Origins
In 1866 Henry Bergh had founded the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, partly in response to the creation in Great Britain of the RSPCA some years earlier. In 1874 he and other officers of the society were approached by a church worker named Etta Wheeler regarding the mistreatment of a child called Mary Ellen McCormack, who was being beaten daily by her foster mother. Wheeler had approached several others before appealing to an animal charity.
Bergh swiftly managed to secure custody of the child. After the trial and conviction in April 1874 of the foster mother for assault and battery, Etta Wheeler is said to have approached Bergh and asked him why there should not be a society to protect children just as there was one to prevent cruelty to animals. He promised to create one. Bergh and his ASPCA legal counsel Elbridge Thomas Gerry approached the quaker philanthropist John D. Wright to gain support for the creation of a Child Protection Society. On December 15, 1874 the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children was formed. According to Gerry, the Society's purpose was:
to rescue little children from the cruelty and demoralization which neglect, abandonment and improper treatment engender; to aid by all lawful means in the enforcement of the laws intended for their protection and benefit; to secure by like means the prompt conviction and punishment of all persons violating such laws and especially such persons as cruelly ill treat and shamefully neglect such little children of whom they claim the care, custody or control.
On April 27, 1875 it was incorporated as the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, with Wright as President and Bergh and Gerry as Vice-Presidents. Three other members of the ASPCA board were recruited to the board of the NYSPCC, with Wright subsequently attracting other wealthy benefactors including Cornelius Vanderbilt.
After Wright's death in 1879, Gerry became President, retiring in 1901, but remaining legal advisor until his death in 1927. Bergh went on to found the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in 1878, with other similar organisations appearing across the United States.
Read more about this topic: New York Society For The Prevention Of Cruelty To Children
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