Three hundred and seventy-four years ago on 2 April 1647, a remarkable woman was born: the artist and naturalist Maria Sibylla Merian. In the 17^th and 18^th century world of male-dominated science, Merian had to fight for her place in the natural sciences. Against all odds, she became a trailblazer, especially in developmental biology.

Portrait of Maria Sybilla Merian by Jacob Marrell, 1679.  From the collection of: Kunstmuseum Basel.

Merian’s legacy was recently explored during a 4-week student-project at the library of the Museum für Naturkunde (MfN) in Berlin. The project was part of a master’s program for the University of Applied Science in Leipzig to enlarge the student’s experience in the historical holding field and give a glimpse into the planning and conducting of a project. The aim of the project itself was and is the digitization of two different editions of Merian’s work, Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium, as well as a restorative and provenance research summary about the volumes. Both editions show Merian’s talent in painting and observing insects and plants.

Merian’s fascination with flowers and painting had its origin with her stepfather Jacob Marrel, a known flower painter of the time, who took her under his wing. Despite her mother’s wish, who considered painting too “masculine,” Merian learned how to draw and engrave from Marrel and by the age of eleven, she was able to engrave on copper independently (Kutschera 2017: 28). At the age of twelve, she developed a heightened interest in exploring the nature around her and was especially fascinated by the metamorphosis of silk worms. Merian conducted her own studies, feeding the silkworm larvae and observing their transformation. Thus, her collection of different caterpillar species started to grow.

Examples of flowers and insects. Found in: Merian, Maria Sybilla. De Europischen insecten, v.3. 1730. Contributed in BHL from Smithsonian Libraries and Archives.

In 1665, shortly after her 18th birthday, Merian married Johann Andreas Graff (1636-1701)—a marriage that ended in divorce nearly 30 years later in 1692. Merian published her first work, the flower book Neues Blumenbuch, in 1675. It contained examples for the students of her painting and embroidery classes. She did not lose her interest in the metamorphosis of species, however, and published her first book about caterpillars in 1679 under the name Der Raupen Wunderbare Verwandelung und Sonderbare Blumennahrung (engl. “The Wondrous Transformation of Caterpillars and their Remarkable Diet of Flowers”). The “Anderer Theil” (engl. “Other volume”) followed in 1683.

In 1685, Merian moved with her two young daughters to a community of Labadists in Friesland. There, the exotic butterflies from Suriname in the collection of the castle Waltastate served as a template for new paintings and sparked her interest towards this exotic country. It was also the place she observed and recorded the metamorphosis of the frog in 1686 for the very first time, 13 years before Antonie van Leeuwenhoek documented it in a letter to the Royal Society (Nagendra 2016: 122). However, the small family did not stay in Friesland for long and moved to Amsterdam in 1690. With the help of other naturalists and the caterpillars they brought with them, the three women established themselves as artists.

Through the connections Merian made in Holland, she met travellers that came back from the Dutch colony Suriname with collections full of colourful insects. Although these were pretty to look at, the collections lacked the information about the insects’ developments.

“In Holland, I saw with wonderment the beautiful creatures brought back from the East and West Indies, especially when I had the honour to be able to see the splendid collection belonging to […] Dr Nicolaas Witsen […] and many others, in which I found these and countless other insects, but without their origins and subsequent development, in other words, how they develop from caterpillars into chrysalises and so on. All this stimulated me to undertake a long and costly journey to Suriname […] in order to pursue my investigations further.” (Merian & O’Brien-Twohig 2012: 2)

Merian’s decision to travel to Suriname, a country known for the death of many travelers due to tropical diseases at the time, as a divorced 52-year-old woman was quite scandalous. On top of that, Merian managed to finance herself independently by selling her paintings beforehand.

In 1699, Merian and her youngest daughter Dorothea Maria boarded a ship to Suriname. They arrived in Paramaribo and quickly learned that the Dutch colonists were not interested in helping them in their mission to locate and study the foreign insects. Instead, Merian relied on the assistance and knowledge of the Indigenous and African people enslaved on the Dutch sugar plantations.

Over the next two years, Merian and her daughter spent time exploring the jungle, canoeing rivers and painting every plant and insect they could find. Everything that they collected, from the information to the first artworks, went into Merian’s journal. Unfortunately, the pair returned home in 1701, earlier than expected, when Merian became ill, possibly with malaria. As a result, her stay on a plantation near the riverside of Paramaribo was cut short by three years.

Merian presented the results from her trip in the Metamorphosis insectorum surinamensium, first published in 1705. In it, 60 plates show the variety of the vibrant colours of the rainforest, each accompanied with information about their practical use, medical remedies, or general studies about the development of the insects and plants. A lot of her knowledge about the usage came from the enslaved people of the Suriname plantations. It is unclear whether Merian herself bought the enslaved people with whom she worked or if they were a gift when she first arrived (Davis 1996: 210).

Merian herself wrote on plate 36 about the plant Costus arabicus:

“I had my Indian dig [Costus arabicus] up by the root and carry it home and plant it in my garden” as well as that “because the forest is so densely grown with thistles and thorns, I had to send my slaves ahead of me with axes to hack out an opening for me.”

Therefore, while she writes about the help she received from enslaved people, unlike many other explorers and naturalists of her time, she still did not credit them by names (Baumhammer & Kennedy 2017: 213). In her publication, they remain an anonymous source of information.

Costus arabicus, a Banana Stem Borer Moth, and an unidentified butterfly. Found in: Merian, Maria Sybilla. Metamorphosis insectorum surinamensium. 1705. Contributed in BHL from Smithsonian Libraries and Archives.

In a later part of the book, there is a hard breach between the beautiful painting of the Peacock flower and Merian’s description of the usage of said flower. She writes that enslaved women told her about the horrible treatment from the Dutch and their use of the seeds to cause abortions and save their children from the same enslaved fate.

The focus of Merian’s criticism was mainly on the Dutch farming practices and not on the brutal treatment of the enslaved people. She could not understand how the Dutch ignored the richness and diversity of the flora around them and only planted sugar. Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert suggests that Merian was interested only in sharing scientific findings from her time in Suriname. “Full of groundbreaking information to communicate to a world avid for scientific knowledge, she was not gifted with a facile pen for anything other than scientific fact” (Paravisini-Gebert 2012: 12). While this might explain her lack of a more pronounced criticism of slavery, it does not condemn the fact that she took an enslaved woman with her back to Amsterdam as indicated by the passenger list for the sailing back home. This woman was most likely the person Merian referenced as “my Indian” from the text about Costus arabicus (Davis 1996: 212; Polcha 2019).

There is no mention in the sources about Merian’s behaviour towards the enslaved people on whom she relied, but Merian did participate in the racial hierarchies of trans-national colonialism. While she may have broken gender rules and created brilliant works of art, Merian ultimately profited from the suffering of others.

