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ISBN 978-0-8078-2990-5

Published: Spring 2006

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Copyright (c) 2006 by the University of North Carolina Press. All rights reserved.



A Conversation with Katherine C. Grier Author of Pets in America: A History

Q: How did you become interested in this topic? Have animals always been a part of your life?
A: I'm a historian who studies everyday life, especially the routines and rhythms of life at home. And, like all my work, my decision to research the history of pet keeping in America grew out of my own life. Family stories revealed that members of my family have been involved in pets for at least a hundred years. As a pet lover myself, I wondered what motivated people like me in the past.

Animals have always been part of my life. Apparently my first word was "kitty," which tells you something about my family, too!

Q: Why do pet owners want animals in their homes? What's gained by their presence?
A: My research suggests that Americans have chosen to keep pets for a variety of reasons. Those reasons suggest what they gained from the presence of animals at home.

Most Americans who kept pets did so for the amusement their behavior provided and for the pleasure of their company. Some pets, such as cats, continued to be household workers as well as companions. Sometimes rare pets—purebred dogs or exotic birds and animals—were symbols of their owners' wealth and status. Some pet animals were sources of fascination or education; the range of small animals kept in early aquaria is a good example of this. Some small animals—rabbits, white mice, guinea pigs and the like—were considered good playmates for children, who were also expected to learn responsibility from caring for them.

I would venture to guess that American pet owners operate with the same range of motives today. Pet keeping seems simple on the surface, but it's actually quite a complicated activity.

Q: Did our preferences for pets change over time?
A: They have changed, and in some interesting ways. One of the most significant changes has been in the relative decline in the popularity of caged birds. For hundreds of years, Americans were enthusiastic keepers of all kinds of birds, including many species of North American songbirds. The reason for this is—birds were the radios of their day! They were company for housewives, shut–ins, and others who had to stay home. Eventually, the increasing popularity of the radio, and in time television, led to less interest in keeping songbirds.

Here's another, relatively recent change: the increasing popularity of reptiles in the last several decades. Nineteenth–century Americans rarely, if ever, thought of keeping snakes or large lizards in their houses!

Q: When did modern pet shops appear? How do they differ from modern purveyors of pet supplies?
A: In the 1700s and early 1800s, the trade in pet animals was informal. Americans usually could buy caged birds and small animals in city markets, but many probably received them from neighbors. By the 1840s, "bird stores" that sold both American songbirds and canaries imported from Europe began to appear in large cities. By the 1890s, pet stores that offered a wide range of supplies as well as many kinds of small animals were common.

Modern pet stores differ from these early shops in degree, but the basic array of products sold for pets today is remarkably similar to the inventory found in pet shops in the early 1900s. Some of the animals commonly offered for sale are relatively new: tropical fish were first offered for sale in neighborhood pet stores in the 1920s. Hamsters appeared for sale in the 1950s.

Q: When did Americans start to use special products for their pets? Which animals were the first to benefit from commercial pet foods?
A: Some of the equipment associated with pet keeping–cages and collars, for example—has been in existence for thousands of years. In the 1700s and early 1800s, Americans made their own cages and collars or purchased them from local craftspeople. Some fancy items were imported from Europe. By the late 1800s, companies that made other kinds of products also made pet equipment and wholesaled it to pet stores. For example, the companies that made wire carpet beaters and whisks for cooking also made wire bird cages. A handful of companies also began to specialize in making pet equipment and supplies.

Pet food is another interesting story. By the 1840s, bird stores sold seed, dried insects, and other special foods that were prepared and bottled by the proprietors. Commercial dog food—biscuits that were much like the "hard tack" soldiers ate—was sold in this country by the 1870s. It was expensive and was used mostly by dog breeders. Until the 1930s, most American dogs and cats ate what their owners ate, as well as what they could hunt up for themselves.

Q: Caring for pets has long been a part of childhood. What motivates parents to provide pets for their children?
A: Small animals were often an outlet for play for American children at a time when most had few store–bought playthings. By the early 1800s, however, some progressive parents began to accept the proposition that pets were a way to teach children to be kind to all living beings. This idea was widely accepted by the late nineteenth century, and it was one factor that led to the expansion of pet keeping.

Parents today often had pets of their own, and they may have them now. They want to reproduce the pleasant experiences of their own childhoods with their kids today. Also, children are naturally fascinated by animals. Developmental psychologists have shown that contact with animals and watching animals helps children to understand fundamental concepts like "agency," the ability to act in the world.

Q: Many of the items featured in your book and in the exhibition "Pets in America" come from your own collection. When did you start acquiring these artifacts? Are there particular objects that you have heard about but not yet found examples of?
A: I've been purchasing published materials and artifacts associated with pet keeping almost as long as I have been doing research on the subject. I didn't mean to become a collector of the history of pet keeping!

When I began to work on this project, I figured out that there were lots of published materials on pets—inexpensive booklets on pet care, magazines, and so on—that were not collected in any library. I needed these materials to write the story, and I started to look for them.

