one of the reasons why Angel in particular was very focused on literature, is that there is just a way in which changing people's minds around the issue of animal cruelty is just about forcing them to reckon with the fact that animals must have like an internal experience of joy and suffering, which because they're not able to speak, it's possible sometimes to forget, especially if you're somebody who relies on your horse to make a living, it's possible to forget that if you're cruel to your horse, that the horse is going to feel that pain and suffering just as keenly as you would if someone were to beat you or whatever.
00:14:15.400 --> 00:14:22.960
Bill Wasik: And Black Beauty, because it was narrated by a horse narrator, was really seen as revolutionary at the time.
00:14:22.960 --> 00:14:27.060
Bill Wasik: There hadn't been a full length novel that had been narrated by an animal.
00:14:27.060 --> 00:14:48.920
Bill Wasik: And even though that seems kind of like old hat to us now, you look at the reviews where grown up readers were just very, very affected by this device of having a horse write a novel and explain the kind of joys and sorrows of being a working horse, who's forced to endure the cruelty of various owners.
00:14:48.920 --> 00:14:50.280
Bill Wasik: It really made an effect on people.
00:14:50.280 --> 00:15:02.540
Bill Wasik: And so I do think that that kind of simple golden rule, like really think about another creature and how they might like to be treated, I do think is a big engine of the change that happens during this time.
00:15:02.540 --> 00:15:02.900
Tim Link: Yeah.
00:15:02.900 --> 00:15:14.440
Tim Link: So in the hotel of the test of times, the novel obviously, like you mentioned, it still holds true today, it still holds attention today, and everybody is least somewhat aware of the story.
00:15:14.440 --> 00:15:21.700
Tim Link: And if they're not fully aware, go back and read it, because it's available, it's still be able to read through and take in and absorb the message.
00:15:21.700 --> 00:15:27.740
Tim Link: And I think a lot of books nowadays, a lot of novels have some framework built around that particular book.
00:15:27.740 --> 00:15:28.780
Bill Wasik: Yeah, I think that's right.
00:15:28.780 --> 00:15:34.260
Tim Link: So let's talk about briefly, I don't want to get too much into activism, but it's obviously a key part of the book.
00:15:34.400 --> 00:15:43.060
Tim Link: And as you mentioned, sort of a steamrolling, this theme forward, as I continued to mention, either by individuals or through organizations.
00:15:43.060 --> 00:15:45.780
Tim Link: We're obviously big believers in animal rescue here.
00:15:45.780 --> 00:15:48.780
Tim Link: And I'm a former president of a humane society.
00:15:48.780 --> 00:15:51.600
Tim Link: So I understand that part of it.
00:15:51.600 --> 00:16:09.620
Tim Link: But one of the things I see happening, at least from my point of view in today's society here in America, is the plus side is we have a lot of organizations focusing on all types of different animals and wanting to support them and educate and obviously raise funds to further their cause.
00:16:09.620 --> 00:16:14.280
Tim Link: The flip side of that is the fact that there are so many.
00:16:14.280 --> 00:16:17.380
Tim Link: So the plus side is there's so many, and the downside is there's so many.
00:16:17.380 --> 00:16:19.640
Tim Link: It could be overwhelming to individuals.
00:16:19.680 --> 00:16:40.580
Tim Link: I know, do I go and donate my time and my tether, my funds to a large organization that has a lot of pool like the SPCA or Best Friends Society, whatever it may be, or do I look more into grassroots and look for something in my own backyard, maybe even something smaller that I can get involved in?
00:16:40.580 --> 00:16:58.920
Tim Link: Do either of you have an impression on what is best, what is good, what is great about having a plethora or what perhaps we need to have a better focus on in order to continue to educate and get Americans involved with animal, whether it be rescue or just understanding the animals better?
00:16:58.920 --> 00:17:17.780
Monica Murphy: Well, I work for a small rescue, and I think that for most people, the best way in to an issue you care about is to find something sort of local and human-scale so that your efforts and the money you can donate really mean something.
00:17:18.200 --> 00:17:28.040
Monica Murphy: But at the origins of the animal welfare movement, we are talking about pretty big state-level organizations, and there weren't a lot of choices, at least within a state.