Merian’s reliance on and usage of the information and help she received from enslaved people must not be ignored, as it opens the discussion about how slavery affected her work and how she benefited from it. Merian would likely not have had access to most of the plants and insects described in her book without the help from enslaved African and Indigenous people, especially since the Dutch colonists did not support her studies. Would there have been a Metamorphosis without Merian using and exploiting the established oppression?

Ultimately, Metamorphosis did not sell as well as previously hoped and Merian lived in modesty. Her plans to publish translations of the book could not succeed due to the expense. She died poor on 13 January 1717, probably the same day Czar Peter the Great bought her remaining paintings (Nagrenda 2016: 118; Kutschera 2017: 30; Pieters & Winthagen 1999: 6).

The peacock flower (Caesalpinia pulcherrima) with its seeds and the life cycle of the Caroline Sphinx Moth (Manduca sexta). Found in: Merian, Maria Sybilla. Metamorphosis insectorum surinamensium. 1705. Contributed in BHL from Smithsonian Libraries and Archives.

The beforehand mentioned project at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin revolved around the Dissertation sur la generation et les transformations des insectes de Surinam (published in 1726) and the three volumes of Histoire générale des insectes de Surinam et de toute l’Europe (published in 1771). These editions used the copper plates from the original Metamorphosis print. Although they lack the vivid colours of their original counterpart, the black and white engravings still show the broad diversity of the Suriname (and European) insects and plants. Currently the library awaits the arrival of a new book scanner to digitize these four books, as they were too large for the scanner currently in use. They should be available in BHL by the end of the year (2021).

The Dissertation contains twelve more plates, two of which Merian did not make herself. These two plates and their explanation were full of errors. Due to this and wrongly coloured plates in later editions, Merian was harshly criticized despite showing and explaining nearly everything right in her own coloured and published edition (Pieters & Winthagen 1999: 10; Nagrenda 2016: 121). However, “the many racist, sexist, plain nasty (and ignorant) 19th century critiques of her work in Surinam only serve to highlight the remarkable and path-breaking nature of her work in the 17th century” (Nagendra 2016: 121).

The three volumes of Histoire générale des insectes de Surinam et de toute l’Europe furthermore included the European insects as well, using original drawings from Merian, too. The Museum’s copies were a donation by the Gesellschaft naturforschender Freunde zu Berlin (G.n.F., engl. “Berlin Society of Friends of Natural Science”) when they closed their library in 1907. It is unknown who bought them for the G.n.F. but they were acquired between 1793 and 1828. Handwritten annotations show that the same person used the books. Furthermore, the copy at the Museum shows one of the incorrect plates is upside down, which ironically highlights the errors.

Comparison of the incorrect copy of Histoire générale des insectes de Surinam et de toute l’Europe in the collection of the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin. Photo Credit: Antonia Trojok.

Alongside these four books, another was found and digitized from the MfN collection: a German edition of a volume from Historiae naturalis by John Johnston, for which Maria Sibylla Merian’s older half-brothers, Matthäus and Caspar Merian, made the copper plates. You can find their names engraved on two plates in the books. The siblings learned alongside each other during their childhood as Jacob Marrel’s students. This title testifies to the artistic talent that ran in the family, given the detail included even for those animals of purely fantastical origins.

Plate of fantastical creatures. Found in: Decker, Johannes. Naturgeschichte aus den besten Schriftstellern : mit Merianischen und neuen Kupfern. 1772. Digitized in BHL by Museum für Naturkunde Berlin.

In conclusion, the editions in the Museum für Naturkunde and many other instances show that Maria Sibylla Merian’s legacy for natural science still lives on. Merian was also the first European to do a voyage for a solely scientific purpose (Valiant 1993: 470) and recorded the life cycle of a frog. The Father of Taxonomy, Carl Linnaeus, as well as many more scientists cited her work throughout the years. However, we cannot highlight her legacy without also confronting her use of enslaved labour and acknowledging and respecting the impact that enslaved and Indigenous people in Suriname had on her work. Without them, Merian probably would not have shown the diversity of the rainforest for the first time.

With Merian’s legacy digitized, even more researchers and nature lovers can now enjoy her work in the future. Hopefully, these digitized copies will also inspire continued research into the extent and impact of the enslaved African and Indigenous people who contributed to this ground-breaking work.

You can read the first edition (in Dutch) of Metamorphosis insectorum surinamensium (1705)—freely available in BHL thanks to Smithsonian Libraries and Archives. Or check out Merian’s drawings from the first edition on the BHL Flickr page.

References

Davis, Natalie Zemon. 1996. Drei Frauenleben – Glikl – Marie de l’Incarnation – Maria Sibylla Merian. Berlin, Wagenbach.

Baumgarten, Megan & Kennedy Claire. 2017. Merian and the Pineapple: Visual Representation of the Seneses, in: Hacke, D. & Musselwhite, P. (eds.), Empire of the senses: Sensory practices of colonialism in early America, Boston, Brill, 190–222. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/9789004340640.

Kutschera, Ulrich. 2017. Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717) – Pionieren der Entwicklungsbiologie und Ökologie, Biologie in unserer Zeit 47(1), 28–36. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/biuz.201710610

Nagendra, Harini. 2016. Maria Sibylla Merian (1647–1717), Resonance 21(2), 115–124. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12045-016-0305-9

Merian, Maria Sibylla & O’Brien-Twohig, Sarah. 2012. from Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium (Or, Transformations of Surinamese Insects ), Review: Literature and Arts of the Americas 45(1), 21–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08905762.2012.670451

Pieters, Florence. & Winthagen, Diny. 1999. Maria Sibylla Merian, naturalist and artist (1647-1717): A commemoration on the occasion of the 350th anniversary of her birth, Archives of natural history 26(1), 1–18. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/anh.1999.26.1.1

Polcha, Elizabeth. 2019. Breeding Insects and Reproducing white Supremacy in Maria Sibylla Merian’s Ecology of Dispossession. https://www.ladyscience.com/breeding-insects-and-reproducing-white-supremacy/no57

Valiant, Sharon. 1993. Maria Sibylla Merian: Recovering an Eighteenth-Century Legend, Eighteenth-Century Studies 26(3), 467–479. https://doi.org/10.2307/2739414

This post originally published on the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives’ blog, Unbound.

“To her mind the truths of science seem revealed.”

