Why did we let cats into our homes instead of keeping them outside where they belong? Arnold Arluke and Lauren Rolfe tell us why in The Photographed Cat, Syracuse University Press. John Grady reflects on the context of this cultural change in the forward.
The book is based on an in-depth study of “real picture postcards” that document many varied aspects of life in thousands of American communities at the beginning of the last century. Arluke — a sociologist at Northeastern University — is an eminent student of the sociology of human-animal relations. He and Lauren Rolfe have used hundreds of forgotten images to tell the story of how people let cats into their homes and families and were transformed by the relationships that they built with their animals, who gave up many freedoms by becoming pets.