00:17:28.040 --> 00:17:45.200
Monica Murphy: So I think those organizations and sort of what they were able to accomplish speak to the power of big organizations and sort of their ability to change laws and policy and social norms.
00:17:45.200 --> 00:17:46.200
Tim Link: That makes sense.
00:17:46.200 --> 00:17:46.300
Tim Link: Yeah.
00:17:46.460 --> 00:17:56.200
Tim Link: That's sort of been my philosophy on all this, because I will admit, when I first got involved with Animal Rescue many, many, many moons ago, it was sort of toe in the water.
00:17:56.200 --> 00:18:00.740
Tim Link: Donate some money, donate some items, and then you go there and donate a little bit of time.
00:18:00.760 --> 00:18:12.460
Tim Link: Then the next thing you know, whatever your skill set is, whether it's sales or writing for grants or anything of this sort, which I've done plenty of those, do that and then later actually run the organization.
00:18:12.460 --> 00:18:27.660
Tim Link: What I have found was, for me at least, was the grassroots is a way to get actively involved and make impact in your community as well as in your state, because there are state laws and state things that whether it's anti-tethering laws or dogfighting laws, whatever it may be.
00:18:27.660 --> 00:18:39.540
Tim Link: And then also support where you can, the larger organizations which have a little bit more pull and a little bit more might behind them and maybe a little bit more attention to get something done on a broader scale.
00:18:40.060 --> 00:18:40.720
Tim Link: Yeah.
00:18:40.720 --> 00:18:46.540
Bill Wasik: It's interesting to sort of reflect on how, I mean, we don't write at all about present day activism.
00:18:46.540 --> 00:18:54.640
Bill Wasik: You know, all of the issues that we write about in the book are still, to some degree, are other live issues.
00:18:54.640 --> 00:18:59.080
Bill Wasik: And they also like tend to connect to issues that go beyond animals, you know.
00:18:59.080 --> 00:19:14.940
Bill Wasik: So conservation is a great example of, you know, where there's all this vital work being done that's about protecting animals, but also is about, you know, other urgent, other urgent issues that are happening, you know, again, both nationally and locally around the environment.
00:19:14.940 --> 00:19:38.680
Bill Wasik: And I think that partly why, to me, the sense that you want there to be sort of a riot of organization, the past work of organization, some of them local, some of them, you know, national or global, is that it's really difficult, I think, for people to, for, you know, one organization's leadership to really see the challenges at sort of every level.
00:19:38.680 --> 00:19:43.520
Bill Wasik: And I think that there's a real value in having that kind of multiplicity of approaches.
00:19:43.520 --> 00:19:44.260
Tim Link: I would agree.
00:19:44.260 --> 00:19:45.100
Tim Link: That's perfect.
00:19:45.100 --> 00:19:58.960
Tim Link: All right, well, we're going to take a quick commercial break, come back and continue our conversation with authors Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy, about their book, Our Kindred Creatures, how Americans came to feel the way they do about the animals.
00:19:58.960 --> 00:20:01.460
Tim Link: And we'll talk to them a little bit about the writing of the book as well.
00:20:01.460 --> 00:20:02.380
Tim Link: So everybody hang tight.
00:20:02.380 --> 00:20:04.620
Tim Link: We'll come back right for this commercial break.
00:20:04.620 --> 00:20:07.760
Tim Link: You're listening to Animal Writes on Pet Life Radio.
00:20:12.240 --> 00:20:18.600
Tim Link: Hi, this is Tim Link, animal communicator and pet expert and host of Animal Writes on Pet Life Radio.
00:20:18.600 --> 00:20:21.380
Tim Link: Have you ever wanted to know what your pet is really thinking?
00:20:21.380 --> 00:20:24.560
Tim Link: Do you want to find out if they truly understand what you're trying to tell them?
00:20:24.560 --> 00:20:28.200
Tim Link: Or wish you could build a better understanding and closer relationship with your pet?
00:20:28.200 --> 00:20:29.140
Tim Link: Well, now you can.
00:20:29.460 --> 00:20:33.100
Tim Link: Learning to communicate with animals is a four-part on-demand workshop.
