‘The many lessons which the care of some gentle, loveable animal would give’: animals, pets, and emotions in children’s welfare institutions, 1870–1920

Abstract

This article explores the significance of animals and pets in the domestic and 'familial' life of the two largest children's residential welfare institutions operating in the nineteenth and earlytwentieth centuries. The article argues that children's institutions employed animals as pedagogical tools to shape children's emotions and behaviours and to construct idealised notions about family life and childhood. Using institutional periodicals the essay examines how literary and visual respresnetations of animals sought to inculcate values of kindness, sympathy, compassion and benevolence in child readers, while also imparting important lessons about animal care, childcare, parenthood, responsibility, and humanitarianism. The article proceeds to analyse how animals featured in the everyday lives of institutionalised children, and examines how pet-keeping helped to enhance a sense of home and family life for poor children, and the meanings that children and young people invested in these relationships. The essay broadens understandings of working class engagement with animals, and the meanings and importance of a range of pets in the lives of poor children in alternative family settings. In doing so, the essay offers a new way of exploring family life in alternative and npn-traditional household settings, and provides insight into the social, emotional and material experiences of childhood in institutional settings.

The Role of Pets in Preserving the Emotional and Spiritual Wellbeing of Ukrainian Residents During Russian Hostilities

“…In our study, the majority of participants perceived cats and dogs as members of their families, and 22% of them spoke about their parents’ pets, with whom they lived through their childhood difficulties. As in our study, Soares ( 2021 ) indicates that pets are good for the mental health of children who have lost their parents or are going through difficult times in their lives. This article uses two of the largest boarding schools for children operating in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a lens through which to examine the importance of animals and pets in the home and family life of poor children.…”