On this day in vegan history · November 1, 1994
World Vegan Day Is Founded
The Vegan Society did not know its own exact founding date, so its chair picked November 1st partly for Halloween and the Day of the Dead, and accidentally created a global institution.
The facts
- Date established
- November 1, 1994
- Occasion
- 50th anniversary of The Vegan Society, founded November 1944
- Founder
- Louise Wallis, Chair of The Vegan Society (UK)
- Word 'vegan' coined
- 1944 by Donald Watson and Dorothy Morgan, from the first three and last two letters of 'vegetarian'
In 1994, Louise Wallis, then Chair of The Vegan Society, established World Vegan Day to mark the organization's 50th birthday and the coining of the word 'vegan' in November 1944. The society knew its founding month but not the precise day, so Wallis chose November 1st, a date already carrying cultural weight across Celtic, Christian, and Mexican traditions. The first observance was a modest affair. The date held anyway. Three decades on, World Vegan Day is observed in dozens of countries, anchoring a full month of outreach, and the choice that looked arbitrary turned out to be quietly inspired.
In their words
The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.
-
We knew the Society had been founded in November 1944 but didn't know the exact date, so I decided to go for 1 November, partly because I liked the idea of this date coinciding with Samhain/Halloween and the Day of the Dead - traditional times for feasting and celebration, both apt and auspicious.
Louise Wallis, Chair of The Vegan Society, speaking in 2011
Source: Wikipedia - World Vegan Day
Why it still matters
World Vegan Day gave a dispersed, largely volunteer movement a shared calendar date, turning one organization's anniversary into an annual public moment that no single group had to own or fund alone. The date Wallis chose on a near-guess now anchors World Vegan Month every November.
Sources
This history is still being written.
Every morning the brief covers what moved veganism forward, and every day one more verified piece of that story joins this almanac. Free, and tomorrow’s lands in your inbox.
Free, every morning. No guilt. No preaching.