Joseph Morse Greene

Joseph Morse Greene (1857 – 4 November 1916) was an American activist for animal rights and welfare. He was the co-founder and treasurer of the New England Anti-Vivisection Society.

Biography

Greene graduated from Tufts University. He resided at Dorchester, Boston and devoted his career to writing on the behalf of animals. He was a supporter of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and presented arguments against hunting in the daily newspapers of Boston.

Greene was a staunch anti-vivisectionist who argued that vivisection did not advance medical knowledge or relieve human suffering and that it would ultimately lead to human experimentation. He described vivisection as unscientific and a moral deterioration due to the suffering of the animals experimented upon.

In 1890, Greene authored a prize winning anti-vivisection essay for a contest sponsored by George T. Angell of the American Humane Education Society. He was awarded $250. In 1895, Greene founded the New England Anti-Vivisection Society (NEAVS) with Philip G. Peabody. In 1901, he was a speaker at an anti-vivisection meeting for the American Humane Society with Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward. In 1907, he compiled an anti-vivisection leaflet for the International Ethical Society filled with quotes from eminent medical authorities.

Greene became a strict vegetarian in his later years for ethical and health reasons.

Anti-vaccination

Greene was active in the anti-vaccination movement. Several days before his death he had continued to write at his desk until daylight and had declined to take rest. An obituary in Our Dumb Animals described Greene as a martyr for the cause of animals.

Selected publications