This archive contains materials related to the Humane Society of the United States, collected in the 1980s and ’90s by Harold D. Guither, an agriculture economics professor at the University of Illinois. Guither retired in 1995, and his papers are in the University of Illinois Archive.

Some of this material informed the writing of Guither’s 1998 book Animal Rights: History and Scope of a Radical Social Movement.

Below are links to, and summaries of, the major documents within each PDF. Because the files are large, we strongly suggest you save them to your hard drive before opening them, by right-clicking and selecting “Save Link As.”

Fundraising Material | Governance, Speeches, and Interviews | HSUS Publications | HSUS Catalogs | Miscellaneous Files | Assorted Oversize Papers

For a full listing of the documents, download this spreadsheet.

Fundraising Material

This file includes an HSUS calendar, holiday appeals, membership fundraising letters, requests for money in conjunction with specific issues, promos for HSUS’s VISA card, and a promo for HSUS’s pet “registration” service.

Governance, Speeches, and Interviews

This file includes the text of a speech that then-HSUS President John Hoyt gave to the California Farm Bureau Federation in 1990, Guither’s notes from an interview with Hoyt, year-end financial statements for 1991 and 1992, HSUS correspondence with Board nominees, and proposed amendments to HSUS’s bylaws.

HSUS Publications

This set includes catalogs of HSUS’s specialty items and audio/visual material, and “Close-Up Reports” for a variety of issues(such as animal research, ivory trade, whaling, and pet overpopulation).

HSUS Catalogs

This document is a collection of HSUS gift catalogs from 1998 and 1999. Products offered by HSUS include boxer shorts with dog prints, a cat floor mat, holiday cards, address labels, Sherpa bags, and dog bowls.

Miscellaneous Files

This set includes writings from former HSUS Vice President Michael W. Fox in the early 1980s, a 1991 article from The Animals’ Agenda magazine titled “HSUS in Hot Water Again,” and reports from HSUS’s North Central Regional Office (which covered Illinois, where Guither lived).

Assorted Oversize Papers

These larger handouts include a copy of a New York Times ad co-signed by HSUS titled “A Joint Resolution,” a separate New York Times ad from Animal Rights International, and an anti-meat handout from the Farm Animal Reform Movement (FARM), which later changed its name to the Farm Animal Rights Movement.

We believe reproducing this material constitutes a "fair use" as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this material for purposes of your own that go beyond "fair use," you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

This is the 1991 HSUS Report of the President, presented by John Hoyt at the Annual Membership Meeting in Washington, DC. Hoyt claims that HSUS is separate from the animal rights movement that developed in the 1980s, writing: "the lines between animal protection groups such as The HSUS and animal rights groups such as PETA are being more clearly drawn and less frequently cross." Hoyt, however, later states that "[t]his is not to say that the rights of animals should be either ignored or minimized as a meaningful and vital philosophy. Indeed, it must not be."

Hoyt also states that he wishes HSUS to formally promote the message of eating less meat. He quotes from his April 1990 Earth Day speech, in which he said "Planet Earth is dying, and it is we, the people, who are hastening her demise."

The Report also includes passages from:

• Patricia Forkan, Senior Vice President
• Phyllis Wright, VP-Companion Animals
• Randall Lockwood, VP-Field Services
• David Wills, VP-Investigations
• Michael Fox, VP-Farm Animals and Bioethics
• John Grandy, VP-Wildlife and Habitat Protection
• Jan Hartke, VP-Environment
• Patty Finch, VP-Youth Education
• Roger Kindler-- Office of the General Counsel
• Michael Fox, Director of the Center for Respect of Life and Environment

This document is courtesy of the University of Illinois Archives/Harold D. Guither papers.

We believe reproducing this material constitutes a "fair use" as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this material for purposes of your own that go beyond "fair use," you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Download 1990 HSUS Report of the President

This document, a legal-size mailer from the Humane Society of the United States, is titled "A Discussion ... Rights For Animals." It was produced and printed in 1990. A fundraising-disclosure disclaimer that only applies to West Virginia donors may suggest that this version was only sent out to HSUS's mailing list in that state.

This piece begins with a revelation that may startle 21st-Century readers who are accustomed to seeing HSUS distance itself from the divisive language of "animal rights": 

The Humane Society of the United States has long been in the forefront of advocating the recognition of rights of and for animals. At its national membership conference held in San Francisco in 1980, the membership of The HSUS formally resolved to "pursue on all fronts ... the clear articulation and establishment of the rights of all animals ... within the full range of American life and culture."