That’s how Phebe A. Hanaford, author of Daughters of America (c. 1882), described naturalist Graceanna Lewis, one of the first three woman to be accepted into the Academy of Natural Sciences. But Lewis was not only one of the first professionally acknowledged women naturalists; she was also an abolitionist and social reformer who worked for the advancement of science as well as human rights. Researchers can find many publications by and about this intriguing woman in the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives’ Digital Library and the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

Born in 1821, Lewis benefitted from an egalitarian Quaker upbringing, one that encouraged education in daughters as well as sons. Lewis told Hanaford that she learned to love natural history from her mother, Esther Lewis. Esther had been a teacher before marriage and continued to educate her own young children, sending her daughters to nearby Kimberton Boarding School as they grew. There, Graceanna was influenced by Abigail Kimber, a woman botanist who had discovered and identified several species. In 1842, Lewis’ uncle, Dr. Bartholomew Fussell, started a new boarding school for girls, and Lewis came on board as a teacher. She taught astronomy and botany, among other subjects.

Portrait of Graceanna Lewis. The Underground Rail Road (1872). Digitized by Smithsonian Libraries and Archives.

From her family, Graceanna Lewis inherited not only an interest in science and education but also a deep concern for social issues. Uncle Bartholomew was an active abolitionist, and the family formed a local auxiliary of the American Anti-Slavery Society. The Lewis sisters, Graceanna, Mariann and Elizabeth, were profiled in William Still’s The Underground Rail Road (1872), which described them as “among the most faithful, devoted, and quietly efficient workers in the Anti-slavery cause”.

One of Graceanna’s earliest publications, written in the 1840s, was “An Appeal to Those Members of the Society of Friends Who Knowing the Principles of the Abolitionists Stand Aloof from the Anti-Slavery Enterprise”. It implored fellow Quakers to join the Anti-Slavery movement. The Lewis farm in Pennsylvania became a frequent and successful point on the Underground Railroad, described in detail by Still. The family helped transport those seeking freedom and provided clothes and supplies.

Eventually, Lewis moved away from the family farm to Philadelphia. She had studied birds and other natural sciences on her own, but this move allowed her to take advantage of the specimen and library collections at the nearby Academy of Natural Sciences, and it propelled her into a network of naturalists. In 1862, she met John Cassin, ornithologist and curator of birds at the Academy. Cassin had written, with George N. Lawrence and the Smithsonian’s own Spencer Baird, The Birds of North America (1860), a work Lewis found particularly inspiring.

Cassin would be an invaluable friend and mentor to Lewis, even naming a bird for her, Icterus graceannae, the White-edged oriole. Lewis also corresponded frequently with Baird for years, seeking advice and asking for copies of Smithsonian publications. In 1870, the year after Cassin’s death, Lewis became one of the first three women admitted as members to the Academy.

Icterus graceannae, or white-edged oriole, Plate XI. Ibis. Series 5, Volume 1. No. 1-4. (1883). Contributed in BHL from Smithsonian Libraries and Archives.

Lewis had channeled her interested in ornithology into her first scientific publication, Natural History of Birds : lectures on ornithology, in ten parts (1868). It was intended as an inexpensive overview of American birds for a general audience. In it, she also proposed a new classification scheme based on embryology, the characteristics of eggs. Unfortunately, only the first part was published, as funding for the remaining nine was never secured. She continued to research and publish on birds, alongside the leading naturalists of her time. Her articles in The American Naturalist, “The Lyre Bird” (August 1870) and “Symmetrical Figures in Birds’ Feathers” (November 1871) are available in the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

Lewis’ interests and publications grew beyond ornithology, into the classification of natural history and a “tree of life”, which she exhibited at the Centennial Exhibition in 1876. The Development of the Animal Kingdom (1877), available in the Biodiversity Heritage Library, is a twenty-page overview of her theories. It was prepared for the fourth meeting of the Association for the Advancement of Women. The group was formed in 1868 with the goal of presenting practical methods for improving women’s role in society, including education on a variety of subjects. Unsurprisingly, Lewis was active on the group’s Committee on Science.

Cover. The Development of the Animal Kingdom. (1877). Contributed in BHL from Smithsonian Libraries and Archives.

Lewis told Phebe A. Hanaford in 1882, “I feel that my life’s work is before me, in lecturing on zoology to girls just blooming into womanhood”. For the next twenty years, Lewis continued to teach and write about various natural history topics. Her article “On the Genus Hyliota”, discussing the distinction of two rare African birds, was published in The Annals and magazine of natural history in 1883. Her social reform interests turned to temperance and suffrage, serving stints as secretary for her local chapter of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and suffrage association.

Graceanna Lewis died in 1912 in Media, Pennsylvania at the age of 90. Her contributions to both science and social progress leave a remarkable and inspiring legacy.

Further Reading

Baird, Spencer Fullerton, John Cassin and George N. Lawrence. The Birds of North America (1860).

Baird, Spencer Fullerton. Spencer Fullerton Baird Papers. Record Unit 7002. Smithsonian Institution Archives.

Bonta, Marcia. “Graceanna Lewis, Portrait of a Quaker Naturalist”. Quaker History, Volume 74, Number 1, Spring 1985, pp. 27-40.

Hanaford, Phebe A. Daughters of America (1883).

Lewis, Graceanna. “An appeal to those members of the Society of Friends who knowing the principles of the abolitionists stand aloof from the anti-slavery enterprise”. [between 1840 and 1849?].

Lewis, Graceanna. The Development of the Animal Kingdom (1877).

Lewis, Graceanna. “The Lyre Bird”. The American Naturalist (August 1870), pp 321.

Lewis, Graceanna. “On the genus Hyliota”. The Annals and magazine of natural history, Series 5, Volume 12, No. 67, pp. 210-212.

Lewis, Graceanna. “Symmetrical Figures in Birds’ Feathers” . The American Naturalist (November 1871), pp. 675-678.

Lewis-Fussell Family Papers, SFHL-RG5-087, Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College.

Still, William. The Underground rail road (1872).

Truitt, James. “Digitizing the Papers of Graceanna Lewis, Ornithologist and Activist”. Cassinia. No. 77 (2017-2018), pp. 40-41.

Warner, Deborah Jean. Graceanna Lewis, scientist and humanitarian (1979).

This post was originally published on 2 March 2021 on the Smithsonian Institution Archives blog.

Dr. Margaret S. Collins and Dr. Barbara L. Thorne standing next to a termite (Nasutitermes acajutlae) nest on Guana Island in the British Virgin Islands while studying a variety of termites in 1986. © Dr. Barbara L. Thorne.

Dr. Margaret S. Collins (1922-1996), a renowned expert on termite ecology and distribution, taught as a professor and administrator at Howard University, Florida A&M University, and Federal City College (now University of The District of Columbia) for over 35 years. Upon her retirement from teaching, Collins continued her work on termites at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History as a research associate from 1983 to 1996.

Over the course of her career, Collins published more than forty articles spanning the biogeography, physiology, chemical defenses, and taxonomy of termites. Collins also collected specimens in the United States, Mexico, Costa Rica, Colombia, Barbados, Belize, Suriname, the Cayman Islands, Guyana, Guatemala, and Panama. When she contracted dengue fever on an expedition in Guyana in 1983-1984 and was forced into a long hiatus from field work, she turned her focus to updating and preserving the termite specimens at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Eventually Collins returned to field research in 1994 when she once again traveled to Guyana to collect termites. In April 1996, Collins died while conducting field work in the Cayman Islands.

