The Vegetarian Crusade: The Rise of an American Reform Movement, 1817-1921

Chapter Three: The American Vegetarian Society

59 chap ter three The American Vegetarian Society ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: How many both feast and grow fat to excess On the flesh and the blood of brutes? Nay! Stain not your lips with such food, but come feed Alone as man ought, upon fruits. We’ve tasted your flesh-meats of yore, it is true, But ne’er mean to taste them again Because now resolved, and determined for us No creature shall ever be slain. —“A Vegetarian Song,” 1852 “In England the advocates of dietetic reform, some time ago, instituted an association,” reported William Metcalfe. The new organization interested Metcalfe because of its stated goal of spreading information about the “abstinence from the consumption of animal food.” Metcalfe was further intrigued because the group organized with an interesting and novel name, gathering “under the appellation of ‘The Vegetarian Society.’”1 The new association was “creating quite an excitement throughout the country,” and Metcalfe wondered why a similar organization could not be founded in the United States. After all, he argued, America was “distinguished throughout the civilized world for the noble stand she first made against intemperance.” “Shall she be less zealous,” he wondered, “in opposing a system of diet, as detrimental to the health and happiness of humanity as intoxicating liquors?” Having “conversed with . . . friends who highly approve[d] of the proposal,” Metcalfe predicted a similar development would come to the United States: “The good time is coming . . . for the elevation of man from the bondage of an unnatural, destructive and barbarous custom.”2 News of developments among British dietary reformers began stirring up excitement among American meat abstainers in the late 1840s. The original 60 :: The American Vegetarian Society proto-vegetarian group in the United States—the Bible Christians—while from England, was now comprised largely of American-born members. However, despite the demographic shift, they and other U. S. protovegetarians remained linked to their British counterparts, as dietary reformers sent each other literature, pamphlets, and books across the Atlantic.3 Americans and British were equally inspired by the notion of forming a singular organization bringing together the variety of groups advocating a meatless diet, including Bible Christians, physiologists, social reformers, and water curists. In addition, prominent American dietary reformers like Sylvester Graham , William Alcott, and Bronson Alcott lectured extensively to British audiences, and British vegetarians visited the United States and spoke to American crowds.4 The Americans also frequently subscribed to British dietary reform publications like the Truth-Tester. This transatlantic exchange of ideas ultimately emboldened Americans to form their own association.5 The founding and development of the American Vegetarian Society (AVS) in 1850 finally brought American meatless dietary reformers together under a single banner. In the process, the group helped define the term vegetarian and built a movement that promoted not just a diet but a total reform lifestyle. Through the AVS, vegetarians aligned themselves with other reform movements of the time, in particular abolitionism, women’s rights, and pacifism. These other interests sapped the energies of the AVS, however , and kept it from having a longer life. With the coming of the Civil War, American movement vegetarianism fractured as its adherents focused on ending the slave system in the United States. The advances of British vegetarians largely inspired the formalized organization of American dietary reformers. The Water-Cure Journal made this connection explicit, reporting that “the movements of the vegetarian societies in England, during the past year” had “stirred up the friends of dietetic reform on this side of the Atlantic.”6 The plans for an American vegetarian convention were coming to fruition. In February 1850, the Water-Cure Journal noted the proposal “by a number of influential individuals . . . that there be called in the month of May next, an American Vegetarian Convention.”7 In this climate of increasingly vigorous organization throughout U. S. reform movements (abolitionists, suffragists, and temperance supporters all now had their own associations), meat abstainers from around the nation gathered in New York City on May 15, 1850, for the first meeting of the American Vegetarian Society.8 The convention, held in Clinton Hall at the corner of Astor Place and Eighth Street, drew the country’s most visible The American Vegetarian Society :: 61 and renowned advocates of a meatless diet, including Joel Shew, William Alcott, William Metcalfe, and Sylvester Graham. Among the attendees were Bible Christians, Grahamites, social reformers, and water curists. They met with the intention to build...