A History of Veganism from 1806
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1 World Veganism – past, present, and future By John Davis, former IVU Manager and Historian A collection of blogs © John Davis 2010-12 Introduction This PDF e-book is about 8mb, 219 pages A4, (equivalent to 438 page paperback book), so I strongly recommend that you save a copy to your own disk, then open it in the Adobe Acrobat Reader. That way, you won’t have to download it all again if you want to read more of it sometime later. Creating this as a PDF e-book has several advantages, especially if you are reading this on a device connected to the internet. For example: - in the blog about interviews on SMTV, just click on the links to watch the videos - in the bibliography click to read a complete scan of an original very old book. - on the contents page click a link to go direct to any item, then click ‘back to top’. - you can also, of course, use other features such as search, zoom etc. etc. - a great advance on printed books… It should work on any device, though an ipad/tablet is ideal for this as there are lots of big colour photos, or on smart-phones try rotating for best results, on a larger computer monitor try view/page display/two up, to read it like a book. The blogs were posted weekly from February 2010 to December 2012 and each is self- contained, with the assumption that readers might not have seen any of the others. So feel free to start anywhere, and read them in any order, no need to read from the beginning. They were deliberately written in a style that is more journalistic than academic, so references, and some links, are within the text, and there are no footnotes. However a full and extensive bibliography of about 200 veg-related books is being added for those who want to do further research. The blogs are grouped into a few sections: 1 – History: It is impossible to consider a history of veganism without putting it in the wider context, so there is a lot that is ‘nearly vegan’ along the way. The word vegan was invented in 1944, but for a long time before that there were many people holding similar, though not necessarily identical views. The real beginning is from 1806, where see a movement that could be considered vegan by today’s standards. Before that there are some thoughts about people moving in the right direction. 2 – Regions and IVU – with histories: Deals with various regions of the world, and includes brief histories of those areas. Most inevitably start out as ovo- and/or lacto- vegetarian, but end up vegan, hence the use of veg*ism, or just veg, as a shorthand. IVU from 1908 and some highlights along the way – that is also all vegan by the end of the 20th century. 3 – World View: Some recent veg activities and events around the world. 4 – Activism: Ideas for local groups, based on some in the UK which could be adapted. 5 – Directions: A collection of thoughts about where we’re at and where we’re going. 2 Contents (2 pages - click a link) 4 - Blog of Blogs – the top 20 most popular blogs HISTORY _______________________________________________________ 6- Fast Food? – it’s just distorted jungle food 8 - Were there Vegans in the Ancient World? 10 - Medieval Mindsets – ‘vegans’ in the middle ages 11 - Veganism from 1806 - a brief timeline summary of most of this section 15 - Dr. William Lambe - father of vegan nutrition, and his vegan biographer 17 - Dr. Lambe's Rural Roots - his childhood and retirement in Herefordshire. 19 - John Frank Newton - and the 'vegan' commune of 1813 21 - Shelley - the first celebrity vegan 23 - Lewis Gompertz – Jewish ‘vegan’ and co-founder of the RSPCA in 1824 25 - Sylvester Graham – the original American Vegan Baker 27 - Taking the Waters - transatlantic pioneer plant-food doctors 30 - The vegan school that invented vegetarians 32 - Vegetarian equals vegan! 34 - Bronson Alcott - American pioneer vegan 36 - Henry David Thoreau and the Roots of Plantism 38 - Dr. John Snow - a vegan of genius 40 - The Truth Tester 1846-48 - a vegan journal 42 - The Curious Affair of The Vegetarian Advocate (1848-50) 44 - London Vegetarian Association, 1850s – the world’s first ‘vegan society’ 47 - Prof. Francis W. Newman and the attempted ‘vegan’ revolution of 1871 49 - The First Vegan Cookbook – New York 1874 51 - Gustav Schlickeysen – 1875 German vegan, raw-foodist, fruitarian 53 - Was Vitamin B12 a problem for 19th century ‘vegans’? 55 - The Vegetus Myth - an attempt to pretend that vegetarians didn’t just eat vegetation. 