Collins’ biographers, such as Wini Warren and Vernard R. Lewis, have documented how she faced racism and sexism in her work and life. As one of the first African American women to earn a Ph.D. in entomology, she had to fight to find advisers as an undergraduate at West Virginia State College and to fund her field research during her early career. Additionally, Collins worked in the face of bomb threats and racist remarks as she pursued her career and advocated for equal rights during the civil rights movement.

In fact, Collins’ memorial service pamphlet begins with excerpts from a letter she wrote to the editor of the Tallahassee Democrat during the 1956 Tallahassee bus boycott. During the boycott, sometimes chased by police, Collins drove protestors to and from work. The excerpts included:

The Person who allows himself to be mistreated without protest shares equal responsibility with his abuser for the unjust act…

…We can do little for those of us who have been so conditioned that they back away when the opportunity to stand tall is offered—except be thankful that we are not all as they are. Those who back away need prayers, that they may never have to bear the burden of blocking the growth of other members of their group.

These passages were edited out of Collins’ letter by the newspaper and never printed, but their inclusion in her memorial service offers a sense of the importance Collins placed on standing tall against the challenges she faced in her own life.

The first page of Margaret S. Collins’ memorial service pamphlet. Courtesy of Dr. Barbara L. Thorne.

In the face of those challenges, Collins developed a love for field research. To learn more about Margaret Collins’ research, see a selection of her field notebooks, archived at the Smithsonian and digitized in the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL), the world’s largest open access digital library for biodiversity literature and archives. Headquartered at the Smithsonian, BHL works with libraries and archives around the world to revolutionize global research by providing free, worldwide access to knowledge about life on Earth.

Pages 6 and 7 from Margaret S. Collins’ Field Notes: “Combat Data,” Suriname, 1982: SIA Acc. 01-038. Contributed in BHL from Smithsonian Institution Archives.

Collins’ field notebooks were digitized and transcribed with the Smithsonian Transcription Center as part of the Smithsonian Field Book Project. Field notes can provide rich data for researchers to understand how biodiversity has changed over space and time. For example, field notebooks may describe habitats, meteorological events, and personal observations that allow us to reconstruct historical ecologies. The Archives has contributed over 300,000 pages of field notes to the Biodiversity Heritage Library as part of the Smithsonian Field Book Project. Some of Collins’ field books are part of that collection.

There are so many inspiring stories, like Dr. Collins’, about women in science at the Smithsonian in its 175-year history that can educate and embolden future generations, but only if their legacies are discoverable. On Thursday, 25 March 2021 from 1-3pm ET, join us for Wikipedia & Women in Science: Smithsonian Groundbreakers Edit-a-thon, an online Wikipedia editing workshop hosted in conjunction with the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative and the Smithsonian Institution Archives, part of Smithsonian Libraries and Archives.

During this training, attendees of all experience levels will learn the basics of how to edit Wikipedia by updating articles related to the history of women in science at the Smithsonian Institution in connection with the Funk List. Presenters will share how editors might research the work of these women in the absence of personal papers and institutional records. Learn more and register.

This post is part of a series from the Ernst Mayr Library exploring the digitization and transcription of ornithologist William Brewster’s archival materials and the insights and scholarship made possible thanks to this work.

A black and white photograph of William Brewster sitting on the front doorstep of his cabin in Concord, Ma. The small, one-story log cabin is set in a hillside and surrounded by small trees and shrubs. The back of the photograph has the note: “Concord, Mass. May 20, 1892.” (Ernst Mayr Library Special Collections, call no. bBr97.70.7.)

The Ernst Mayr Library and Archives of the Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ), Harvard University, holds a unique and extensive collection of photographs, letters, manuscripts and field notes of William Brewster, a prominent ornithologist/naturalist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His published work is lauded as providing authoritative and novel additions to ornithology.

Brewster published more than 300 ornithological papers and several books which are widely available in academic and research libraries. He was the first president of the Massachusetts Audubon Society and was a founding member of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, out of which grew the national organization, the American Ornithologists’ Union. Brewster served as President of the American Ornithologists’ Union from 1895 to 1898, and the organization has awarded a medal in Brewster’s name since 1921.

Brewster’s ornithological studies covered the United States, although he worked most extensively in New England. Brewster was a Curator of Ornithology in the Harvard University Museum of Comparative Zoology from 1885 to 1902, continuing to work in the MCZ until his death in 1919. He deposited his bird specimen collection in the MCZ and his associated works such as his journals, diaries, correspondence and some photographic works in the Ernst Mayr Library & MCZ Archives. Brewster’s extensive specimen collection, in combination with his large body of published work, secures his place in ornithological history.

In 2012, the Ernst Mayr Library began digitizing Brewster’s journals, diaries, letters, and photographic prints. Many have been digitized as part of the CLIR-funded BHL Field Notes Project. To date, virtually all of Brewster’s more than 60,000 pages of notes, correspondence and images have been digitized and nearly 10,000 pages of the handwritten notes and diaries have been transcribed. All materials are in the process of being deposited in the Biodiversity Heritage Library, with more than half of the collection, including all of the journals and diaries, now available. The materials have been collated into the William Brewster Papers Collection.

Brewster kept journals and diaries, mostly devoted to his birding activities, for 54 years from the time he was 14 until he died in 1919. These written records afford us a glimpse into the daily inner workings of this scientist’s mind. The Ernst Mayr Library is fortunate to have his full set of journals and diaries, most of his correspondence and some of his photographs and glass negatives. This is indeed a treasure trove of information, now made more accessible as it is digitized and made openly available in BHL. This collection is more than a record of changing landscapes, bird lists, temperature and weather recorded for each day of writing. It shows us how Brewster developed his ideas, how he thought about the world, and how his thinking changed through his life. In his later correspondence with Frank Chapman (a then-young ornithologist that Brewster mentored into a more mature career), they debated about and revised how to do science with less killing of birds.

Excerpt of a letter from Frank Michler Chapman to William Brewster. 15 June 1890. Contributed in BHL from the Harvard University, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Ernst Mayr Library.

“This miserable collecting. It is the cause of all higher failing, it lowers a true love of nature through a desire for gain. I don’t mean a specimen here and there, but this shooting right and left, this boasting of how many skins have been made in a day or season. We are becoming pot-hunters. We proclaim how little we know of the habits of birds and then kill them at sight. Sometimes I am completely disgusted with our ways and myself in particular… I long for an outing where the gun will be secondary, recorded observations primary, where I shall be entirely alone or with a companion whose object is my object … The question with me is, how am I going to change this?… Will you embark with me on a novel ornithological expedition, whose aim shall be to really observe birds to learn something of them. Where the gun shall be a servant, not a master, where days may pass without a skin being made, where there will be time to speculate and discuss the habits of birds observed, where systematic observation of certain phaenomena may be attempted.” 15 June 1890, Correspondence, Frank Michler Chapman to William Brewster.