00:20:33.100 --> 00:20:51.060
Tim Link: In the workshop, you'll learn the essential techniques that are necessary to communicate with animals, including what is animal communication, breathing correctly to achieve the perfect state to communicate with your animals at a deeper level, using guided meditation exercises and method to communicate with animals, and how to send and receive information from your animals.
00:20:51.060 --> 00:21:01.400
Tim Link: So if you're wanting to learn how to communicate and connect with your animals at a deeper level, visit petliferadio.com/workshop and purchase and download Learning to Communicate with Animals.
00:21:01.400 --> 00:21:02.260
Tim Link: You'll be glad you did.
00:21:17.055 --> 00:21:19.615
Tim Link: Welcome back to Animal Writes on PetLife Radio.
00:21:20.415 --> 00:21:29.875
Tim Link: To our conversation with authors Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy, their latest book, Our Kindred Creatures, How Americans Came to Feel the Way They Do About Animals.
00:21:29.875 --> 00:21:43.015
Tim Link: So Bill and Monica, we talked a little bit about the history behind it and delving into it, and there's so much great history, and really, to me, it forms the cornerstone of what is happening today and moving forward.
00:21:43.015 --> 00:21:45.375
Tim Link: Talk a little bit about the writing of the book.
00:21:45.655 --> 00:21:50.955
Tim Link: Where did you, the flagstone I put there, the flag in the ground was 1866.
00:21:50.955 --> 00:21:53.595
Tim Link: How did you come about choosing that as a start date?
00:21:53.595 --> 00:21:59.575
Tim Link: And then tell us a little bit about just formulating the book, because there's just obviously tons and tons of research that went into this.
00:22:00.035 --> 00:22:00.195
Monica Murphy: Sure.
00:22:00.195 --> 00:22:08.735
Monica Murphy: Well, we wrote another book about rabies back in 2012, Rabid, Culture, History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus.
00:22:08.755 --> 00:22:20.635
Monica Murphy: And that book went back to ancient times all the way up to the present day, talking about the disease rabies and impacts it's had on humans and animals.
00:22:20.635 --> 00:22:25.235
Monica Murphy: And we discovered that we loved researching history.
00:22:25.655 --> 00:22:45.835
Monica Murphy: And in particular, we found the 19th century really, really rich and interesting, like close enough to seem relevant in critical ways to right now, but also just, you know, weird in ways that really fascinate us from, from sort of today's sensibilities.
00:22:45.835 --> 00:22:49.755
Monica Murphy: And so we were brainstorming ideas for our next book.
00:22:49.755 --> 00:22:57.355
Monica Murphy: And we went through a few iterations at first that became part of this book, but didn't end up being an entire book by themselves.
00:22:57.355 --> 00:23:00.255
Monica Murphy: For example, writing about PT.
00:23:00.255 --> 00:23:07.235
Monica Murphy: Barnum and writing about history of veterinary medicine and the forceful of 1872, which shut down America.
00:23:07.235 --> 00:23:09.975
Monica Murphy: So these things became sort of episodes in our history.
00:23:09.975 --> 00:23:16.735
Monica Murphy: But ultimately, we arrived at sort of a grander project that encompassed those and a whole bunch more.
00:23:16.735 --> 00:23:19.435
Monica Murphy: And Bill can tell you how we ended up beginning with 1866.
00:23:20.455 --> 00:23:20.655
Monica Murphy: Yeah.
00:23:20.655 --> 00:23:33.755
Bill Wasik: Well, you know, 1866 is when Henry Byrd comes back from Europe, where he was a diplomat in the Lincoln administration, and found the ASPCA.
00:23:33.755 --> 00:23:41.295
Bill Wasik: And the ideas behind the animal welfare movement were they weren't, they didn't originate in the United States.
00:23:41.295 --> 00:23:46.635
Bill Wasik: They really started in England, like so many of the sort of humanitarian movements did.
00:23:46.635 --> 00:24:00.315
Bill Wasik: But one of the things that we realized, the more that we researched was that we could really locate in this time period, you know, so many of the different shifts that were crucial to sort of how our attitude towards animals have changed.
00:24:00.315 --> 00:24:16.295
Bill Wasik: And so, yeah, the more we got into the structure of it, the more we realized, well, it wasn't just about Bird or even just about the activists, but that it was going to be about sort of all of these different shifts and trying to to sort of show how they fit together.
