French Vegetarian Society

In 1880, Abel Hureau de Villeneuve founded the {{Lang|fr|Sociéte Végétarienne de Paris|italic=no}} (Vegetarian Society of Paris), in Paris.{{cite book |last=Crossley |first=Ceri |date=2005 |title=Consumable Metaphors: Attitudes Towards Animals and Vegetarianism in Nineteenth-Century France |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mkhcO5RbnywC |publisher=Peter Lang |page=241-257 |isbn=0-8204-7175-5}}Puskar-Pasewicz, Margaret. (2010). Cultural Encyclopedia of Vegetarianism. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 108. {{ISBN|978-0-313-37556-9}} The Society had its own journal, {{Lang|fr|La Reforme Alimentaire|italic=}}. The original Society merged into the {{Lang|fr|Sociéte Végétarienne de France|italic=no}} (Vegetarian Society of France) in 1882, which was organized by Gustave Goyard.Fenton, Alexander. (2000). Order and Disorder: The Health Implications of Eating and Drinking in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Tuckwell Press. pp. 209-226. {{ISBN|978-1862321175}}Brauer, Fae. (2015). Becoming Simian: Devolution as Evolution in Transformist Modernism. In Fae Brauer; Serena Keshavjee. Picturing Evolution and Extinction: Regeneration and Degeneration in Modern Visual Culture. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 139. {{ISBN|978-1-4438-7253-9}} In 1883, a criticism of the Vegetarian Society of France was that some of its medical members were omnivores, not vegetarians and were prescribing meat to their patients. The Society dissolved in 1884 and became the Société pour la Reforme Alimentaire which advocated an omnivorous diet.{{Cite web|date=2023|title=The first French Vegetarian Societies - 1878-1884|url=https://ivu.org/history/societies/french-early.html|website=International Vegetarian Union|language=en-GB|archive-date=June 1, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230601150354/https://ivu.org/history/societies/french-early.html|url-status=live}}

In 1885, meetings in Paris were undertaken to form a new vegetarian society. Baron Emile Tanneguy de Wogan (1850–1906) was assigned presidency.{{Cite web|date=2002|title=History of the French Vegetarian Societies|url=https://ivu.org/history/societies/french.html|website=International Vegetarian Union|language=en-GB|archive-date=May 20, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240520224753/https://ivu.org/history/societies/french.html|url-status=live}} Copies of his vegetarian pamphlet La Vie à Bon Marché were given to the working class. There was no further reports of the society until four years later. In 1899, president Jules Grand reconstituted the Sociéte Végétarienne de France with thirty initial members. Membership consisted of doctors, industrial workers, lawyers and soldiers. Their members were dedicated vegetarians but they also allowed associate members to join. Their officers were located at Boulevard de Strasbourg in Paris.

In 1906, the Society had 800 members and collaborated with the Belgian Vegetarian Society on their journal, {{Lang|fr|La Reforme Alimentaire|italic=}}.Thoms, Ulrike. (2017). Of Carnivores and Conquerors. In Elizabeth Neswald, David F. Smith, Ulrike Thoms. Setting Nutritional Standards: Theory, Policies, Practices: French Nutritional Debates in the Age of Empire, 1890-1914. University of Rochester Press. p. 85. {{ISBN|978-1-58046-576-2}} Ernest Nyssens, from Brussels, was editor of the journal. Historian Ulrike Thoms has noted that "its membership actively sought to influence the population through the dissemination of magazines, tracts, pamphlets, and public lectures, so the society was more publicly present than the small official membership lists suggest." Elisée Reclus' essay {{Lang|fr|Le Vegetarisme|italic=}} (On Vegetarianism) was published in {{Lang|fr|La Reforme Alimentaire|italic=}}, 1901.Clark, John P; Martin Camille. (2004). Anarchy, Geography, Modernity: The Radical Social Thought of Elisée Reclus. Lexington Books. p. 171. {{ISBN|0-7391-0805-0}}

During the early 20th century, physicians such as Fougerat de David de Lastours, Eugène Tardif, André Durville, Gaston Durville, and Albert Monteuuis were members of the Society.Lummel, Peter. (2016). Food and the City in Europe since 1800. Routledge. p. 222. {{ISBN|978-0-7546-4989-2}} In 1909, the Society reported having 1,175 members. The Society published {{Lang|fr|La Reforme Alimentaire|italic=}} every month until it ceased in 1914. The Society published the {{Lang|fr|Bulletin de la Société végétarienne de France|italic=}} (Bulletin of the Vegetarian Society of France) from 1916 to 1920.

After the decline of the Society, new food reform groups emerged. Jacques de Marquette, a member of the Society formed his own vegetarian group in 1912 which became known as the Trait d'Union, a naturist society.{{cite book |last=Baubérot |first=Arnaud |date=2015 |title=Histoire du naturisme: Le mythe du retour à la nature|url=https://books.openedition.org/pur/22888?lang=en |location= |publisher= Presses universitaires de Rennes|pages=219–248 |isbn=978-2-7535-2303-6}} The Trait d'Union gained support in the 1920s and opened the first vegetarian restaurant in Paris. Paul Carton who had been a member of the Society since 1909 formed the {{Lang|fr|Société Naturiste Française|italic=no}} (French Naturist Society) in 1921.{{cite journal|author=Ouédraogo, Arouna P.|year=2001|title=Food and the Purification of Society: Dr Paul Carton and Vegetarianism in Interwar France|journal= Social History of Medicine|url=|volume=14|issue=2|pages=223–245|doi=10.1093/shm/14.2.223|pmid=11695355}}

Hélène Sosnowska became president in 1933 following Jules Grand’s death. After her own death in 1942, the activities of the society came to an end.{{Cite journal |last=Hondermarck |first=Alexandra |date=2024 |title=La construction de la cause végétarienne au prisme du genre : engagements, circulations et réseaux transnationaux entre France, Suisse, Angleterre et Belgique (années 1870-1914) |trans-title=The construction of the vegetarian cause through the prism of gender: commitments, circulations and transnational networks between France, Switzerland, England and Belgium (1870s-1914) |url=https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-04878233/document |journal=Genre & histoire |language=fr |volume=34 |doi=10.4000/12yks |issn=2102-5886}}

The Society published the following books:

• Ernest Nyssens, {{Lang|fr|Du traitement alimentaire du diabete par le regime vegétarien}} (1900)
• Jules Grand, {{Lang|fr|La Philosophie de I' alimentation}} (1901)
• Louis Pascault, {{Lang|fr|Le Regime vegétarien consider e comme source d'energie}} (1902)
• Carlotto Schulz, {{Lang|fr|La Table du végétarien}} (1903)
• Jules Lefèvre, [https://archive.org/details/b28086983 Examen scientifique du végétarisme] (1904)Translated by Fred Rothwell as [https://archive.org/details/scientificinvest00lefuoft/page/n5 A Scientific Investigation into Vegetarianism]. London: John Bale, Sons & Danielsson, 1922.
• Henri Colliere, [https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k9674235b.texteImage Végétarisme et longévité] (1905)
• Hélène Sosnowska, [https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k9618087z Le végétarisme en thérapeutique] (1912)

• List of vegetarian and vegan organizations
• Vegetarian Society

{{NoteFoot}}

{{Reflist}}

• [https://ivu.org/history/societies/french.html History of the French Vegetarian Societies] - International Vegetarian Union

{{Veganism and vegetarianism}}

Category:Organizations based in Paris

Category:Organizations established in 1882

Category:Vegetarian organizations

Category:Vegetarianism in Europe