Brewster’s detailed, long-term observations and notes are the key to his published contributions to ornithology and are a unique resource. His diaries, journals and correspondence are a gold mine of unpublished observations, journal notes, sketches, weather reports, specimen lists and travel narratives: these records are primary source data at its most raw and unevaluated. Historical collections of field notes may be the only documentation of a scientist’s thought processes, ideas and observations, particularly if only some of the writer’s material was ever published.

Brewster documented local environmental changes and gradual declines in number and presence of bird species over many years. He was concerned about vanishing wildlife, urbanization and landscape changes. He talked about ecological succession before the concept was officially published.

Excerpt of a page from William Brewster’s 1896 journal, in which he documents the impact of roadwork on local wildlife. Contributed in BHL from the Harvard University, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Ernst Mayr Library.

“Where the road passes through the woods … the roadworkers last May cut away the mountain maples, [cornels] and other shrubs and low trees that made such a beautiful border to the forest clearing in their places a broad belt of bare rocks half covered with the fallen brush wood. This deed of vandalism was performed while I was here and at the time I feared that years must elapse before Nature, with all her diligence, could repair the injury. I underrated her powers for already this thicket of road is, if anything, more beautiful than ever. Fire weed, Eupatorium, Impatiens, Asters, Golden rod and several other tall and rank flowering plants have shot up through and almost perfectly concealed the unsightly brush and stone heaps and I have rarely seen a more brilliant or attractive display of wild flowers.” 15 August 1896, Lake Umbagog, Maine, Journals of William Brewster

Brewster helped develop legislation to discourage excessive hunting and the use of feathers in women’s hats, although at the same time advocating for the continued, but regulated, collection of scientific specimens. His conservation work led him to become the first president of the Massachusetts Audubon Society. The photographs and negatives from the collections chronicle landscape changes through time. Brewster’s growing concerns about the killing of wildlife, even for scientific purposes, can be seen developing in his field notes and correspondence.

Excerpt of a page from William Brewster’s 1907 journal, which captures his transition from collecting bird specimens with his shotgun to field observation and photography. Contributed in BHL from the Harvard University, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Ernst Mayr Library.

“If he would become really familiar with the wood folk and their ways, let him go among them unarmed and in a spirit of peace and loving kindness towards them all. Then he will learn many things which the bearers of guns do not know and cannot be made to believe.” August 1907, Journals of William Brewster.

The availability of Brewster’s notebooks enhances contemporary studies and makes the entire research cycle of this scientist’s work available for analysis by historians of science, scientists, social scientists and humanists or anyone interested in the process of discovery, by creating a richer and more interactive history of science resource. Brewster’s careful observations enable comparisons of his birding lists with contemporary observations (100 years plus later), helping to document environmental changes that might not be evident otherwise.

References

Emmet, Alan. November-December 2007. William Brewster: Brief life of a bird-lover 1851-1919. Harvard Magazine. https://harvardmagazine.com/2007/11/william-brewster-html

Meyer, Elizabeth. April 5, 2018. From ‘Shotgun Ornithology’ to nature conservation: scientific stories and data from the field notes of William Brewster. https://blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2018/04/from-shotgun-ornithology-to-nature-conservation-scientific-stories-and-data-from-the-field-notes-of-william-brewster.html

Meyer, Elizabeth. April 6, 2017. Notes from William Brewster: The evolving field of zoology. https://blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2017/04/notes-from-william-brewster-evolving.html

Meyer, Elizabeth. September 9, 2016. Notes from William Brewster: Ecological change in the Maine woods. https://library.mcz.harvard.edu/blog/notes-william-brewster-ecological-change-maine-woods

Mitchell, John Hanson. 2014 e-book edition. Looking for Mr. Gilbert: The Unlikely Life of the First African American Landscape Photographer. New York, New York : Open Road Distribution.

Mitchell, John Hanson. 2005. Looking for Mr. Gilbert: the Reimagined Life of an African American. Washington, D.C. : Shoemaker & Hoard : Distributed by Publishers Group West

Randall, Patrick. June 5, 2014. Transcribing the field notes of William Brewster. https://blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2014/06/transcribing-field-notes-of-william.html

Rinaldo, Constance, Linda Ford and Joseph deVeer. 2018. Museum, library and archives partnership: Leveraging digitized data from historical sources. Poster presentation at Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections, August 2018, Dunedin, New Zealand.

Sears, M. 2020. Celebrating Robert Gilbert. Ernst Mayr Library Blog post: https://library.mcz.harvard.edu/blog/celebrating-robert-gilbert

April 2020 marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. Organizations around the world have commemorated the occasion by participating in the global Earth Optimism movement — an initiative spearheaded by the Smithsonian to “turn the conservation conversation from doom and gloom to optimism and opportunity”.

Throughout 2020, the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) and our partners are joining the movement by sharing conservation success stories from and made possible by the BHL collection. Follow our blog for conservation stories — past and present — and visit our website for more information and to explore our Earth Optimism book collection.

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Florida nutmeg, Torreya taxifolia (male). This illustration, along with that of the female tree, represents the first published illustration of this species. Plate 232. Hooker’s Icones plantarum, vol. 3 (1840). Contributed in BHL from the Missouri Botanical Garden, Peter H. Raven Library.

On 5 June 1834, avid amateur botanist Hardy Bryan Croom wrote a letter to botanist John Torrey describing a gymnosperm tree in northern Florida that he was struggling to identify. In this letter, he postulated—with some degree of confidence—that the tree was Taxus baccata, the common yew, and he hoped to acquire some specimens to send to Torrey for investigation.

Torrey was one of the most important 19th century botanists in America. He corresponded with hundreds of scientists in North America and Europe, many of whom sent him specimens from their various explorations for study and identification. As such a well-respected expert and advisor on botanical science, it comes as no surprise that Croom sought Torrey’s expertise regarding this mysterious Florida tree.

The next year, in a letter dated 18 November 1835, Croom wrote again to Torrey, stating:

“The letter which I wrote last summer has had the effect to procure me some perfect fruit of that remarkable Taxoid tree at Aspalaga. The result surprises me. It is an ovate one celled nut entirely enclosed in fleshy covering! as large as a pigeon’s egg! Calix imbricated; thus agreeing neither with Taxus nor with Podocarpus. Besides, the tree, I think, is dioecious, but of this I am not yet certain. What will you do with it? Will it make a new genus?”

The following year, Croom again wrote to Torrey in a letter dated 18 May 1836 that he had determined that the tree represented a new genus. He proposed the genus name Torreya and provided a description and habitat details for “this fine tree,” for which he remarked:

“It is so abundant about Aspalaga (especially on Flat Creek) as to have been sawed into plank and lumber. It is an elegant tree with dark green foliage.”

