Henry Bailey Stevens (13 July 1891 – 16 March 1976) was an American author, playwright and vegetarianism activist. Biography

Stevens was born in 1891 in Hooksett, New Hampshire. He graduated from Manchester Central High School and Dartmouth College. From 1912, he worked for the Woman's Journal, a women's rights periodical in Boston. Stevens married Agnes Ryan, the managing editor of the Woman's Journal, in 1915. In 1917 Stevens and Ryan resigned from the Woman's Journal, due in part to their opposition to World War I, a belief not generally shared by the suffrage movement.

Stevens lived with his wife in an old farmstead at the edge of Durham, New Hampshire.Lord, Russell. (1939). The Agrarian Revival: A Study of Agricultural Extension. American Association for Adult Education. p. 202 Stevens directed the University of New Hampshire Agricultural Station and Cooperative Extension Service from 1918 until his retirement in 1956."Stevens, Henry Bailey, 1891-1976". Dartmouth Library Archives & Manuscripts. Retrieved November 25, 2020.

Vegetarianism

Stevens and his wife were associated with the Millennium Guild, an animal rights organization.Helstosky, Carol. (2015). The Routledge History of Food. Routledge. pp. 188-189. In 1949, Curtis Freshel awarded $1,000 to Stevens for the best humanitarian work of the year."First American Vegetarian Convention". International Vegetarian Union. Retrieved April 10, 2021.

Stevens believed that humans were originally pacifists and vegetarians.Cooper, Helen M; Munich, Adrienne Auslander; Squier, Susan Merrill. (1989). Arms and the Woman: War, Gender, and Literary Representation. University of North Carolina Press. p. 254. He authored The Recovery of Culture, in 1949. The book argues that early humans made the mistake of changing from vegetarianism to flesh-eating and that soil erosion, starving peoples and war is the result. He recommended for people to return to an agricultural plant based culture.

Stevens was a vice-president of the International Vegetarian Union."23rd IVU World Vegetarian Congress 1975". International Vegetarian Union. Retrieved April 10, 2021. He attended the 1975 World Vegetarian Congress."23rd IVU World Vegetarian Congress 1975 Congress Program". International Vegetarian Union. Retrieved April 10, 2021.

Death

Stevens died from natural causes on 16 March 1976 at the age of 85.

Selected publications

A Cry Out of the Dark (1919) All Alone in the Country (1921) Tolstoy: A Play in Seven Scenes (1928) The Recovery of Culture (1949, with a foreword by Gerald Heard) Para-Desa (1975, with a foreword by Richard Eberhart)

References

External links "If You Are a Minister," woman suffrage postcard. Social Welfare History Image Portal, Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries.