or WPSPCA, opened America’s first animal shelter in 1869. WPSPCA successfully passed the Twenty-eight Hour Law in 1871, a mandate that required railway companies to provide facilities to feed, water and rest animals in transit every 28 hours. Immediately WPSPCA sent agents to assess the railways’ adherence and prosecute any offenders. In 1896 the Reading Railroad was charged with transporting a shipment of horses for 52 hours without food or water. The railroad was found guilty and the Reading officials were charged $200, setting an important precedent. White viewed the 28-hour law as the crowning achievement of her life. White also founded the American Anti-Vivisection Society (the first anti-vivisection organization founded in the United States) in 1883. In 1909 WPSCA, along with other city humanitarians, secured legislation forbidding the sale or purchase of disabled work horses. In 1875, Catherine Smithies founded the first Band of Mercy, which promoted teaching children kindness towards non-human animals and led to the Bands of Mercy movement. In 1877 Anna Sewell's Black Beauty, the first English novel to be written from the perspective of a non-human animal, spurred concern for the welfare of horses. Although the book is now considered a children's classic, Sewell originally wrote it for those who worked with horses. She said "a special aim was to induce kindness, sympathy, and an understanding treatment of horses". In many respects the book can be read as a guide to horse husbandry, stable management and humane training practices for colts. It is considered to have had an effect on reducing cruelty to horses; for example, the use of bearing reins, which are particularly painful for a horse, was one of the practices highlighted in the novel, and in the years after the book's release the reins became less popular and fell out of favor. In 1878-1879, responding to the moderate positions taken by the German animal protection organizations on animal experimentation, Marie Espérance von Schwartz and two men began to form a dedicated anti-vivisection movement in Germany. In 1879 the anti-vivisectionists clashed with moderate animal protectionists at the German Animal Protection Congress, leading von Schwartz and one of the men to found the International Society for Combat Against Scientific Torture of Animals. In 1880, the English feminist Anna Kingsford became one of the first English women to graduate in medicine, after studying for her degree in Paris, and the only student at the time