00:24:16.935 --> 00:24:29.815
Bill Wasik: And so the book is really constructed where there is a lot about the activists, but we're really showing how their work intersected with all of these other economic shifts and political and cultural shifts, et cetera.
00:24:29.815 --> 00:25:00.235
Monica Murphy: And I think also one thing we found real enjoyment in was, to whatever extent we could, writing about the animals themselves, which it is a challenging exercise and takes some imagination sometimes, but to really not just recount what the humans were doing during all this, but what the experience of a circus elephant or a beefsteer was like, and trying to get inside that a little bit.
00:25:00.235 --> 00:25:00.395
Bill Wasik: Yeah.
00:25:00.395 --> 00:25:05.715
Tim Link: And I thought that was fascinating about the book, and I probably didn't highlight that enough because we're talking about animals in here.
00:25:06.155 --> 00:25:10.555
Tim Link: We're talking about America and how this came to be, but animals as a whole.
00:25:10.555 --> 00:25:17.135
Tim Link: And I briefly touched upon there's so many different organizations doing great work for a plethora of different types of animals.
00:25:17.135 --> 00:25:25.715
Tim Link: But I love the fact in the book that you did pick some things that we don't often stop, at least as Americans, we don't often stop and think about.
00:25:25.715 --> 00:25:36.515
Tim Link: We love elephants, but do we actually stop and think and learn the history of how they were treated compared to how they are today, especially when we're talking about the era of PT.
00:25:36.515 --> 00:25:37.035
Tim Link: Parnum.
00:25:37.035 --> 00:25:40.215
Tim Link: Perhaps some people know that history a little bit.
00:25:40.215 --> 00:25:46.075
Tim Link: Maybe they know it from the musical and the movie that was out not too long ago.
00:25:46.075 --> 00:25:48.395
Tim Link: But they don't stop to think about it.
00:25:48.395 --> 00:25:55.995
Tim Link: Even when we're talking about American zoos, some people have strong opinions one way or another on American zoos.
00:25:55.995 --> 00:26:01.155
Tim Link: But the book really focuses on particular animals and how they were treated and how they're treated today.
00:26:01.395 --> 00:26:03.215
Tim Link: I think you guys did a great job on that.
00:26:03.215 --> 00:26:04.175
Tim Link: Thanks.
00:26:04.175 --> 00:26:09.575
Tim Link: Tell me about, you're sitting there, and this is what I call a meaty book.
00:26:09.575 --> 00:26:13.815
Tim Link: It's got 400 some pages, a lot of notes, a lot of credits.
00:26:13.815 --> 00:26:18.215
Tim Link: Obviously, the research as I mentioned to it, how do you start weeding through it?
00:26:18.215 --> 00:26:24.815
Tim Link: Because in my minds, I at least envision, Bill, we've got 1,200 chapters or 1,200 pages here.
00:26:24.815 --> 00:26:26.375
Tim Link: I should say 1,200 pages.
00:26:26.375 --> 00:26:31.415
Tim Link: How do we whittle that down and focus at a little bit more and without leaving out any of the good bits?
00:26:31.415 --> 00:26:37.095
Tim Link: Or do we save some of the good bits for the next book about maybe one specifically about PT.
00:26:37.095 --> 00:26:39.115
Tim Link: Barnum or Henry Burke?
00:26:39.115 --> 00:26:44.415
Bill Wasik: No, I mean, it was more that we kind of built it up from the different threads.
00:26:44.415 --> 00:26:51.875
Bill Wasik: I mean, we knew we wanted this story to be about, at least in part, about the animal activism during this time period.
00:26:51.875 --> 00:26:54.695
Bill Wasik: And we wanted it also to represent the arc of PT.
00:26:54.695 --> 00:26:58.095
Bill Wasik: Barnum and his animal exhibits during this time period.
00:26:58.615 --> 00:27:05.735
Bill Wasik: We started researching the history of medical, medical experimentation on animals, et cetera, et cetera.
