| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 93.3

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 93.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Pets in America: A History. By Katherine C. Grier. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006. xii, 377 pp. $34.95, ISBN 0-8078-2990-0.)

Scholars of the history of human-animal relationships have eagerly anticipated this book, and the result exceeds expectations. In the tradition of Harriet Ritvo's The Animal Estate (1987) and Keith Thomas's Man and the Natural World (1983), Pets in America uses the practice of pet keeping as a window on Victorian-era American culture. Furthermore, it pioneers the use of material culture in this field. Katherine C. Grier's compelling evidence includes sources such as postcards, paintings, photographs, narratives of the daily practicalities of pet keeping, and pet food advertisements. Finally, the book provides a useful model for scholars interested in expanding the definition of legitimate subjects for historical inquiry to include nonhuman animals. Grier rightly situates herself in the company of historians "concerned with recovering the stories of the 'voiceless' members of our society" (p. 9). While animals' agency was often "weak," Grier's creatures were, "in their own small ways, the agents of their own lives" (ibid.).

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