New York was no place for a stray cat in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Thousands of feral cats were rounded up and gassed, ostensibly for “humanitarian reasons”. Poor children were paid one nickel per catch, which meant scores of healthy pets also met their ends.

Thanks to some New Yorkers, however, many were saved from slaughter in acts of kindness which have been documented by Peggy Gavan in a new book, The Cat Men of Gotham: Tales of Feline Friendships in Old New York.

Though stories and pictures of cats have become enormously popular online in today’s world, Gavan’s book shows the path to this obsession was evident decades ago.

“In the late 1800s, early 1900s, every time a cat did something – saved its family by meowing at a fire, or was rescued by a police officer, or something like that – it always made the headlines,” Gavan said.

The Brooklyn Navy Yard, then America’s premier naval shipbuilder, was reeling from rat infestations in the late 1800s, which damaged expensive docks and equipment. The dogs deployed by US Navy brass to combat them would flee in fear. For years, most of the cats prowling the property “were quickly scooped up by sailors who wanted a good-luck mascot”.

But a group of “land-lubber” felines wandered onto the yard in 1893 and finally brought the rat population under control within a few years. One worker told a reporter that a ratter named Minnie “deserves a gold medal for preserving the property of the United States government,” Gavan writes.

A cat named Chops, who took up residence at a firehouse, was described by the firemen as “a Catholic cat” who “liked fish on Fridays”. When Chops was caught under a wheel of a fire vehicle and died, the distraught fire fighters held a memorial for Chops and another firehouse cat, and received a “proper funeral so the men could pay their last respects,” Gavan writes.

Crewman on deck, with cats, 1898. Note man teasing cat with a mirror and sunlight. Photograph: George Grantham/NH 43211 Courtesy Naval History and Heritage Command

Gavan says the history of the so-called “cat men” also sheds light on the lives of workers at other storied New York institutions, from City Hall to the New York Police Department to the Algonquin Hotel.

“Every police station, every firehouse, had a cat. You had hundreds of cats down at the post office,” she said. “Most businesses, restaurants, hotels, had cats because they controlled the mice and the rats. Dogs don’t do that.”

“Cats would just do more things. And they [the “cat men”] would always call the press and make a big deal out of it.”

Even though the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals agreed to oversee control and care for New York City’s cats and dogs in 1894, extermination was commonplace.

Cats and dogs discovered in New York City without collars would be euthanized if not claimed within two days. But because it cost $3 to pick up a lost pet from shelters – a hefty sum in late-19th century New York – “countless loved pets were seized and destroyed,” Gavan writes.

So where are the “cat women” in this story? Gavan said that strict gender roles kept women out of the workplaces and social spaces that tended to draw more attention from the male-dominated press, meaning women didn’t show up in as many of the news articles that have informed her book.

“That’s not to say there weren’t also stories about cats and women, but honestly, most of those stories that I’ve found were [about] the proverbial ‘crazy cat lady’,” Gavan said. “They would be stories about the woman who had fifty cats in her house. It was always kind of a more negative story.”

A medical editor by day, Gavan has used her spare time to research and write about animals that made headlines and captured hearts on her blog, The Hatching Cat. Gavan said she chose to focus the book, which is scheduled to be published in May, on cats because they “are really hot right now”.