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Founded in 1895, Rise for Animals (formerly New England Anti-Vivisection Society) is a Boston based, national animal advocacy organization dedicated to ending the use of animals in research, testing, and science education. They carry out their mission of protecting animals, supporting alternatives and advancing science through research, outreach & education, and legislation/policy change. Rise for Animals advocates for replacing animals with modern alternatives that are ethical, humane, and scientifically superior.
The founding of Rise for Animals goes back to an event that occurred in 1871 at Harvard University. That year, Professor Henry Bowditch, wishing to bring Harvard up to date with the latest European methods of studying physiology, established one of the first vivisection laboratories in the country at Harvard's new medical school. While Harvard President Charles William Eliot was very pleased with the new laboratory, Professor Henry Bigelow, famed surgeon at the medical school and Massachusetts General Hospital, was not.
Dr. Bigelow was so troubled at what he had seen in the new facility, he appealed to Edward Clement, editor-in -chief of the prestigious Boston Evening Transcript, telling him about the new "scientific medicine" using live animals in experiments. Clement, convinced the charge against Harvard was serious, initiated forceful editorials against vivisection in the Transcript, Boston's foremost newspaper. Shocked readers were determined to take a stand against this new "scientific medicine." Joseph Greene of Dorchester, MA, a determined citizen who won $250 in a local “Why I am Against Vivisection” contest, recruited a group of Boston’s most prominent citizens for the first meeting of the New England Anti-Vivisection Society on March 30, 1895. |
