Why I Am a Vegetarian is an 1895 pamphlet based on an address delivered by J. Howard Moore before the Chicago Vegetarian Society. It was reprinted several times by the society and other publishers.
Background
John Howard Moore, born in Missouri in 1862, was an American writer, zoologist, and science teacher, and a prominent member in the Chicago Vegetarian Society.
Around 1886, Moore became a vegetarian for ethical reasons. He advocated for the ethical treatment of animals and authored several books, essays and pamphlets on the subject, as well as on the subjects of vegetarianism, evolutionary history, and humanitarianism.
Carrica Le Favre, a well-known health lecturer, dress reformer, child-rearing expert, and physical culture advocate, founded the Chicago Vegetarian Society around 1890, which Moore joined shortly thereafter, while in attendance of Chicago University. Moore earned a baccalaureate degree from Chicago University in zoology. While at the university, Moore was one of the founders of the Vegetarian Eating Club, which he eventually became the lead and front of.
Moore later wrote several well-regarded books, such as the 1906 work The Universal Kinship, the 1907 work The New Ethics, and the 1916 work Savage Survivals, among many other publications.
Addresses
Moore wrote the paper "Why I Am a Vegetarian" around the early part of 1895, which was primarily on the benefits of living on a vegetable diet, along with his opinions on the advances in the animal rights advocacy movement. He delivered an address with this paper, before the Chicago Vegetarian Society at the newly constructed Great Northern Hotel, on the northeast corner of Dearborn Street and Jackson Boulevard in Chicago, on March 3, 1895. Moore was persuaded to publish the paper, and it was printed shortly afterwards. The Chicago Vegetarian Society published the pamphlet Why I Am a Vegetarian, based on his speech, later that year. The preface is dated May 3, 1895. This publication was the first of Moore's.
Another address, after the printing of the pamphlet, was delivered by Moore around June 1896, at the Philosophic Club, in Englewood, Chicago. The lecture was reported, in the monthly Food, Home and Garden newsletter, as being well received by those in attendance, with a discussion that followed afterwards. On the reading, Dr. Viola H. Ludden wrote that "the paper was broad and most excellent; full of scientific suggestion and humane thought."
Moore continued to give addresses on the subject of vegetarianism and animal rights with the Chicago Vegetarian Society for the following two decades, until his death in 1916.
Publication
The brochure Why I Am a Vegetarian, subtitled An Address Delivered before the Chicago Vegetarian Society, was published by the Purdy Publishing Company, in Chicago, Illinois, in 1895. At 5.5 x 18 centimeters, the 44-page pamphlet is described as "explaining that vegetable food is far better for humanity in a truly healthful sense, [with] the plea [...] for the human practice of the Golden Rule towards the animals which we [...] kill for food," in an advertisement in the April 15, 1902 edition of The Vegetarian Magazine. It was also published in the same year as a 42-page pamphlet, by The Ward Waugh Publishing Company, at 5496 Ellis avenue, as well as in the periodical Good Health. It also appeared in the September 1897 issue of Chicago Vegetarian.
An early edition of the publication was available for 10 cents. A 48-page third edition, printed in 1898, was sold for a cost of 25 cents per issue, or 5 copies for $1.00. It was advertised as having a fancy green cover, which was fastened with a silk cord, and as being "suitable for gifts." The publisher was the Eastman Kodak Company. By 1899, the publication had made its seventh thousandth print and was being sold in crepe paper, still for a cost of 25 cents. Why I Am a Vegetarian is held at university and public libraries in the United States.
A response to Moore's pamphlet, entitled Why I Am Not a Vegetarian: Why He is Wrong, was written by Danish-born American lawyer, lecturer, and political activist Laurence Gronlund. Moore later replied to Gronlund's writing, saying that for the carnivore, "every meal is a murder," and that to "tell why one is 'not a vegetarian' is to give justification, or to attempt to give justification, for being a predatory animal."
Content
The Journal of the American Medicine Association notes that the "booklet is of interest," by an author who is a "zoöphilist vegetarian [who] uses no scientific arguments in favor of his thesis."