featherless hats for ladies

[MrBern]

Did anyone see this on the PBS Ken Burns documentary on Natl Parks?

http://www.pbs.org/nationalparks/history/ep2/3/

Audubon Society condemns the use of bird feathers as fashion, The New York Times, December 3, 1897

The Call for a Featherless Hat

By 1900, feathers were in fashion and no woman's hat, it seemed, was complete without an array of plumes. Some hats even included entire stuffed birds. The long, white plumes of egrets had become more valuable than gold. To satisfy the demands of this latest fashion trend, more than 5 million birds a year were being slaughtered; nearly 95 percent of Florida's shore birds had been killed by plume hunters.

The Audubon Society tried unsuccessfully to persuade women not to buy hats with feathers, while the powerful millinery industry used its influence in Congress to defeat a series of national laws aimed at stopping the slaughter of birds.

An unlikely champion stepped forward in the form of Congressman John F. Lacey. Despite being part of a group of die-hard conservatives, when it came to defending wildlife, Lacey was one of the most progressive politicians of his day. After years of ceaseless effort, he won passage of the Lacey Bird and Game Act of 1900. The bill made it a federal crime to transport birds killed in violation of any state law, and soon government agents were confiscating huge shipments of bird skins and feathers.

But in the lawless Everglades, the Lacey Act did not put an end to plume hunting. Five years after the bill's passage, a game warden was murdered by poachers. Another was gunned down three years later. The wildlife in southern Florida, it seemed, would never be safe unless the Everglades itself was set aside as a national park.

 

[Lefty]

The shots of the hats with entire birds on them were amazing. For the money they were worth, I would have been down there shooting birds left and right.

 

[billysmom]

I'm reading Douglas Brinkley's biography of Theodore Roosevelt The Wilderness Warrior. It covers this movement thoroughly.

Sue