Henry Lewith
Born in Charleston in 1876, Henry Lewith became a journeyman printer for the News and Courier, but that was not his life’s work. An avid supporter of animal rights and human responsibilities, Lewith was a prominent member of the local Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. In 1913, at the annual convention, he suggested the creation of a “Be Kind to Animals Week,” which became a national movement; South Carolina Governor Manning made a statewide proclamation honoring the annual event in 1918. Translated widely, the phrase “Be Kind to Animals” became known throughout the world.
Henry Lewith felt “that voiceless animals have all too few spokesmen and that he could do no better than devote his means, his talent, and his life in creating sentiment in their behalf,” noted a friend. No stray passed his door on New Street without being fed and nurtured. Shy and retiring, he never married, sharing his life instead with his constant companion, Beauty, a collie he had rescued. For years they were seen walking around Charleston together. While tending to creatures with greater needs than his own, he neglected himself. Lewith died on August 11, 1926, soon after his fiftieth birthday. With him gone, the collie Beauty refused nourishment and soon died of grief. “He devoted his life to humane work” reads Henry Lewith’s simple tombstone in Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim’s Huguenin Avenue cemetery.
Henry Lewith (1876–1926) with Beauty
This photo was published in Quality of Mercy: History of the Humane Movement in the United States by William Alan Swallow, 1963.