30 Philadelphia women created ‘America’s First Animal Shelter.’ At last, they get their due.
In 1869, the Women’s Branch of the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals opened in Philadelphia as the nation’s first animal shelter. Now, 150 years later, it still stands in the form of the Women’s Animal Center, a modern, airy shelter in Bensalem. Yet the backstory of the shelter and its founder has largely fallen into obscurity. That will change.
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