Happier Days for Cats Begin....

      Things started to move in a positive direction for cats at the begining of the 18th century, the change appears to have been influenced by three things. First was a lessening in the belief in witches. Second was the invasion of Europe by the brown (or gray) rat, which replaced the black rat and was more prolific and difficult to control. The brown rat reached Germany in 1753, Sweden in 1762, and Switzerland in 1808. Its multiplication was helped along by increasing urbanization and its distribution facilitated by increasing sea travel. Cats were increasingly valued in urban areas and on shipboard because of their mousing abilities. “Many administrative authorities began to set aside a special budget for the breeding and maintenance of ratting cats in museums, libraries, prisons, barracks, warehouses and stores” (Mery F, The Life, History and Magic of the Cats, London, Paul Hamlyn, 1967, pp. 56, 59). Finally, as Pasteur’s work and microbes became well known, disease became associated with being dirty, and the cat, by virtue of its cleanliness, was increasingly associated with health.

     The earliest modern examples of keeping cats as pets occurred in the mid-18th century, first in Paris and later in London, among artists and writers. Cats became associated with intellectuals. By the early 19th century, descriptions can be found of children playing with cats.

      Cats began to be used in advertising in the 1850s, and “some cats were seen on paper fans, matchbooks, bookmarkers, and the like” (Lynnlee, p. 28). By the 1870s, interest in cats as pets had become so widespread that writers referred to it as a “cat fever,” “cat cult,” “cat fancy,” or “cat craze,” e.g. “Of late years there has been a rapid and promising growth of what disaffected and alliterative critics call the ‘cat cult,’ and poets and painters vie with on another in celebrating the charms of this long-neglected pet” (Repplier AQ, Agrippina, Atlantic Monthly, 1892;69:760). The first cat show in London took place in the Crystal Palace in 1871; the first show in New York was in Madison Square Garden in 1894.