The Strike at Shane's: A Prize Story of Indiana

91 pp. Printed wrappers, stapled binding. Thought published anonymously, this short novel has recently been attributed to Gene Stratton-Porter, famous for her novel The Girl of the Limberlost ('Gene Stratton-Porter: Novelist and Naturalist by Judith Reick Long). There are differing views on this count, but if the attribution proves valid, this would be her first published work, preceding her first attributed novel (The Song of the Cardinal) by ten years. It was written in part as a (presumably unauthorized) sequel to Anna Sewell's 1877 novel Black Beauty. Also notable as an early publication by the American Humane Education Society, which promoted the proper treatment of animals from 1880-1945, and which formed the Jack London Club in 1918 to illuminate cruelty to animals used for the purpose of entertainment in circuses. This work includes an anonymous preface explaining that the story is intended to depict the master-slave relationship currently prevailing between humans and animals, in an effort to correct it. She uses a labor strike as a device to show the important role of animals in various human endeavors, which also humanizes them by portraying them as workers instead of property.