Gerry Society

The New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children was founded in 1874 (and incorporated in 1875) as the world's first child protective agency. It is sometimes called the Gerry Society after one of its co-founders, Elbridge Thomas Gerry. It is commonly seen as having played a key role in the development of children's rights and child protective services in the English speaking world. Today it offers support and advocacy for high-risk and abused children, parental skills classes, and professional training in the identification and reporting of child abuse and neglect.

In 1866 Henry Bergh had founded the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, partly in response to the creation in Great Britain of the RSPCA some years earlier. In 1874 he and other officers of the society were approached by a church worker named Etta Agnell Wheeler regarding the mistreatment of a child called Mary Ellen McCormack, who was being beaten daily by her foster mother. Wheeler had approached several others before appealing to an animal charity.

Bergh swiftly managed to secure custody of the child. After the trial and conviction in April 1874 of the foster mother for assault and battery, Etta Wheeler is said to have approached Bergh and asked him why there should not be a society to protect children just as there was one to prevent cruelty to animals. He promised to create one. Bergh and his ASPCA legal counsel Elbridge Thomas Gerry approached the Quaker philanthropist John D. Wright to gain support for the creation of a child protection society. On December 15, 1874 the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children was formed. According to Gerry, the Society's purpose was:

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