57 - Henry Salt - the father of animal rights 59 - Why Dresden? The Origins of IVU 61 - Gandhi - and the launching of veganism 63 - The Invention of the Vegans - the first Vegan Society 65 - Vegans are Vegetarians too - early years of the Vegan Society 67 - Vegan Goes Global – the first ten years, 1944-54 69 - Hygiene cleans up – naturally of course – the American veg health movement 71 - How the Vegans landed in America 73 - The Veganizing of International Veg Events REGIONS with histories____________________________________________ 75 - Learning from the developing world 77 - Go Veg - and see the World! 79 - Veg*ism in India 82 - Veg*ism in Africa 85 - Veg*ism in China 88 - Veg*ism in the Middle East 91 - Veg*ism in Australia 93 - Latin America leads the Veg World 95 - The Vegfest Phenomena 97 - A New Dawn for European Veg*ism? 99 - The Vegan Food in Vegetarian Paradise 3 IVU with histories_________________________________________________ 100 - IVU Vegfest/Congress - coming near you soon . – IVU from 1908 102 - East Meets West and West Eats Meat - Veg*ism and Music 104 - The Beatles and IVU – from 1957 107 - IVU and the NAVS Summerfest – from 1973 109 - IVU and the American Animals Rights Movement – from 1975 110 - We're going to San Francisco . – from 1968 111 - IVU and Vegsource - together at last! – from 1998 113 - IVU and the Venerable History of Vegism [Videos] – three interviews on SMTV 114 – Vegan Views – the interview – 3 magazine pages on IVU, history, world veg*ism WORLD VIEW____________________________________________________ 115 - 10 days that changed everything (for me) – Singapore, Indonesia and China - 2009 117 - Food as Art in China - 2009 119 - From England to California – 2010 122 - If it’s Thursday it must be Australia… 124 - Jakarta Jamboree – Indonesia 2010 127 - Bali Beautiful 128 – A Visit to Malaysia - 2010 131 - The last leg - India and home – Bangalore 2010 133 - Out of Africa – and the Middle East 136 - To Nairobi and Dubai - 2010 138 - The Global Veg Explosion – 2010 141 - Festival Vegano Español – Spain 2011 143 - The First Ever Veg Congress in China - 2011 146 - The China Congress - with pictures – 2011 149 - The Year of the Veg – 2011 152 - Going Dutch – veg*ism in the Netherlands, 2012 154 - California here we come! 157 - Congress is dead - long live the Vegfest – San Francisco, 2012 159 - . and then to something completely different – Los Angeles, 2012 ACTIVISM around the UK ___________________________________________ 161 - Brighton - veg capital UK? 164 - Throwing_the_lion_to_the_Christians – Veg*ism and Religion 166 - The Vegetarian Society and me 168 - Living on the Front Line 170 - National Veg Week - does your nation have one? – vegetarian going vegan 171 - Vegan Wolves – free public vegan barbecue in Wolverhampton 172 - Vegan Café 4 the Day - could your group do this? 175 - The Big Veg Weekend 177 - Cruelty Free Christmas - an idea for Christians? 179 - Vegan Camp – 31 years of a simple idea 181 - Wild Food Foraging, and the Veg Cookery School DIRECTIONS ____________________________________________________ 183 - Divided by a common language 186 - Are you a positive or a negative veg*n? 187 - Vegetarianism Re-Defined 188 - Why Vegans Need Total Vegetarians 189 - Flexitarian and Plantatarian - 21st century dimensions 192 - The Plant-food Two-step Shuffle - and Pure Vegetarians 194 - Will there ever be more veg*ns? 197 - Why some restaurants don’t do vegan food – and why they should 199 - The Future of the Movement? POSTSCRIPT___________________________________________________________ 201 – Veg*ism, Wildlife and the Environment – what I see whilst writing these blogs 205 – A Year in the Sky – photos from my office window during 2010. 210 - Read all about it - antiquarian veg*ism – where all this history came from 212 - Bibliography 4 Blog of blogs November 7, 2012 I’ve been posting these blogs for almost three years now, putting up one a week on all sorts of things. The stats show some getting ten times more hits than others – but of course that doesn’t tell me how many people actually read them all the way down, or whether they liked them. The Facebook link in all the blogs gives a different perspective as it shows how many found the blog interesting enough to just click 'like' or to share it with their friends. So I put together my own quirky way of combining those, to get a better idea of what others might want to read about in the future. I know I have some regular readers, amongst those who read them now and then when the topic is of personal interest. So for anyone who is curious, this is my all-time ‘top 20’ blogs, in order of my combined hits and 'likes/shares' count. 1 - Bronson Alcott - American pioneer vegan Amos Bronson Alcott was an abolitionist vegan in a way that few today are emulating – in the 1830s he was taking a stand against human slavery in the USA. 2 - World Veganism - FREE e-book! - you’re reading it…. 3 - Vegetarian equals vegan! The first people who called themselves 'vegetarian' were in fact vegan. This has now been established conclusively with resources not previously available.