With this letter, Croom provided the first recorded description of the habitat and abundance of the Florida nutmeg, Torreya taxifolia.

Sadly, Croom and his family drowned in a shipwreck in the Atlantic Ocean near Cape Hatteras on 8 October 1837. As such, Torrey arranged that the new genus and species were formally named and described by botanist George Arnott Walker-Arnott in 1838.

While Croom characterized Torreya taxifolia as abundant in 1836, today the species is critically endangered. With a distribution restricted to the limestone ravines and bluffs along the Apalachicola River in northern Florida and southern Georgia, fewer than a thousand individual trees persist in their native habitat. The most significant threat to the species is continued reproductive failure resulting from fungal pathogens—a threat which is continuing but not well-understood [1].

Torreya taxifolia is one of the species highlighted in a recent study to be published in the Memoirs of the Torrey Botanical Society. Authors Dr. Brian M. Boom (Curator Emeritus and former Vice President for Conservation Strategy and Bassett Maguire Curator of Botany at The New York Botanical Garden) and Susan Fraser (Recently-retired Thomas J. Hubbard Vice President and Director of the LuEsther T. Mertz Library) review John Torrey’s botanical legacy, drawing heavily on Torrey’s extensive correspondence, most of which, along with drawings, books, and artifacts from Torrey’s collections, can be found in the holdings of the LuEsther T. Mertz Library of The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) [2].

In 2016, NYBG embarked on a project to digitize and transcribe Torrey’s correspondence and make both freely available through the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL). To date, more than 9,500 pages of correspondence—including those from Croom regarding Torreya taxifolia—are available in BHL, and over 7,000 of those pages have been transcribed.

The Torrey correspondence available through BHL was an invaluable resource during Boom and Fraser’s research for their study, which highlights several rare, restricted-range, or threatened plant species for which Torrey was directly involved in the scientific discovery and description phases. This was especially true with regards to Torreya taxifolia.

“BHL was instrumental in researching the circumstances surrounding the discovery and naming of this species, particularly through access to the correspondence of Hardy Bryan Croom and John Torrey between 1834-1837,” asserts Boom.

Dr. Brian M. Boom, Curator Emeritus and former Vice President for Conservation Strategy and Bassett Maguire Curator of Botany at The New York Botanical Garden. Photo Credit: The New York Botanical Garden.

Boom has been studying plant conservation, systematics, and ethnobotany for 40 years. His conservation work focuses on rare, restricted-range and threatened plant species in the American tropics and North Temperate areas, or, alternatively, on invasive species that pose threats to native flora in these regions. An important aspect of his research is aimed at understanding these species from the circumstances surrounding their discovery in the field and description and publication as a new species, through to subsequent documentation of their occurrence in the landscape, and with regards to the threats they are under, in the case of rare plants, or the threats they cause, in the case of invasives.

“Plant species with restricted geographic ranges, or that are rare or threatened, are of conservation concern because it could take relatively little perturbation to cause populations of such species to become further restricted, fragmented, or to become extinct,” states Boom.

Understanding the history of a species’ scientific discovery and subsequent changes in its population and distribution over time require access to historical data. As Boom articulates, BHL’s collections are rich in such data and thus play a vital role in research on threatened species.

“Conservation-related research benefits greatly from BHL in terms of providing access to some of the classic and most iconic images of plant species and to the early texts and archival materials, especially correspondence, pertaining to the focal species,” affirms Boom.

Torreya taxifolia. Plate 109. The North American Sylva, vol. 6 (1849). Art drawn by G. West. Contributed in BHL from New York Botanical Garden, LuEsther T. Mertz Library.

Beyond the published literature, correspondence and field notes are especially valuable as they may contain information that is not included in the published literature or on the herbarium labels of the specimens collected. For example, in the case of Torreya taxifolia, the type specimen is in the herbarium of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. While there is no collector indicated on the actual specimen, John Torrey is listed as the collector in the Kew specimen database. However, Boom stresses that he knows of no record of Torrey visiting Florida before he made a five-week trip to the state in 1872, during which he did not observe Torreya taxifolia in its natural habitat, although in March of that year he did collect a cultivated specimen of this species in a garden near Tallahassee that he believed had been planted there by Croom (NY Barcode 9506).

“It seems very likely that the holotype was in fact collected by Hardy Bryan Croom, and that Torrey passed a specimen that Croom had sent to him on to Scottish botanist George Arnott Walker-Arnott, who described the new species in 1838,” explains Boom.

As further evidence for this hypothesis, the holotype specimen (K Barcode K000287662) contains a pencil notation, written in Croom’s handwriting, stating: “New genus of Coniferae allied to Taxus. To be described in the next number of the Lyceum of Natural History.”

Torreya taxifolia is a testament to the important role that BHL’s open access collections play in research on endangered species. The historical conservation and systematics research conducted for this species was made possible by reviewing the John Torrey correspondence that is available in BHL and enhanced with crowdsourced transcriptions generated via From the Page. BHL also provided access to the first known published illustrations of Torreya taxifolia, which appeared in Hooker’s Icones plantarum.

Florida nutmeg, Torreya taxifolia (female). This illustration, along with that of the male tree, represent the first published illustrations of this species. Plate 233. Hooker’s Icones plantarum, vol. 3 (1840). Contributed in BHL from the Missouri Botanical Garden, Peter H. Raven Library.

By providing open access to essential literature and archives, BHL is empowering the work of conservationists around the world. Easy and immediate online access to these materials allows scientists to conduct their research more quickly and efficiently—which is ever-more important as biodiversity faces unprecedented threats today, with at least one million species threatened with extinction [3].

“The BHL resources are the only or most readily available ones for accessing certain older titles and certainly for images of plants and correspondence of botanists involved with the discovery and description of new species and of their habitat,” asserts Boom. “Such literature is important for conservation work because the historical materials often contain first-hand commentary about the collection and discovery of threatened species, including information about their population size at the place of discovery and of the habitat in which the species occurred at the time.”

By providing conservationists with the information they need to help save biodiversity, the Biodiversity Heritage Library is improving our ability to respond to today’s biodiversity crisis. As such, free and open access to biodiversity knowledge is a reason to be an Earth Optimist.

References

April 2020 marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. Organizations around the world have commemorated the occasion by participating in the global Earth Optimism movement — an initiative spearheaded by the Smithsonian to “turn the conservation conversation from doom and gloom to optimism and opportunity”.

Throughout 2020, the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) and our partners are joining the movement by sharing conservation success stories from and made possible by the BHL collection. Follow our blog for conservation stories — past and present — and visit our website for more information and to explore our Earth Optimism book collection.

