The Feathered Truce: How Seattle High School Girls Promised to Save Birds
In a rare moment of progressive activism in 1900, students at Livingston Avenue High School pledged to stop decorating their hats with the plumage of songbirds, responding to a plea from a local ornithology advocate.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
NEW YORK, May 24. — Mrs. Gilbertson will probably visit the pupils of the Livingston Avenue high school of this city next November. Mrs. Sarah E. Jordan, the instructor of music in the high school, met Miss Lehman recently, and their conversation turned upon the efforts of the Audubon societies to preserve and kill birds for the sake of their plumage. Mrs. Lehman is interested about the work of the Audubon society, and she asked Mrs. Jordan if she did not think she could have her pupils agree not to decorate their hats with birds and bird's plumes.
Mrs. Jordan was doubtful about it, but promised to lay the matter before the high school girls. Miss Lehman promised that if the girls agreed to do as she asked she would come to the school in the fall and visit them. She was very willing to make this an agreement as an indication of her sincere interest in the preservation of the feathered singers.
On the spur of the moment a great many of the high school girls promised Mrs. Jordan that they would carry out their part of the contract and insisted that it would be real relief from the temptation to decorate their hats in the prevailing fashion. It is believed that all, or nearly all, will succeed with the 'help' of their parents.
This 1900 account captures an early, grassroots environmental movement in Seattle, predating widespread conservation laws by decades. The fight against the millinery trade's use of bird feathers was a significant cultural battle that helped establish the Audubon Society's influence in the Pacific Northwest, reflecting a shift from Victorian excess to ecological awareness.
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