When I study the history of everyday life, I work with the artifacts that ordinary people made and used. Artifacts are the traces of past ideas and behavior that sometimes can't be recovered any other way; people don't often talk about the ordinary things they do. So, from the beginning of the research, I was also on the lookout for artifacts associated with pet keeping.

I found some things in museum collections—beautiful bird cages have been collected as antiques for a long time—but I knew from my own experience as a pet owner that there were lots of other objects to be discovered, collected, and added to the story that I wanted to tell. I went looking for them, and the hunt has been a lot of fun.

I've found one of just about everything I looked for. The problem has been that I don't have the cash to purchase everything I find! However, I discovered that there were wonderful collectors out there—of bird cages, aquarium ornaments and equipment, and veterinary medicines—and they have been very generous in sharing their treasures for my research and the exhibition.

Q: In the aftermath of the Katrina disaster, many evacuees refused to abandon their pets, and others devoted days and weeks to searching for their lost animals. What lessons do you think America needs to learn from this tragic situation?
A: Well, the most obvious lesson from the situation is that some Americans value their animal companions to the extent that they are willing to risk their own lives. This says something important about the bond between people and their pets: people think of animals as part of their families and members of their communities.

Second, disaster planning needs to include better planning for pet animals. This is not only because people traumatized by disaster suffer even more when they lose their animal companions, but because the animals themselves require and deserve care and attention. Evacuation plans should also include setting up temporary animal shelters where people can check in their pets, and where they can visit their animals.

Q: Have pets always been named—and what's in a name?
A: My research suggests that most pets have been given names. Many times pet names have been simple and functional—Puss for a cat, or Whitie for a white rabbit, for example. Sometimes names said something about the nature of the pet, as when a dog was named Bounce or Rover. But I also discovered a real sense of play and fun in pet naming, and it is surprising how far back it goes. I've found dogs named Juliet and Chloe in the 1700s!

Q: Aquariums seem so common today, but they were once a novelty. When did the home aquarium become popular?
A: I'm still not sure when goldfish arrived in America, but I found one example of a florist selling them in the 1830s, which told me something about their status as a parlor ornament. Well–to–do Americans often kept a single goldfish in a globe. In the 1850s, the concept of the "balanced aquarium" was introduced. The idea was that a natural history buff would create a community of plants and animals that was self–sustaining. Aquaria became quite a fad by the late 1860s.

The next time that aquaria really captured peoples' imaginations was when tropical fish were introduced. Wealthy men had been importing and raising tropical fish since the early 1900s, but they arrived in pet stores in the late 1920s and really became the rage. By that time, small electric heaters and air pumps began to appear in pet stores, which made caring for them easier.

Q: The book Pets in America accompanies an exhibition of the same name that recently opened at the McKissick Museum in South Carolina. What has been the response to the exhibition so far? What do you think will surprise visitors the most?
A: The response to this project has been wonderful right from the beginning. As I did the research, I heard hundreds of stories about people and their pets. We have received some very good press coverage—the Associated Press did a story on the show.

The exhibition contains quite a few surprises, but the most common response is, "I didn't know that people did this such a long time ago." If you ask people when Americans became involved with pets, they often say, "after the Second World War." Some of the cases get great responses from visitors. The case on the invention of cat litter leads to some very funny conversations among cat owners.

Q: Generally speaking, do you think that the quality of our pets' lives is improving?
A: While there is always more work to be done, I think that the evidence on the whole is that the lives of our pets are good. Three–quarters of the owners of dogs and cats spay and neuter their animals, which represents a real commitment to dealing with pet over–population, for example.

If you stop and think about it, the variation in the quality of our pets' lives reflects the variations in the quality of their owners' lives. Animals from well–to–do families have more "advantages"—better veterinary care, for example—than those living in poor families. This does not mean that families living in poverty don't love their pets; the chaos and struggle in their own lives also affects the lives of their animals. One of the challenges for local animal–welfare groups is to deal with the consequences of this. For example, one group in rural North Carolina provides warm, dry houses for the animals belonging to poor families. This is a simple act of kindness that can do a lot of good.

Q: How do you think American pet keeping will change in the future?
A: I think that the current trend, toward thinking of pets as family members, will continue. Pet keeping will also continue to be affected by fads, some of which are not good for the animals involved. For example, the current fad for tiny dogs as fashion accessories has encouraged irresponsible breeding practices. Many of these dogs are very fragile. And some of the people who are buying them probably don't have lives that accommodate dogs well.

Q: What do you hope readers will learn from reading Pets in America
A: As I worked on the book, I realized that writing sympathetically about Americans' relationships to pet animals could potentially encourage a broader discussion about our relationships with, and obligations to, other categories of animals. We rely on uncounted millions of animals that we never see to improve the quality of our lives. What do we owe them? I don't think there are easy answers to this, and I am working through my own ideas on this question.

This interview may be reprinted in part or in its entirety with the following credit: An interview with Katherine C. Grier, author of PETS IN AMERICA: A HISTORY (University of North Carolina Press, Spring 2006).

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