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We often think of natural history libraries serving as memorials for lost species—animals like the passenger pigeon and the dodo living on only in books, photos, and illustrations that tell sad cautionary tales of once-abundant populations lost to overhunting or habitat destruction.

However, historic records also tell stories of hope, providing valuable resources for modern scientists working to protect threatened wildlife. Since it was founded in 2006, BHL’s historical documents have supported the work of conservationists devoted to saving everything from Caribbean mammals to rare wetland plants. Not only are accessible records that describe the historic ranges, populations, and other characteristics of a species essential for researchers, but they help remind the public of how vibrant historical ecosystems were—and the importance of protecting what is left.

“The real advantage of BHL is keeping our ecological memory intact, and not allowing us to collectively forget how beautiful, wild, and diverse ecosystems of the past were,” wrote historical ecologist Dr. Joshua Drew in a blog post from BHL’s 2020 Earth Optimism campaign. “If we succumb to this collective amnesia, we risk setting our conservation bar too low and allowing the dulling of our natural environments to continue without even recognizing our losses.”

As part of BHL’s Earth Optimism series, we’re sharing the conservation success stories of four bird species, all prominently featured in the BHL collection, whose impending losses were reversed through the efforts of concerned citizens and researchers.

Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus)

Plate [36], the Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus). Wilson, Alexander. American Ornithology, v. 4 (1811). Contributed in BHL from Smithsonian Libraries.

Overhunting caused the decline of bald eagle populations in the early 1900s. While the hunting of the birds was prohibited in 1940, the widespread use of the pesticide DDT—a chemical that collects in fish, a staple of the eagles’ diet—reduced their numbers to only 417 mating pairs in 1963. As researchers raised awareness of the eagles’ plight, conservationists rallied to save them, and bald eagles became some of the first species protected under the US Endangered Species Act of 1973. Since then, they have made an impressive recovery, thanks to the restriction of DDT use and reintroduction programs.

Wood Stork (Mycteria americana)

Plate 44, the Wood Stork (Mycteria americana). Studer, Jacob Henry. The Birds of North America. 1895. Contributed in BHL from Smithsonian Libraries.

Populations of the wood stork plummeted in the late 20th century, until efforts to protect its delicate wetland habitat raised its numbers. In The Birds of America (1827 -1838), John James Audubon described wood storks (then known as wood ibises) as being “abundant in Florida and lower Louisiana” and wrote that he had seen flocks of thousands. By 1984, the once-populous wood stork was labeled as federally endangered. While the birds had previously nested primarily in Florida, changes to the hydrology in their habitat from the late 60s to early 80s had resulted in a significant decrease in their population, driving them north.

“By the 1970s, almost the entire population of wood storks were dependent on the nesting success that the birds had here,” said conservationist Charles Lane in an interview with the Oak Spring Garden Foundation. Lane is a leader of the ACE Basin Taskforce, which aims to protect the basin around South Carolina’s Ashepoo, Combahee and Edisto rivers—one of the largest undeveloped estuaries on the Atlantic coast.

A three-decade effort from Lane and other concerned landowners to restore and manage the ACE basin wetlands for wildlife caused a marked increase in wood stork populations. The basin now supports the largest concentration of wood stork nesting colonies in the nation, and the bird was removed from the endangered species list in 2014.

American White Pelican (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos)

Plate 6, the American White Pelican (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos). The Cabinet of natural history and American rural sports, with illustrations. v.1 (1830). Contributed in BHL from Smithsonian Libraries.

Another wetland bird whose impressive size and curious appearance drew the attention of early naturalists, the white pelican was nearly lost in the mid-20th century, largely due to habitat degradation. The birds primarily breed on isolated islands located in the North American interior, and the use of pesticides, as well as the draining of wetlands, caused breeding populations to nosedive. However, the national ban on DDT in 1972—as well the implementation of more stringent environmental protection laws, including the US Endangered Species Act—resulted in a reversal of fortune for the birds. As of 2014, their population has increased roughly tenfold since the late 1960s, resulting in the species’ conservation status being changed from “endangered” to “threatened” in 2016 in Washington State. Along with the wood stork, they can be seen in South Carolina’s ACE Basin.

Bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus)

Plate 14, the Bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus). Catesby, Mark. The natural history of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands, v. 1 (1729-1732). Contributed in BHL from Smithsonian Libraries.

The distinctive characteristics of the bobolink have captured the attention of writers, artists, and scientists for centuries. Early colonists knew them as rice birds due to their annual descent on southern rice fields; in the Natural History of the Carolinas, Florida, and the Bahama Islands (1729-1747), Mark Catesby wrote that the male birds’ black-and-yellow plumage was “so singular and extraordinary . . . I cannot pass it over without notice.”

Long a fixture in hayfields and grasslands throughout the United States, the bobolink has declined by around 65% over the past several decades, largely due to the loss of their easily-developed habitat. However, as grassland bird conservationists work with landowners to change their land management practices, researchers have observed an increase in bobolinks in certain areas over the past few years. One of those regions is Northern Virginia, said Amy Johnson, Program Director at Virginia Working Landscapes.

“…Folks are setting aside that acreage to allow these birds to breed,” Johnson told the Oak Spring Garden Foundation. “I would say anecdotally that we’re seeing an increase in bobolinks in that area, right around Upperville.”

To learn more about how the Oak Spring Garden Foundation is working with other organizations to protect declining bird species, visit the OSGF blog.

April 2020 marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. Organizations around the world have commemorated the occasion by participating in the global Earth Optimism movement — an initiative spearheaded by the Smithsonian to “turn the conservation conversation from doom and gloom to optimism and opportunity”.

Throughout 2020, the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) and our partners are joining the movement by sharing conservation success stories from and made possible by the BHL collection. Follow our blog for conservation stories — past and present — and visit our website for more information and to explore our Earth Optimism book collection.

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Feathers have been used in fashion throughout history, but the trend became more widespread from the late 18^th century when the Industrial Revolution made luxuries more available to the masses. In the 19^th century, new technology improved the speed of production and the millinery industry boomed [1]. Hats with feathers became a status symbol coveted by a new mass market and were produced on an industrial scale.

Birds were hunted around the world to supply plumes to centres of fashion such as London and New York. In 1886, American Museum of Natural History’s ornithologist, Frank Chapman, infamously observed on a walk in New York some 40 native bird species on women’s hats, some with an entire stuffed bird attached [2]. Indeed, women were oft blamed for the trend: in The Ibis in 1887 [3], women were pointed to as “the indirect, but real, instigators of this slaughter”. The author continues: “all that can be hoped for is that the freaks of feminine vanity may take some other and less harmful direction.”

The issue also arises in a letter [4] dated 1865 from ornithologist John Gould to Museum Victoria’s first director, Sir Frederick McCoy, who had previously written to Gould asking him to procure bird specimens for the burgeoning museum’s collections. In the letter, Gould ironically writes:

“The Ladies, the Ladies, have however, so stripped us of birds for their bonnets that but few are now in the market and these of course are high priced.”

