page_title: MSPCA-Angell
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: MSPCA-Angell / History
caption_attribution_description: English: The Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals logo in 1921.
context_page_description: The Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals-Angell Animal Medical Center is a 501 non-profit organization with its main headquarters on South Huntington Avenue in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1868, and is the second-oldest humane society in the United States. "MSPCA-Angell" was adopted as the society's identity in 2003, and indicates the names of its two closely related predecessor organizations: Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and Angell Animal Medical Center. The organization provides direct care to thousands of homeless, injured, and abused animals each year, and provides animal adoption, a veterinary hospital, advocacy, and humane law enforcement.
context_section_description: Boston Brahmin lawyer George Thorndike Angell began a high-profile protest of animal cruelty in 1868, after reading about two horses being raced to death by carrying two riders each over forty miles of rough roads. He joined with Emily Appleton, a Boston socialite and animal lover who provided financial support, and they and 1,200 others formed the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (MSPCA). Among distinguished locals on the first board of directors were John Quincy Adams II, Henry Saltonstall, and William Gordon Weld.
  Also in 1868, they began publication of Our Dumb Animals, a magazine "to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves". ("Dumb" refers to the fact that animals cannot speak.) The Boston Police Department helped distribute their first press run of 200,000 copies.  Influenced by the activities of this organization, the Massachusetts General Court passed the first anti-animal-cruelty act in Massachusetts the following year.
  In 1886, the society's first official headquarters were dedicated at 19 Milk Street in Downtown Crossing. The first MSPCA branch was established in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1914. It closed in 2009 due to economic factors. In 1915, a veterinary clinic known as the Angell Memorial Animal Hospital was established on Boston's Longwood Avenue. In 1917, the MSPCA established a permanent animal shelter at Nevins Farm in Methuen, Massachusetts to care for retired police horses and other working animals. It is still the only open-door horse and farm animal rescue center in New England.  Shelter for small animals was added to the Methuen facility in 1924.
  Francis H. Rowley succeeded George T. Angell as President in 1910. He held this position until his retirement in 1945.
  In 1927, the society formed the American Fondouk Maintenance Committee in Fez, Morocco and opened a center there two years later. In 1929, an animal hospital joined the MSPCA's Springfield location, but closed in 2007 due to economic circumstances. In 1935, the Cape Cod Animal Shelter was opened in Centerville, Massachusetts, now part of MSPCA-Angell. The following year, an MSPCA animal shelter opened in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, now known as Berkshire Humane Society. The Angell Memorial Animal Hospital launched the first veterinary intern training program in 1940. In 1943, Angell was first to apply techniques of aseptic surgery to small animal medicine and surgery. The MSPCA assumed control of the Foote Memorial Animal Shelter on Martha's Vineyard in 1945 until 2009, when ownership of the shelter was transferred to a local animal shelter. Also in 1945, Angell became the first veterinary hospital to institute 24-hour nursing and veterinary care. In 1950, the MSPCA opened an animal shelter and hospital on Nantucket, which was operated by the MSPCA until 2012, when Nantucket veterinarians purchased the hospital and opened it as the “Offshore Animal Hospital of Nantucket.”  Also in 1950, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) in Great Britain joined with the MSPCA to create the International Society for the Protection of Animals (now the World Animal Protection).  In 1959, MSPCA President Dr. Eric Hansen was elected first president of the ISPA.
  Angell Memorial Animal Hospital built a veterinary intensive care unit in 1959 that was the first of its kind. In 1962, the MSPCA and ISPA began work to improve inhumane slaughterhouses in Latin America. In 1964, the MSPCA launched "Operation Gwamba" in Surinam which saved 9,737 animals from hydroelectric dam flooding and was the largest such project in history.
  The MSPCA and Angell Memorial Animal Hospital moved into a shared facility at 350 South Huntington Avenue in 1976, which was the most extensive animal service center ever created by a humane society. An adoption center was established at this location as well.
  The MSPCA assisted law enforcement officers in animal rescue  after eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1979. Conditions at Boston's Franklin Park Zoo were improved through the direct involvement of the MSPCA, starting i
caption: MSPCA logo, 1921
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