America’s first animal shelter to fete its founding women

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, said Catherine Malkemes, the shelter’s chief executive officer, and Suzanne L. Bush, president of the shelter’s board of directors.

On Sunday, the Women’s Animal Center, recently renamed from the Women’s Humane Society, will celebrate its 150th anniversary — a significant milestone, shelter management says, and one that will highlight the organization’s roots.

“We wanted to focus on the women because of the history and the fact that these women were so courageous and innovative,” Bush said.

To celebrate, there will be parties. A ribbon-cutting. A National Animal Shelter Day of Service, during which shelter officials hope people will volunteer, donate supplies or money, or adopt a pet. A ceremony around the shelter’s newly granted historical marker, to be staked this fall at either the Pennsylvania Women’s SPCA’s original meeting site at 923 Walnut St., or its first office, at 1320 Chestnut St.

They hope it will amplify the shelter’s history.

Consider the way the shelter started, Malkemes said, sitting in her office, as she carefully opened the organization’s first annual report, dated 1870.

On April 14, 1869, she said, a little more than two dozen women clustered in the parlor of a Philadelphia home to talk about a troubling issue. They saw that carriage horses were beaten, overworked and malnourished. Stray dogs and cats roamed the streets. Others were corralled in the city’s pound and left to flounder.

Now, 150 years later, the shelter, relocated to a sprawling complex in Bensalem, houses more than 200 animals, a full-service veterinary hospital, physical therapy for animals, an education center, and a space for dog training.