The Photographed Cat: Picturing Close Human-Feline Ties 1900-1940

Preface

xvii We wrote The Photographed Cat for many audiences . Pet lovers and others interested in domestic animals, especially those having cats themselves can enjoy seeing how photographs depicted human relationships with cats a century ago. Our book is quite different from the scores of photography books about cats, whether they are presented as funny or fat, in Greece, “in love,” or simply “crazy,” because only a few such books include photographs of people interacting with cats, and their focus is contemporary rather than historical. Noteworthy examples include Louise Taylor and Barbara Cohen’s Cats and Their Women (1992), Jean Claude Saure’s The Big Book of Cats (2004), Jules Farber’s Classic Cats (2005), and Bill Hayward ’s Cat People (1978). The few books that do look at early-twentieth-century cat photography such as Postcard Cats by Libby Hall and Tom Phillips (2005) and The Cat in Photography by Sally Eauclaire (1996) are “coffee table” books that present photographs “cold,” without analysis or context to understand their meaning and use. These cat photography books, whether modern or historic, are just showcases for these images. Of course, if readers are interested only in looking at photographs, our book has approximately 130 striking images that can be enjoyed on their own. We also wrote this book to be more than a collection of rare and engaging photographs of cats and the people in their lives. For readers who have a deeper interest in cat keeping, human–animal relationships, and the history of photography, we wanted to explore the meaning and symbolism behind these images because they capture the emergence of the modern human–pet relationship—or at least the relationship that people developed with cats. Although humans have always kept pets, pet keeping’s modern iteration evolved and took hold around the same time that photography became available for the masses in America, beginning at the turn of the twentieth century. Novelists, journalists , and biographers of this period articulated the voice of pet owners and started to crystallize the contemporary idea of what it means to interact with these animals and why they are important to so many people. Rapidly growing pet food and supply businesses further articulated the meaning of human–pet relationships in a multi-billion-dollar industry. Photographs, by far, most transparently exposed the thoughts and feelings of those people who had cats in their lives, literally enabling them to put on display how they regarded their animal friends. What do these images say about our connections to cats a century ago as the modern sentiment toward pets was rapidly emerging and gaining a foothold in America? And how did photographers and their human subjects collaborate to depict these connections? These are questions we put to our photographs. However, our book is not a social or pictorial history of the entire range of human–feline relationships that existed in early-twentieth-century America. There is a “dark side” to humans’ treatment of cats that was not photographed, including but not limited to their abuse, torture, abandonment , and neglect. Our book does not discuss this Preface xviii Preface unseemly part of human–cat history, let alone feature pictures of cats being exploited or harmed. It instead includes pictures and text that demonstrate the loving and affectionate side of human–animal relationships. These photographs enabled us to analyze how people depicted close ties with cats and to ask whether these depictions mirrored reality. We are particularly indebted to those who permitted us to use photographs from their extensive collections. Special thanks to Robert Bogdan, Brian Buckberry, Jan Holmquist at the Massachusetts Society for the Protection of Animals, Nannette Maciejunes, Catherine Mastrovito, Bruce Nelson, Nancy Perin, and Connie and Todd Weseloh for sharing their cat images. Others helped by reading drafts of our book and suggesting ways to see more in our photographs than first meets the eye. For making these thoughtful comments, we thank Janet Francendese, Glenn Gritzer, John Grady, and the anonymous reviewers of our first draft. Others provided encouragement to pursue this project in its early stages and support to complete it once it was under way, including Hal Herzog, Alan Klein, Jack Levin, Patricia Morris, Michelle Papazian, Gary Patronek, Uta Poiger, Clint Sanders, Steven Vallas, and the College of Social Sciences and Humanities at Northeastern University. We also owe special thanks to Robert Bogdan for allowing us to draw from passages in Beauty and the Beast that relate to the history of photo postcards and to John...