Postcard #3: Bette Davis Eyes, 1910; Migratory Bird Act Threatened, 2018

Models wearing enormous hats; Delineator, June 1910. Note the feathers — probably not from endangered species — on the left.

The model on the right appears in the 1910 Delineator magazines several times; I couldn’t help noticing her resemblance to Bette Davis, who was only two years old in 1910.

A Bette Davis look-alike models a blouse with square neckline and bare throat (Butterick 3872;) Delineator, June 1910.

The bare throat on this model was not unique in the 1910 magazines I’ve been reading.

The other thing on my mind today is the Migratory Bird Act.

Hat decorated with entire bird wings, Delineator, February 1910.

I’ve just finished reading Tessa Boase’s fascinating book, Mrs. Pankhurst’s Purple Feather, which draws comparisons between the British women who led the fight for woman’s suffrage and the equally successful British women who fought for the protection of birds, and eventually achieved widespread environmental protections.

Boase reminds us that, in the United States, plumage from endangered species was outlawed a decade earlier than in Britain.

I just learned that “the Audubon Society and other organizations named 2018 the year of the bird.” Sadly, the article in The Washington Post which I just quoted describes an attack by the Trump Administration on the Migatory Bird Act of 1918.

A huge hat trimmed with feathers — and possibly entire taxidermied bird wings. Delineator, February 1910. In the U.S., such wings could not come from endangered species.

In 1910, British women praised the United States’ leadership in conservation of species and preservation of the natural world. In the U.S., the Lacey Act of 1900 made it a crime to sell protected species, and the Plumage Act of 1912 also forbade the importation of skins and feathers from endangered birds. In the U.S., women wearing Paris hats trimmed with prohibited feathers — like those from the snowy egret — could have them confiscated.

In April 2018, however, according to Washington Post reporters Darryl Fears and Dino Grandoni,

“In an opinion issued Wednesday to federal wildlife police who enforce the rule, the Interior Department said “the take [killing] of birds resulting from an activity is not prohibited by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act when the underlying purpose of that activity is not to take birds.”

The implication is that deforestation, oil spills, and careless disposal of hazardous waste — actions which can kill wildlife but are not specifically intended to kill wildlife — will no longer be prohibited.

In 2016, thousands of migrating snow geese died when they landed on a pond filled with toxic mine waste. (This is another report from The Washington Post, but verified by other sources.) The Fish and Wildlife Service has information on why and how to prevent oil fields from becoming deathtraps for birds and other species.

One lesson from Tessa Boase’s book — which I will be reviewing soon — was how much can be accomplished by determined women writing letters to newspapers, elected representatives, even parish newsletters.