Step Right Up: How Doc and Jim Key Taught the World about Kindness

This biography tells of William “Doc” Key, who was born enslaved and later became a self-taught veterinarian. With patient, humane care, he raised and trained a horse named Jim Key. Jim learned to respond to questions and to perform tasks involving spelling, writing, reading, and arithmetic. Doc and Jim traveled as a performance act around the turn of the twentieth century. Their work together also promoted kinder treatment of animals, placing their unusual partnership within a larger story of care and public attention.