Our Great Great Aunt, Harriet Lawrence Hemenway (1858-1960), founded the National Audabon Society.
Harriet Hemenway and her cousin Minna Hall (1851-1941) formed a bird club and named it after a person they both admired, John James Audubon.
Though they could not vote... Hemenway and Hall invited groups of women to tea and convinced about 900 of them to give up wearing feathered hats. Their next move was to invite some prominent men to join them to start the Audubon Society with a goal of protecting birds. Although national legislation took a little longer, by 1897 Massachusetts had passed a bill outlawing trade in wild bird feathers.
So you see, conservation is in our blood....
And if you have any high quality digital stereoptycon photos of ladies in feathered
hats from the 19th Century please email them to us -
you will get a 5 dollar discount on your next carbon offset: Hybrid or Efficent only.
THE ARCTIC TERN - the bird that started it all,. after a drawing by Audabon....