00:27:05.735 --> 00:27:31.275
Bill Wasik: And so, really, the way we conceived it was, it's in two parts, and we're generally speaking, each of these threads, other than the activism, which is kind of touches on most of the chapters, a lot of the threads sort of have like one chapter in the first part and one chapter in the second part that kind of represent basically kind of the first part of our period and the second part of the period.
00:27:31.275 --> 00:27:43.575
Bill Wasik: So the feeling is that by checking in on some of these issues, it's sort of two different times at two different moments in history, you get a sense of an arc of sort of things in motion during, around each of these issues.
00:27:43.575 --> 00:27:48.015
Tim Link: So writing together, obviously, how do you divide those tasks up?
00:27:48.015 --> 00:27:49.755
Tim Link: Is it rock, paper, scissors?
00:27:49.775 --> 00:27:53.335
Tim Link: Is it drawing the short straw?
00:27:53.335 --> 00:27:59.015
Tim Link: How do you decide, or is there certain passion or expertise that you guys focused on to put this together?
00:27:59.015 --> 00:28:05.775
Monica Murphy: So with the first book, and perhaps I guess I realize we haven't mentioned yet that Bill and I are married.
00:28:05.775 --> 00:28:13.915
Monica Murphy: So this is a partnership that goes beyond our writing partnership and we have to be nice to each other as writers, as co-authors.
00:28:13.915 --> 00:28:17.975
Tim Link: Yeah, it's a different set of challenges, pluses and minuses, I understand that.
00:28:17.975 --> 00:28:28.895
Monica Murphy: But with our first book, we very much sort of started with the writing about the things that were sort of played to our natural strengths.
00:28:28.895 --> 00:28:37.435
Monica Murphy: So because I'm a veterinarian, I wrote when we were writing about rabies, about sort of contemporary medical treatment of rabies.
00:28:37.435 --> 00:28:40.155
Monica Murphy: I wrote about the history of vaccine development.
00:28:40.155 --> 00:28:45.755
Monica Murphy: Bill wrote about vampires and cultural phenomena and other things.
00:28:46.095 --> 00:28:51.895
Monica Murphy: But our starting point was to sort of work with the subjects which we were most knowledgeable about.
00:28:52.715 --> 00:28:56.555
Monica Murphy: With this book, we didn't do that necessarily.
00:28:56.955 --> 00:28:58.675
Monica Murphy: We more followed our interests.
00:28:58.675 --> 00:29:04.535
Monica Murphy: And so Bill ended up writing more about medical research, and I wrote about PT Barnum.
00:29:04.555 --> 00:29:11.075
Monica Murphy: And no matter sort of who starts what, we do end up swapping work back and forth quite a lot.
00:29:11.075 --> 00:29:27.095
Monica Murphy: In fact, in this book, much more so than with our previous one, rather than tackling entire chapters individually before sort of handing them off back and forth, we would sort of request or assign pieces of the chapters that we were individually leading up.
00:29:27.095 --> 00:29:41.635
Monica Murphy: For example, if I were writing about the chapter about veterinarians and rabies, I asked Bill to write some about pet keeping and history of dog shows, or we would both throw it out.
00:29:41.635 --> 00:29:46.195
Monica Murphy: It gets a little mixed up after a while, because we're so passing things back and forth and back and forth.
00:29:46.195 --> 00:30:00.915
Monica Murphy: But hopefully ends up quite seamless, because by the time it reaches the reader, we've edited one another multiple times and move things around, inserted pieces into our partner sections.
00:30:01.355 --> 00:30:08.455
Monica Murphy: And so at this point, it feels like a real combination of our efforts, sentence by sentence.
00:30:08.455 --> 00:30:08.815
Tim Link: Yeah.
00:30:08.815 --> 00:30:09.955
Tim Link: Well, that's fascinating.
00:30:09.955 --> 00:30:11.215
Tim Link: Monica, I thought that was fascinating.
00:30:11.215 --> 00:30:21.115
Tim Link: Also, you said you picked what your interest is, which I would say, okay, it's got to be something to do with medical sciences, veterinarian sciences, but no, you picked PT.
00:30:21.115 --> 00:30:21.975
Tim Link: Barnum.
00:30:21.975 --> 00:30:24.415
Monica Murphy: Yeah.
00:30:24.415 --> 00:30:26.395
Tim Link: Which I thought was great too.
