Oral history interview with Margaret Stathos [electronic resource], 2000.

Biographical Note

Margaret Moreland Stathos became a member of the New England Anti-Vivisection Society (NEAVS) in 1957 and served as a director at the time of the interview. In the 1990s, she spearheaded the NEAVS Library Project, which brought animals rights publications to Massachusetts libraries and school libraries across the United States. In 1995, she served as co-chair for NEAVS' centennial and wrote a history of the organization. Professionally, she was a concert pianist and music historian.

Scope and Contents

In this one session interview, Margaret Moreland Stathos discusses her involvement with the New England Anti-Vivisection Society (NEAVS), the institution's history, and her views on activism, particularly surround laboratory animals. She begins the interview discussing her childhood experiences with animals, her learning of vivisection and opposition to it following the disappearance of a neighborhood cat in 1957, graduate work as a pianist in Germany in 1958, and early influences. Figures mentioned over the course of the interview include Albert Schweitzer and Rachel Carson. She discusses the NEAVS presidencies of George Farnum, Judge Robert Ford, and Cleveland Amory, and the activities of NEAVS from the 1960s-1990s. Also addressed is her work in the NEAVS educational department, writing the history of NEAVS, and reflections on the state of animal rights activism at the time of the interview. There is one box of supplemental materials relating to the inerview, organized by footnote. These materials include NEAVS publications, documentation from the NEAVS Library Project, and Ingrid Newkirk's book Save the Animals! 101 Easy Things You Can Do.

Subjects

• Animal industry--Moral and ethical aspects.
• Animal rights.
• Animal rights activists--Interviews.
• Animal rights movement.
• Animal welfare.
• Carson, Rachel, 1907-1964.
• Interviews.
• New England Anti-Vivisection Society.
• Oral histories.
• Schweitzer, Albert, 1875-1965.
• Shapiro, Kenneth interviewer.
• Stathos, Margaret Moreland, 1925---Interviews.

Access Conditions

Copyright by the Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York, 2016.