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Author Bibliography

Rights of Dumb Animals (1869)

AUTHOR: Stowe, Harriet Beecher

PUBLICATION: “Rights of Dumb Animals.” Our Dumb Animals Vol. 1 no. 9 (2 Feb. 1869): 69.

https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006069414

First published in Hearth and Home (2 Jan. 1869): 24.

KEYWORDS: animals, women's rights

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SUMMARY (Bryn Skibo, edited Deborah Madsen)

The article is republished from Stowe’s own publication, Hearth and Home.

Stowe opens with the argument that of all the oppressed classes, nonhuman animals are the most deserving of human intervention because they can neither speak nor write for themselves and are unable to learn (69). She implicitly draws together the activist conventions in support of women's suffrage with the need to advocate similarly for nonhuman beings.

She surveys the moral wrongs of common human activities such as: hunting; caring for domestic animals, and killing household pests like rats.

Last updated on February 18th, 2026

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How to cite this page:

Skibo, Bryn. 2024. "Rights of Dumb Animals [summary]." Vegan Literary Studies: An American Textual History, 1776-1900. Edited by Deborah Madsen. University of Geneva. <Date accessed.> <https://www.unige.ch/vls/bibliography/author-bibliography/stowe-harriet-beecher-1811-1896/rights-dumb-animals-1869>.