The two-page treatise, unusual for a fundraising mailer in its philosophical long-windedness, mainly argues that "animal rights" means including animals "within the same system of moral protections that govern our behavior toward each other."

In particular, the fundraising mailer emphasizes the need for animals to have legal standing in courts of law:

[Animals] are viewed as having no inherent capacity to invoke the protection of the state, and their entire legal status is underpinned by constitutional doctrines that deny them recognition as "persons."

Access to the courts is such a powerful right and would pose so revolutionary a threat to the established order that it will probably be among the last of animal rights to be recognized, requiring statutory, even constitutional, changes.

The author writes that animals should enjoy the legal right of having "third parties" sue on their behalf. "The critical goal," HSUS explains, is "getting litigation into a format where someone with ready access to the judicial system is representing the animal and its interests and only the animal and its interests."

Predictably, the leaflet ends with a request for money, promising that "Money donated is put into action on the front line right away. The animals need us now."

This document is reproduced through the courtesy of the University of Illinois Archives (Harold D. Guither Papers, 1977-2001) 

Download 1990 HSUS Fundraising Leaflet: “Rights For Animals”

In late 1990, attorneys retained by a group of Humane Society of the United States board members drafted this 23-page class-action lawsuit against HSUS and its leaders, on behalf of the group's members, the members of its Board of Directors, and the U.S. taxpayers.

The complaint was designed to recover $750,000 in damages for the HSUS chief executives' "misconduct, deception, fraud, negligence, and dereliction of duty."

The defendants included:

• HSUS president John Hoyt
• HSUS treasurer Paul Irwin
• HSUS board chairman K. William Wiseman
• HSUS board member Jack Lydman
• HSUS board member Coleman Burke
• HSUS board member O.J. Ramsey

This lawsuit was never actually filed. It was shared with HumaneWatch by a former HSUS board member.

Download 1990 Draft of a Class-Action Lawsuit against HSUS

In late 1990, attorneys retained by a group of Humane Society of the United States board members drafted this 12-page civil complaint against HSUS itself.

The complaint was presented to the California Attorney General as one possible legal avenue through which HSUS could recoup financial losses incurred by its chief executives' "breach of fiduciary duty, conflict of interest, self dealing, private inurement, unjust enrichment, misappropriation of charitable assets, and fraud."

It asked for $750,000 to be reimbursed to HSUS by several individual defendants:

• HSUS president John Hoyt
• HSUS treasurer Paul Irwin
• HSUS board chairman K. William Wiseman
• HSUS board member Jack Lydman
• HSUS board member Coleman Burke

The complaint was not acted on. It was shared with HumaneWatch by a former HSUS board member.

Download 1990 Draft of a California AG Civil Complaint against HSUS

This letter to Humane Society of the United States Board Chairman K. William Wiseman is dated December 6, 1990. It was sent by California Attorney General John Van De Kamp and Deputy Attorney General Yeoryios Apalla.

In it, the California AG's office gives HSUS two weeks to turn over a wide variety of documents—including Board minutes and recordings of meetings, and copies of financial records—related to the financial scandal that enveloped HSUS's president and treasurer from 1985 to 1989.

The letter reads, in part:

Information obtained by this office reveals that certain principals of the organization have engaged in a course of conduct that, in our opinion, is a violation of fiduciary duties owed to the charitable beneficiaries of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), among them citizens of this state.

Information in our possession indicates the following:

• The senior officers of HSUS, Messrs. Hoyt and Irwin, received significant sums of money in the form of compensation some of which was never authorized by the Board of Directors;
• In May, 1987, HSUS purchased Mr. Hoyt's home for 310,000 and leased it back to him rent-free, declaring the foregone rent to be additional compensarion; W-2s were issued to My. Hoyt which reported to IRS a rental value of $600/month;
• The Deferred Compensation Committee, whose legitimacy is in question, acted in excess of its authority in transferring certain life insurance policies to senior management and approving reimbursement to Mr. Irwin of some $85,000 for funds he expended in improving a piece of property in Maine.

It's unclear how (or if) HSUS responded to this inquiry.

Download Letter from the California Attorney General to HSUS, Dec. 6, 1990