Abstract
At the turn of the twentieth century, animal welfare work occupied an increasingly prominent position in the United States, with women’s animal autobiographies serving particularly formative roles in teaching child readers “humane” values. During this same period, felines in particular were increasingly brought into the home even as they were also increasingly racialized in larger discourse. This article focuses on three feline autobiographies from this period, arguing that they present the racialized animal as a site of biopolitical control that ultimately resides in the hands of white women. First, the article examines how humane education initiatives taught children to exert police-like roles in animal welfare work, capitalizing on existing cultural connections between children and animals to then teach children to disidentify from and ultimately help control racialized animal bodies. Then, the essay demonstrates how the three feline autobiographies ultimately advocate for the control and shaping of racialized nonhuman and human biological reproduction. The article’s argument emphasizes the importance of interrogating these texts, published during a formative historical moment in the development of humane education, as we work to transform children’s literature and animal welfare work into sites for anti-racist thought and action.
