Example of an “Osprey” feather application to a hat. Not actual Osprey feathers but Egret, taken from breeding birds when their single tail feathers were most lofty. Birds killed left behind young on the nest to starve to death. Photo courtesy of Tessa Boase.
The book Giveaway is now closed, but you should still get your hands on this book!
Do you like a good story about a woman who loved wild birds? Birding biographies of women are few and far between, and one of the most compelling to come out recently is now in paperback. Tessa Boase’s Etta Lemon: The Woman Who Saved the Birds, tells the story of the founding of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in England, known today as the RSPB, which was (guess what?) founded by women.
We women have a thing for birds, but apparently we haven’t always recognized the importance for their conservation. Some of us wanted to protect them and some of us wanted to wear them.
The popularity of feathered hats among North American and European women in the late 19th and early 20th Century nearly led to the demise of multiple bird species, but the response to the plume trade also resulted in the founding of influential bird conservation organizations recognizable to this day.
Yes, it is women who are behind the founding of prominent bird conservation organizations in the US and the UK. Both the Audubon Society in the US and the RSPB were founded by Victorian-era women campaigning for an end to the fashion for outrageously feather-adorned hats. Wild birds from head to tail feather appeared on hats season after season as if their supply were endless. Bird advocates recognized the unsustainable practice and lobbied government and consumers over years to ban the trade of wild bird feathers in both countries.
Etta Lemon: The Woman Who Saved the Birds is more than a biography of a single formidable player in the banning of the plume trade; it’s a social history of women’s activism for both animal rights and women’s voting rights in early 20th Century England. Etta Lemon’s efforts for birds paralleled Emmeline Pankhurst’s efforts for the women’s vote, and their methods and creed could not have been more different. If you want to read how history rewards those who shout the loudest, endear themselves to the public imagination and forego a private life for the greater good, welcome to a page turning story that smacks of present-day social media influencer tactics to foment change.
Funny how some tactics never change, for better or worse, but outcomes that leave a positive legacy are the result. Thank you, Etta Lemon and thank you, Tessa for sharing her story!
Example of bird-body-part hat adornment popular in the early 20th Century among all classes of hat-wearing women in the UK. Photo courtesy of Tessa Boase.
Etta Lemon, founding member of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), and tireless foe of the plume trade. Photo courtesy of Tessa Boase.