Henry Bergh had pleaded on behalf of…

Henry Bergh had pleaded on behalf of animals at a meeting at Clinton Hall in New York City on February 8, 1866.

Some of the issues he had discussed were cockfighting and the horrors of slaughterhouses.

After getting signatures for his "Declaration of the Rights of Animals," the New York State legislature had passes the laws prepared by Bergh on April 7, 1866.

Three days later, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) was legally organized in New York City, with Bergh as president.

On April 19, 1866, the first anti-cruelty law is passed since the founding of ASPCA, and the organization is granted the right to enforce anti-cruelty laws.

At this time, there are three staff members at the ASPCA.

It is the oldest animal welfare organization in the United States.

Buffalo's chapter, founded in 1867, is the second oldest.

Bergh was born in New York City and studied at Columbia College, after which he worked in his fathers' shipyard.

After the shipyard was sold, Bergh had received a share of the inheritance and set forth on a lengthy journey throughout Western Europe with his young bride, Catherine Matilda Taylor.

In 1862, Bergh had been appointed secretary and acting vice-consul to the American legation in St. Petersburg, Russia by then President Abraham Lincoln.

The severity of the climate had obliged him to resign in 1864, and he had since traveled extensively in Europe and the Orient.

On returning to the United States, Bergh had resolved to work on behalf of animal welfare, his mission first suggested by cruelties witnessed in Europe.

Alone, in the face of indifference, opposition, and ridicule, he had begun working as a speaker and lecturer, but most of all in the street and the courtroom, and before the legislature.

His cause had gained friends and rapidly increased in influence.

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) in the UK, founded in 1824, had been given Royal status in 1840.