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248 We started this book discussing the centuries-old fairy tale Beauty and the Beast and pointing to themes we would address in the chapters that followed. Central to our discussion were the inconsistencies, dualisms, ambiguities, and paradoxes of the story and their parallels in early-twentieth-century human-animal relationships . The beast, as well as the animals we have discussed and shown in illustrations, were both loved and hated, wild and tame, caressed and abused, commoditized and anthropomorphized, distanced and embraced, both builders and destroyers of relationships. The illustration that starts this chapter (13.1) reminds us of the contradictory ways we treated and represented animals. The starry eyed-woman who appears with her sweet chicks will eventually consume them. Paradoxically, people adored some creatures, such as rabbits, thinking they were cute and cuddly, while others of the same species were hated and killed as vermin. Humans produced lovable stuffed teddy bears, while relentlessly tracking and killing bears in the wild. Parents read the Three Little Pigs to their children and served them bacon and eggs for breakfast. Sportsmen killed exotic and trophy animals in order to preserve them as taxidermy specimens. Zookeepers took rare and unusual animals out of the wild to display them in fabricated “natural” displays for the general public to gawk at. Citizens made elk and moose the symbols of fraternal organizations because they were “noble 13 Living with Inconsistencies, Past and Present 13.1. Woman with chicks, Midwest, ca. 1911. Private Coll. Living with Inconsistencies, Past and Present   |   249 creatures,” while stalking them as prey. The apparent contradictions were endless. Animals acquired never-ending roles in human society . In these pages we saw that animals became whatever people needed and wanted, producing a broad array of associations. We saw them as coworkers on many different jobs and as sources of human nourishment and clothing. We saw them as sick and needy patients cared for by veterinarians and humane workers. We saw them as domestic pets and as comrades aboard ships. We saw them as vermin to be exterminated through wholesale killing. We saw them as game to be hunted for sport, with the results sometimes mounted and hung in museums and living rooms. We saw them as spectacles for human amusement and education. We saw them as competitors pitted against one another, in some cases to their death. We saw them as symbols to sell products, win support for war, and represent our political parties and nation. We saw all these things and more. The result of our looking was a complex picture of human-animal relationships, filled with contradictions. However, most people in the early part of the twentieth century did not see these inconsistencies as such and were not troubled by them if they did. This is in spite of the fact that during the postcard era people had more direct contact with animals—ones they ate, working animals, game in the wild—than we have today. People witnessed what many people today would call animal abuse and death up close and regularly. They saw animals kept in conditions that now would be considered inhumane. Why this silence, why this lack of awareness? Although there were rumblings of a humane movement , animal welfare was not as widespread or strongly felt as it is today. Now there are scores of scholars and many national and international organizations that advocate for the humane treatment of animals, if not for granting them legal rights to ensure their protection and autonomy. Also, during the postcard era, sensitivity to and awareness of animal intelligence and emotion paled by comparison to the attention given to it today. Now, there is a growing body of scientific literature that suggests we are more similar to other animals than we thought. Animal advocates, researchers, philosophers, and scholars call attention to the ways we dismiss animal cognition and ask us to rethink the premise that animals do not think and feel (Bekoff 2000, 2006; Darwin 1872; Dawkins 1993). But how different today are things in the human-animal realm from a century ago? Do the old contradictions remain? Have new ones emerged? Then and Now A century ago people depended on animals in a different way than we now do. Photo postcards showed the essential role animals played as objects to exploit by American institutions and industries. Animals’ contribution helped make possible America’s enormous economic growth and its international dominance as a political power. Images documented the many ways that animals...

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