00:30:26.395 --> 00:30:26.635
Monica Murphy: Yeah.
00:30:26.635 --> 00:30:28.795
Monica Murphy: I mean, I also picked the veterinarian chapters.
00:30:28.795 --> 00:30:31.715
Monica Murphy: But yeah, I think it's nice to mix it up.
00:30:31.715 --> 00:30:40.215
Monica Murphy: And I definitely, through writing these books, have developed a real enjoyment of writing more biographical passages.
00:30:40.215 --> 00:30:43.855
Monica Murphy: And there's a lot more of that in this book than there was in our baby's book.
00:30:44.135 --> 00:30:49.315
Monica Murphy: But I don't know what straints Bill has discovered along the way.
00:30:49.695 --> 00:30:53.935
Monica Murphy: He's pretty good at writing, which was that.
00:30:53.935 --> 00:30:57.895
Bill Wasik: You know, the stuff about the medical research.
00:30:57.895 --> 00:31:03.555
Bill Wasik: I think back when we did the book on about rabies, I would have been a little bit wary of taking that on.
00:31:03.555 --> 00:31:06.535
Bill Wasik: I would have worried about it feeling too technical or something.
00:31:06.535 --> 00:31:12.475
Bill Wasik: But it was actually a real pleasure to get into the kind of, these were physiological researchers.
00:31:12.575 --> 00:31:21.875
Bill Wasik: And it's really interesting to sort of throw your mind back to a time where medicine didn't really understand how the human body worked.
00:31:21.875 --> 00:31:26.255
Bill Wasik: And part of how they learned about it was through experiments on animals.
00:31:26.255 --> 00:31:30.395
Bill Wasik: I also really gravitate to sort of difficult moral questions.
00:31:30.395 --> 00:31:45.595
Bill Wasik: And I feel like that one of the things that that research really gets into is that, you know, it's nice to think from the present day that these painful experiments on animals weren't discovering anything.
00:31:45.595 --> 00:31:47.635
Bill Wasik: But in reality, they were.
00:31:47.635 --> 00:31:54.175
Bill Wasik: And the question of like, well, was that worth it or not is a difficult question to answer.
00:31:54.175 --> 00:31:55.835
Bill Wasik: It does sort of form.
00:31:55.835 --> 00:32:02.155
Bill Wasik: And I think that that question is still one of those like very, you know, contentious questions today.
00:32:02.155 --> 00:32:16.135
Bill Wasik: And even people who see themselves as animal advocates don't necessarily, I mean, I think we can all, we can all agree that there are certain experiments that people are doing on animals that are just, that are beyond the pale.
00:32:16.135 --> 00:32:21.535
Bill Wasik: But the question of where to draw that line is one that's still, I think, a really interesting question.
00:32:21.535 --> 00:32:21.855
Tim Link: Yeah.
00:32:21.855 --> 00:32:23.315
Tim Link: And I would agree with that wholeheartedly.
00:32:23.315 --> 00:32:35.855
Tim Link: And I love how the book was structured and the fact that you're given a, you know, history behind it up till today, without necessarily taking sides or letting your own personal opinions get into it.
00:32:35.855 --> 00:32:42.355
Tim Link: It's something where someone could read through the book and sort of learn a little bit about, okay, what did happen in the past?
00:32:42.355 --> 00:32:43.735
Tim Link: What are we doing now?
00:32:43.735 --> 00:32:49.375
Tim Link: And then they can formulate their own opinions because, you know, we're not here to sway them one way or another.
00:32:49.375 --> 00:32:51.295
Tim Link: At least you're not doing that in this book.
00:32:51.295 --> 00:32:51.495
Bill Wasik: Yeah.
00:32:51.495 --> 00:32:52.235
Bill Wasik: Well, thank you.
00:32:52.235 --> 00:32:54.195
Bill Wasik: We definitely tried for that.
00:32:54.195 --> 00:33:11.715
Tim Link: So Bill, Monica, when everybody picks up a copy of Our Kindred Creatures, How Americans Came to Feel, The Way They Do About Their Animals, when they read through it, is there a main takeaway or is there a general message you want to leave out there that you hope at the end of the day they get and you're like, ah, good, I did my job?
