Sounding Childhood

Bands of Mercy Sources and Scholarship

Primary Sources:
Sarah J. Eddy, comp. Songs of Happy Life: For Schools, Homes and Bands of Mercy. Providence, R. I. and London: 1897.   

Volumes 1-3, Bands of Mercy Advocate (London, 1879-1881).  Owned by Chris Hines; found in the British Library and a few other libraries globally.

Volumes 4-30, Band of Mercy (London, 1882-193).  Owned by Chris Hines; found in Cambridge Library and the Bodleian Library, Oxford.


Secondary Scholarship:
Clapp-Itnyre, Alisa.  “Advocating for the Least of These: Empowering Children and Animals in The Band of Mercy Advocate."  Chapter 5 in Animals and Their Children in Victorian Culture. Ed. Brenda Ayers and Sarah E. Maier. NY and London: Routledge, 2020. Pg. 87-105.

Clapp-Itnyre, Alisa. “Bands of Mercy Music: A Cultural Study of Victorian Animal Welfare Songs for Children.” Reading Texts in Music and Literature of the Long Nineteenth Century.  Edited by Phyllis Weliver and Katharine Ellis.  Undergraduate & Graduate textbook for Springer    Publishing. Published June 2025. Pp. 40-55.

Clapp-Itnyre, Alisa. “Bands of Mercy: Merciful Hymnody for Child and Beast.” The Hymn: A Journal of Congregational Song. Published Feb. 2025. Go to page 29, here

Clapp-Itnyre, Alisa, interviewee. “Bands of Mercy songs” in Taking Note: The Animal Rights Music Documentary. Chris Hines, director.  UK.  Forthcoming 2024. See website here.

Clapp-Itnyre, Alisa. "Reforming Society: Missionary, Bands of Hope and Bands of Mercy Hymns." Chapter 5 in British Hymn Books for Children: Re-Tuning the History of Childhood. Ashgate Studies in Childhood Series: 1700-present series Claudia Nelson, series editor. Surrey, UK: Ashgate (now Routledge), 2016. 

Cronin, Keri. "Be Kind: A Visual Exhibition of Humane Education, 1880-1945," Brock University, here