Photograph of Flo Tuckfield wearing a hat featuring a large plume of feathers in Merrigum, Victoria, circa 1910s. Credit: Lilian L. Pitts / Source: Museums Victoria, MV000061572.

While women were loudly condemned for their role in consuming feathers, they were also instrumental in the campaigns to raise awareness of the devastating effects of plume hunting on bird populations. For instance, in 1896 the American socialite and amateur naturalist Harriet Hemenway and her cousin Minna Hall led a boycott of feathered hats which attracted 900 participants and led to the formation of the National Audubon Society and passage of the Weeks-McLean Law (aka the Migratory Bird Act), which outlawed market hunting and the interstate transport of birds [5].

As documented by Herbert K. Job in his 1905 book Wild Wings [6], at the turn of the 20^th century, an ounce of feathers was worth $32—almost twice as much as an ounce of gold. Job states that during 1902, over 1600 packages of heron plumes were sold at just one London auction house:

“A package is said to average in weight 30 ounces. This makes a total of 48,240 ounces. As it requires about four birds to make an ounce of plumes, these sales meant 192,960 herons killed at their nests, and from two to three times that number of young or eggs destroyed. Is it, then, any wonder that these species are on the verge of extinction?” (p.146)

In Australia, egrets, herons, lyrebirds, bowerbirds and emus were amongst the species targeted by plume hunters.

Illustration of a lyrebird from An account of the English colony in New South Wales by David Collins (1804). Contributed in BHL by Museums Victoria.

Lyrebirds are ancient Australian animals: the Australian Museum in Sydney has fossils of lyrebirds dating back around 15 million years [7]. The Lyrebird reportedly came close to extinction in the early 1900s as it was hunted for its ornate tail feathers. In the 1911 publication, Pros and cons of the plumage bill, bird protectionist James Buckland states that “over 400 lyre-birds were killed in one district in a single season to supply the London plumage market” [8].

In 1901, the Australian Ornithologists’ Union (AOU) was founded to promote the study and conservation of the native bird species of Australia and adjacent regions. One of its members, Tom Tregellas, regularly camped out in a large hollow tree trunk over a period of seventeen years in Sherbrooke Forest, Victoria observing and photographing lyrebirds. Noticing a decrease in the population over time, he crusaded for the protection of lyrebirds and legislation was eventually passed to protect the birds.

The rapid decline of several species whose feathers were used in ladies’ fashion were seen during this period, and some bird species were not as fortunate as the lyrebird. The Huia of New Zealand was declared extinct in 1907, and it is also believed that the use of Great Auk feathers for down partially contributed to its extinction [9].

Periodicals, along with books and public lectures, were one of the key means of circulating information and inspiring action around bird preservation at that time. In volume seven of the journal of the AOU, The Emu, two articles by Australian ornithologist Arthur H. Mattingley are published side-by-side. In the first from November 1906 [10], Mattingley recounts a visit to the Murray River where he photographs egret and heron nests. In the second [11], written only a few weeks later, Mattingley returns to the same area and is horrified to discover that nearly one-third of the birds were killed, with the young left to starve in their nests.

Photographs accompanying the article “Plundered for their plumes” by A.H. Mattingley, in The Emu, Vol.7 (1907). Contributed in BHL by American Museum of Natural History Library.

The second article, Plundered for their plumes, contains vivid photographs that caused quite a stir internationally. These photos are widely regarded as a tipping point in changing attitudes towards the use of feathers in fashion.

In England, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) posted the photos on billboards and in shop windows, and in 1911 men carrying enlargements of the story patrolled the West End of London to protest the cruelty of wearing feathers. As a result, the story gained attention throughout the UK, as well as in Paris, Amsterdam, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Australia and the United States [12].

From this point on, the interest of amateur ornithologists changed from bird collection to identification. An Australian Bird Book, by John Albert Leach (1911), and Neville Cayley’s What Bird Is That? (first published in 1931) are two Australian publications that reflect this shift.

Illustration from What bird Is That? by Neville Cayley (1947). Contributed in BHL by Museums Victoria.

Feathered hats did make a reappearance from the 1930s-1960s, but the decades after this saw hats lose popularity as they were no longer a standard item of women’s daywear. Worryingly, feathers have been making a comeback since clothing adorned with marabou and ostrich feathers appeared in a couture runway show in 2017, and PETA have been campaigning against the use of feathers in fashion ever since. The use of down in jackets is also a contentious issue today, and many major international brands have stopped selling down in favour of high-tech synthetics.

While mass market fashion continues to have serious environmental repercussions, this history shows that wide scale attitudinal shifts around such issues are possible. Efforts on this front, however, need to be widespread and sustained.

References

1. Ehrman, E. (2018) Fashioned from nature, V&A Publishing, London, pp. 97-98.
2. Callahan, D. (2014) A history of birdwatching in 100 objects, Bloomsbury, London, p.72.
3. The Ibis (1887) Recently published ornithological works, Ser.5, Vol.5, no.20, p.458, viewed 27 February 2020. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/8521969.
4. Letter from John Gould dated 20 December 1865, in Museums Victoria Archives, MV ARCHIVES – NATIONAL MUSEUM OF VICTORIA – Inwards Correspondence – 1863-1876 Gould, J., OLDERSYSTEM~02618.
5. Souder, W. (2013) How two women ended the deadly feather trade, Smithsonian Magazine, viewed 27 February 2020. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-two-women-ended-the-deadly-feather-trade-23187277/.
6. Job, H. (1905) Wild wings; adventures of a camera-hunter among the larger wild birds of North America on sea and land, Houghton, Mifflin & Co, Boston, viewed 27 February 2020. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/48785.
7. Boles, W. (2006) ‘The avian fossil record of Australia: an overview’, In: Merrick, J.R. et al. (eds.) Evolution and biogeography of Australasian vertebrates, auscipub, Oatlands, pp.387-411.
8. Buckland, J. (1911) Pros and cons of the plumage bill, printed by Edmund Evans, p.13, viewed 27 February 2020. https://viewer.slv.vic.gov.au/?entity=IE6076556.
9. Callahan, D. (2014) A history of birdwatching in 100 objects, Bloomsbury, London, p.72.
10. Mattingley, A.H. (1907) A visit to heronries, The emu: official organ of the Australasian Ornithologists’ Union, Vol.7, pt.2, pp.[65]-71, viewed 27 February 2020. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/8517730.
11. Mattingley, A.H. (1907) Plundered for their plumes, The emu: official organ of the Australasian Ornithologists’ Union, Vol.7, pt.2, pp.71-73, viewed 27 February 2020. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/8517740.
12. Cronin, J.K. (2018) Art for animals : visual culture and animal advocacy, 1870-1914, Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park.