Amory, Cleveland (1917 – 1998) American Activist and Writer

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Cleveland Amory (1917 – 1998)
American Activist and writer

Amory is known both for his series of classic social history books and his work with the Fund for Animals . Born in Nahant, Massachusetts, to an old Boston family, Amory attended Harvard University, where he became editor of The Harvard Crimson. This prompted his well-known remark, "If you have been editor of The Harvard Crimson in your senior year at Harvard, there is very little, in after life, for you."

Amory was hired by The Saturday Evening Post after graduation, becoming the youngest editor ever to join that publication. He worked as an intelligence officer in the United States Army during World War II, and in the years after the war, wrote a trilogy of social commentary books, now considered to be classics. The Proper Bostonians was published to critical acclaim in 1947, followed by The Last Resorts (1948), and Who Killed Society? (1960), all of which became best sellers.

Beginning in 1952, Amory served for 11 years as social commentator on NBC's "The Today Show." The network fired him after he spoke out against cruelty to animals used in biomedical research. From 1963 to 1976, Amory served as a senior editor and columnist for Saturday Review magazine, while doing a daily radio commentary, entitled "Curmudgeon-at-Large." He was also chief television critic for TV Guide, where his biting attacks on sport hunting angered hunters and generated bitter but unsuccessful campaigns to have him fired.

In 1967, Amory founded The Fund for Animals "to speak for those who can't," and served as its unpaid president. Animal protection became his passion and his life's work, and he was considered one of the most outspoken and provocative advocates of animal welfare. Under his leadership, the Fund became a highly activist and controversial group, engaging in such activities as confronting hunters of whales and seals , and rescuing wild horses, burros, and goats. The Fund, and Amory in particular, are well known for their campaigns against sport hunting and trapping , the fur industry, abusive research on animals, and other activities and industries that engage in or encourage what they consider cruel treatment of animals.

In 1975, Amory published ManKind? Our Incredible War on Wildlife, using humor, sarcasm, and graphic rhetoric to attack hunters, trappers, and other exploiters of wild animals. The book was praised by The New York Times in a rare editorial. His next book, AniMail, (1976) discussed animal issues in a question-and-answer format. In 1987, he wrote The Cat Who Came for Christmas, a book about a stray cat he rescued from the streets of New York, which became a national best seller. This was followed in 1990 by its sequel, also a best seller, The Cat and the Curmudgeon. Amory had been a senior contributing editor of Parade magazine since 1980, where he often profiled famous personalities.

Amory died of an aneurysm at the age of 81 on October 14, 1998. He remained active right up until the end, spending the day in his office at the Fund for Animals and then passing away in his sleep later that evening. Staffers at both the Fund for Animals have vowed that Amory's work will continue, "just the way Cleveland would have wanted it."

[Lewis G. Regenstein ]