1900s correspondence tell history of Humane Educational Society

A little boy wrote to Ethel Soper Hardy about how he helped a puppy the previous summer, while Bessie Smith is believed to have written about wanting to attend a meeting, and Maine Gov. Percival Baxter praised her work.

"I'm struck by the sheer richness, the detail of this correspondence," said Dr. Bernard Unti, senior policy adviser for the Humane Society of the United States, inside the Humane Educational Society on Monday morning as he reviewed the yellow, brittle documents written almost 100 years ago.

A couple of years ago, while cleaning the boiler room in the basement, staff and volunteers of Chattanooga's Humane Educational Society found one of the older records.

"We were actually clearing out to clean it up and found, in the middle of dirt and mud and records thrown across the floor, these wonderful records from the early 1900s," Executive Director Guy Bilyeu said.

It took workers three days to gather all the children's essays and correspondence with the Boys Scouts, leaders from across the nation and as far away as Toronto, Canada.

"It's extremely rare for materials of this kind to survive in such good condition, because these organizations of course have an urgent mission of providing care for animals and, at that time, for children," Dr. Unti said. "There's often no time to attend to the care of archival resources."

Most of the records, some typewritten and many handwritten, are legible. There are a few written in pencil that are difficult to read.
Mrs. Hardy -- described as someone who would drive her horse and carriage through the streets of Chattanooga picking up stray dogs and cats -- incorporated the Humane Educational Society in 1910.

The documents show Mrs. Hardy was a significant force in the American Humane Association and that she was held in very high regard, Dr. Unti said.

Gov. Baxter, who was a true national hero for the humane movement at that time, according to Dr. Unti, referenced an article she had written about the pets-in-prison program.

Staff Photo by Danielle Moore/Chattanooga Times Free Press
From left, Nancy Rus, Ph.D., Humane Educational Society board member; Bernard Unti, Ph.D., special assistant to the CEO of the Humane Society of the U.S.; and Guy Bilyeu, executive director of the Chattanooga Humane Educational Society, look at the personal papers of the HES founder Ethel Soper Hardy Monday morning.

While Billy Thompson -- who Nancy Rus, a board member of the Humane Educational Society, believes is related to T.C. Thompson, a onetime Chattanooga mayor and children's advocate -- wrote to her in 1923 about receiving his badge, a gold star on a blue background that acknowledged a child's devotion to animals.

With his letter, he sent two pencil drawings. On one called "Eating Place," he drew dinner tables where groups of pigs, horses, dogs, cats and other animals sat to eat.

After Dr. Unti reviews the records, the board of the Humane Educational Society will decide how best to conserve them, Mr. Bilyeu said.

"We would truly like to have these documents to display them so our community can see what Chattanooga did to help start this movement," he said.