“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” — Margaret Mead
In 1896, Boston socialite Harriet Hemenway read accounts of commercial hunters who were wiping out entire colonies of terns, herons and egrets to supply feathers for fashionable women’s hats.
At $20 an ounce, equivalent to $510 in today’s dollars, wild bird feathers were more valuable than gold at the time. Commercial hunters were slaughtering more than 5 million birds a year, and many Atlantic Coast species were edging toward extinction.
It was 24 years before women had the vote, but Harriet was a force to be reckoned with. She and her cousin Minna Hall organized teas for the women of Boston society and urged them to boycott the use of feathers in women’s hats. Some 900 women joined her and formed the Massachusetts Audubon Society.
Harriet engaged ornithologists and scientists in the region, and recruited noted ornithologist William Brewster as the organization’s first president. The following year, they pressured the Massachusetts legislature to enact a law outlawing the trade in wild bird feathers. In 1900, the Lacy Act prohibited the interstate shipment of animals killed in violation of local laws.
Harriet’s passion and influence brought the millinery trade in feathers almost to a halt. Her crusade spread to England, and Queen Victoria announced that she would no longer wear feathers.
During the next few years, Audubon groups formed in many other states, including Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont and Washington, D.C. In 1905, Harriet helped form a National Committee of Audubon Societies, which later became the National Audubon Society. However, the Massachusetts Audubon remains, to this day, a separate organization.
Founded to protect wild birds and their habitat, the new organization drove efforts that resulted in passage of the Migratory Bird Conservation Act of 1913 and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 — effectively eliminating the commercial plumage trade.
In 1922, Harriet helped champion the purchase of 43 acres in Sharon, Massachusetts to create one of the nation’s first wildlife refuges. Today, the Moose Hill Wildlife Sanctuary has 2,000 acres.
In the 1970s, Seattle Audubon co-founder Hazel Wolf initiated the founding of 21 new Audubon chapters in Washington State. One of the leaders she mentored was Helen Engle, who co-founded Tahoma Audubon and led the creation of the Nisqually Wildlife Refuge.
National Audubon’s 1.2 million members are almost evenly split (52 percent to 48 percent) between Democrats and Republicans, so saving birds transcends partisan politics. Our love for birds and our desire to save them that unites us. And we owe an enormous debt to these women and their legacy of environmental action and devotion to birds.
— Gene Bullock is a member of the Kitsap Audubon Society and writes monthly about birds.You can email him at genebullock@comcast.net.
