Edith J. Goode (November 1881 – March 1970) was among the founders of
the National Humane Society, later renamed
The Humane Society of the United States, together with
Alice Morgan Wright. Wright and Goode were lifetime companions.[1]Partner Alice Morgan Wright
Queer Places:
Smith College (Seven Sisters), 9 Elm St, Northampton, MA 01063
Ferncliff Cemetery, Springfield, OH 45504, Stati Uniti
Edith J. Goode (November 1881 – March 1970) was among the founders of
the National Humane Society, later renamed
The Humane Society of the United States, together with
Alice Morgan Wright. Wright and Goode were lifetime companions.[1]
Edith J. Goode was born in Springfield, Ohio, and raised in Washington, D.C. She was a member of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and co-founder of the National Woman's Party.[1]
Edith attended Sidwell Friends, at that time a small Quaker School, then attended attended Smith College (graduating in 1904) where she met Wright, and together they worked tirelessly for peace and justice.[2] Wright was a senior at Smith College in Massachusetts when she met Goode, then a freshman. Both inherited considerable estates. While Goode worked quietly in the background, Wright rose to prominence with the Collegiate Equal Sufferage League, and by 1909 was also a recognized sculptor. Sent to Paris to study, as recipient of two major art awards, Wright became involved in both the French and British suffrage movements.
Goode and her mother Jane McKnight Goode became founding members of the National Women’s Party. Begun in 1913, it promoted legislation until 1997, and still exists as an educational foundation and museum.
Goode and Wright attended the San Francisco conference of 1945, at which the United Nations was founded. They campaigned for including equal rights for women as a target of the newly founded UN, but conference was also the starting point of the movement for animals rights as well. In the mid-late 1950s, Goode and Wright reported, "We believed that there should be a declaration also of the rights of animals, involved as animals are in the welfare of human society," but, they lamented, the United Nations steered clear "of any responsibility for animals."
In 1954 Goode and Wright attended the American Humane Association meeting in Atlanta, at which the National Humane Society (later The Humane Society of the United States) was founded. Goode was a board member of The HSUS between 1958 and 1967.
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[Edith J. Goode by Alice Morgan Wright (1881-1975), painted plaster, 16 H, gift of Elinor Wright (Mrs. Clark) Fleming, cousin of the artist, 2004.1.20]
She was behind the passing of The Humane Slaughter Act in 1958. Other achievements with Wright:
Goode also convinced Dorothy Thompson to write a piece in favor of humane education for the Ladies' Home Journal in 1960.
In 1963, Goode and Wright donated a 140-acre farm in Loudoun County, Virginia to The HSUS. After its development in 1965, the property became the site of the National Humane Education Center (NHEC). Since their deaths the Edith J. Goode Residuary Trust and the Alice Morgan Wright-Edith Goode Fund have supported The HSUS and hundreds of other organizations.
Goode died in 1970, and Wright in 1975. Edith J. Good is buried at Ferncliff Cemetery, Springfield, Ohio.
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