How popular were pit bulls once upon a time?
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2006:
While few doubt that pit bull terriers have long been bred as
fighting dogs, most discussion of pit bull traits or regulation
meets claims such as that “The American pit bull terrier and its
cousins had a well-deserved reputation as a loyal and trustworthy
family pet in the early years of this century,” (from
canismajor.com), and that “By World War I the American pit bull
terrier had became a well loved and desired dog,” (from
americanpitbullregistry-.com).
Newspaper Arch-ive.com now provides a quick way to check the
record, via 28.9 million pages of text-searchable microfilmed
newspapers from the 18th century to today. This includes the
classified dogs-for-sale ads.
ANIMAL PEOPLE recently ran searches on 34 dog breeds and
breed types for the years 1900-1950, limiting each search to U.S.
newspapers only, and adding the word “dog” to each search to avoid
pulling up entries for “husky” football players, St. Bernard the
Roman Catholic monk, boxers and pugs who were human prizefighters,
etc.