by
Budd Titlow
In 1886 Frank Chapman—founder of Audubon Magazine—decided to take a stroll from his uptown Manhattan office to the heart of the fashion district on 14th Street. Along the way, Chapman—a talented birder—counted a total 174 birds comprising 40 species, including woodpeckers, orioles, bluebirds, blue jays, terns, and owls. A pretty impressive array of birds for the middle of New York City—right? Hardly—you see the problem was that all the birds Chapman counted that day adorned the hats that sat on the top of women’s heads.
In the late 19th Century, America’s hat craze was in full swing. Millions of North American birds were killed for their feathers which were in great demand by the millinery trade. This greedy practice was so lucrative that plume hunters would often wipe out all the birds in a rookery—taking just the feathers and leaving eggs to rot and newly hatched chicks to starve to death. The going feather rate was $20 per ounce—more valuable than gold at the time.
In 1896 nearly five million birds representing 50 different species were killed for fashion. Entire populations of shorebirds and wading birds—including herons, egrets, spoonbills, gulls, and terns—along the Atlantic Coast were wiped out. But this despicable situation was about to change—in a very dramatic way. Enter Harriett Lawrence Hemenway!
Most successful environmental organizations owe their starts to individuals with a deep and abiding respect for and dedication to the natural world. This is certainly the case with the Massachusetts Audubon Society, although its founder didn’t exactly come from the background you might expect. For much of her life through early adulthood, Harriet Lawrence Hemenway lived a life of luxury and privilege at the pinnacle of Boston society in a family dominated by accomplished men.
While escaping to watch birds along the Charles River whenever she could, Hemenway spent most of her time as a prominent socialite moving gracefully through all the right places while always decked out to the nines in the latest trendy fashions. That was until she sat down on a cold winter day in 1896 and read a newspaper story that made her blood boil and caused all hell to break loose within the heretofore comfy and cozy confines of polite Boston society.
Harriett Hemenway escapes high society to watch birds along Boston’s Charles River.
When Hemenway read about thousands upon thousands of magnificent wading birds being slaughtered for feathers just to decorate women’s hats, she knew she had found her life’s calling. From that day forward, she declared herself to be a true “Champion of Conservation” and girded for the battle royal with the male-dominated world that she knew would soon follow.
Hemenway’s portrait by the famous artist John Singer Sargent shows an arrestingly handsome woman with a deep-set gaze that practically shouts out “don’t trifle with me … no matter who you are!” Soon after she read the bloodcurdling account of entire rookeries being wiped out in Florida, many of the cocky men who thought they ruled the roost in Boston were being called on the carpet to atone for the sins of the millinery trade.
The first thing Hemenway did was to contact her cousin—Minna B. Hall. Together, they organized a series of ladies’ teas with the intent of discussing much more than the latest social goings-on. Hemenway and Hall first told their society sisters about the avian horrors being inflicted on wild birds just to assuage their haute couture needs. Then they beseeched their esteemed guests to start refusing to buy hats with bird feathers and start rallying everyone else they knew to do the same.
Their strategy worked like a charm. Using their social networks as a springboard, Hemenway and Hall reached out to hundreds of scientists and businessmen and soon had gathered enough support to establish the Massachusetts Audubon Society (MAS)—the oldest Audubon Society in the country. In fact, the MAS still prides itself on being totally independent of all other Audubon societies, including the National Audubon Society (NAS).
In less than a year, the MAS had applied sufficient pressure to convince the Massachusetts legislature to outlaw the wild bird feather trade in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Within two more years, bird lovers in New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Maine, Iowa, Texas, Colorado, and the District of Columbia followed the example set by Hemenway and Hall. In almost every one of these states, the bird-loving societies were started by women who then convinced male civic leaders and local scientists to join the cause. On average, women accounted for about eighty percent of the membership of each Audubon Society—including fifty percent of the leadership roles.
In 1900—just four years after Hemenway and Hall brewed their bird-saving strategies over neighborhood teas—Congress passed the Lacey Act which provided the necessary legal teeth for prohibiting the interstate shipment of wild species killed in violation of state laws. Then by 1905—operating off this federal legal benchmark—33 states had moved to pass their own versions of the Lacey Act and the millinery trade of wild bird feathers—while still breathing slightly—was on life support.
The death knells finally started ringing in 1911. First, New York State passed the Audubon Plumage Bill—a legal triumph that banned the sale of plumes of all native birds and shut down the domestic feather trade in the state. Then the 1913 Tariff Bill banned the import of wild bird plumes from other countries and the Migratory Bird Act of 1913 placed all migratory birds under federal jurisdiction—finally ending the wild bird plume trade in the US for good.
In the final analysis, America’s Audubon Societies played the critical role in changing people’s attitudes towards killing birds for their feathers. And it all started because Harriet Lawrence Hemenway read an article that upset her, took to a venue that she knew well—high society tea parties—and started the ball rolling.
There’s an old adage that the best advice anyone can give to an aspiring writer is “just write about what you know”.Whether the goal is protecting wild birds or deciding how to most effectively deal with Climate Change, this credo can be modified just slightly to “just work with who you know”. If you happen to have some friends in high places—like Harriett Lawrence Hemenway—you may be amazed at what you can accomplish!
Text excerpted from book: “PROTECTING THE PLANET: Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change” written by Budd Titlow and Mariah Tinger and published by Prometheus Books.
Photo caption and credit: Harriett Hemenway escapes high society to watch birds along Boston’s Charles River. Copyright Shutterstock
Author’s bio: For the past 50 years, professional ecologist and conservationist Budd Titlow has used his pen and camera to capture the awe and wonders of our natural world. His goal has always been to inspire others to both appreciate and enjoy what he sees. Now he has one main question: Can we save humankind’s place — within nature’s beauty — before it’s too late? Budd’s two latest books are dedicated to answering this perplexing dilemma. “PROTECTING THE PLANET: Environmental Champions from Conservation to Climate Change”, a non-fiction book, examines whether we still have the environmental heroes among us — harking back to such past heroes as Audubon, Hemenway, Muir, Douglas, Leopold, Brower, Carson, and Meadows — needed to accomplish this goal. Next, using fact-filled and entertaining story-telling, his latest book — “COMING FULL CIRCLE: A Sweeping Saga of Conservation Stewardship Across America” — provides the answers we all seek and need. Having published five books, more than 500 photo-essays, and 5,000 photographs, Budd Titlow lives with his music educator wife, Debby, in San Diego, California.
CONSERVING NATURE WITH WORDS & PHOTOS 