American Humane Society
American animal welfare nonprofit
The American Humane Society (previously American Humane), is an American animal welfare organization founded in 1877 committed to ensuring the safety, welfare, and well-being of animals. It was previously called the International Humane Association and subsequently the American Humane Association and American Humane before changing its name to American Humane Society in 2025. In 1940, it became the sole monitoring body for the humane treatment of animals on the sets of unionized Hollywood films and other broadcast productions, a role it maintains through an agreement with the Screen Actors Guild. American Humane Society is best known for its certification mark "No Animals Were Harmed", which appears at the end of film or television credits where animals are featured.
The organization also rescues animals following natural disasters, and runs programs that certify farms, zoos, and aquariums, among other institutions for the humane treatment of animals.
American Humane Society is headquartered in Washington, D.C. It is a section 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
History
American Humane Society began on October 9, 1877, as the International Humane Association, with the amalgamation of 27 organizations from across the United States after a meeting at the Kennard House in Cleveland, Ohio. The invitation to the other groups came from the Illinois Humane Society, sent on September 15, 1877, to discuss the specific problem of farm animal maltreatment during their transport between the eastern and western US. Groups attending the meeting included associations from the State of New York, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Maryland, Connecticut, and New Hampshire. A group from Minnesota also pledged its support to the forthcoming results of the conference, though they could not attend, and a group from the Canadian province of Quebec requested that a transcript of the proceedings be sent to them afterward.
The International Humane Association changed its name to the "American Humane Association" in November 1878.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “American Humane Society” is american animal welfare nonprofit. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through American, Humane and Society, not as a finished interpretation.
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The date and method of observation matter as much as the stated conclusion, especially where classification or consensus has changed. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4744033. VIAF identifies the subject as 153157295. The Library of Congress control number is n79065556. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1877, 2025, 1940 and 1878.
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This entry incorporates text from “American Humane Society” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.