00:33:11.715 --> 00:33:12.495
Bill Wasik: Yeah.
00:33:12.495 --> 00:33:28.095
Monica Murphy: I mean, I think perhaps more than one, but I think it's a pretty optimistic book because we document how change can happen relatively fast, when the world is ready for it.
00:33:28.095 --> 00:33:34.135
Monica Murphy: Not everyone was ready for the animal welfare movement and all the changes that came with it, but they got it done.
00:33:34.455 --> 00:33:42.755
Monica Murphy: They really made a difference in their time, and we really still are seeing the benefits of what they accomplished now.
00:33:42.755 --> 00:33:47.135
Monica Murphy: So I think that's a big part of what I hope everyone will take away.
00:33:47.135 --> 00:33:47.935
Tim Link: Yeah, absolutely.
00:33:47.935 --> 00:33:50.235
Tim Link: And I think the book does a great job of that.
00:33:50.255 --> 00:33:55.675
Tim Link: And to me, it gives me some historical measure to go by.
00:33:55.675 --> 00:33:59.695
Tim Link: It also gave me some modern day where we're at, how things came about.
00:33:59.695 --> 00:34:08.055
Tim Link: Because truthfully, I don't think a lot of people actually knew organizations like ASPCA, how that was formulated and why it happened, these types of things.
00:34:08.055 --> 00:34:10.895
Tim Link: So I think the book gives a good view of that.
00:34:10.895 --> 00:34:13.435
Tim Link: And to me, it gets me thinking even more.
00:34:13.435 --> 00:34:18.895
Tim Link: So that's always a good thing to think about better ways to handle things with the animals.
00:34:18.895 --> 00:34:19.755
Bill Wasik: We agree.
00:34:19.755 --> 00:34:20.015
Tim Link: Yeah.
00:34:20.015 --> 00:34:20.655
Bill Wasik: Yeah.
00:34:20.655 --> 00:34:22.235
Bill Wasik: Well, thanks so much for talking to us about it.
00:34:22.235 --> 00:34:23.575
Tim Link: Well, our pleasure, our pleasure.
00:34:23.575 --> 00:34:24.815
Tim Link: So everybody pick up a copy of the book.
00:34:24.815 --> 00:34:29.675
Tim Link: It's Our Kindred Creatures, How Americans Came to Feel the Way They Do About Their Animals.
00:34:30.055 --> 00:34:32.155
Tim Link: Authors, Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy.
00:34:32.155 --> 00:34:34.755
Tim Link: Bill, Monica, thank you so much for coming on the show.
00:34:34.755 --> 00:34:36.735
Tim Link: Great job with the book as always.
00:34:36.735 --> 00:34:40.995
Tim Link: And I'll be looking for another chat with the two of you somewhere down the road.
00:34:40.995 --> 00:34:42.335
Monica Murphy: Thanks so much.
00:34:42.335 --> 00:34:43.955
Tim Link: Well, we're coming to the end of the show today.
00:34:43.955 --> 00:34:47.675
Tim Link: I want to thank everyone for listening to Animal Writes on Pet Life Radio.
00:34:47.695 --> 00:34:51.735
Tim Link: I want to thank the producers and sponsors for making this show possible.
00:34:51.735 --> 00:34:56.815
Tim Link: If you have any questions, ideas or comments for the show, you can reach us at petliferadio.com.
00:34:57.695 --> 00:35:02.655
Tim Link: I'm glad to answer your questions, entertain your comments and bring on the people you want to hear from most.
00:35:02.655 --> 00:35:06.075
Tim Link: While you're there, check out all the other wonderful shows and hosts.
00:35:06.075 --> 00:35:09.755
Tim Link: It's a cornucopia of animal fun and education.
00:35:09.755 --> 00:35:11.695
Tim Link: So that's at petliferadio.com.
00:35:11.695 --> 00:35:19.175
Tim Link: So until next time, write a great story about the animals in your life, and who knows, you may be the next guest on Animal Writes at Life Radio.
00:35:19.175 --> 00:35:19.695
Tim Link: Have a great day.
00:35:20.495 --> 00:35:26.435
Announcer: Let's Talk Pets, every week on demand, only on petliferadio.com.