The Feather Wars: And the Great Crusade to Save America’s Birds

This dazzling account from journalist McCommons (Camera Hunter) examines how the “meanness... and greed” of the indiscriminate slaughter of birds in turn-of-the-20th-century America prompted a diverse array of figures to take up the cause of conservation. McCommons traces the country’s path from bird destruction to bird salvation beginning with the lives of America’s earliest ornithologists, many of whom started out killing birds for their collections. Wild birds in this era typically fell to less academic aims, however: game birds were sold to grocers, songbirds were added to the stewpots of immigrants, and plumes were plucked for the millinery trade. After the death of the last wild passenger pigeon in 1903, it “took decades for the... fog of self-deception to lift,” McCommons writes. But once awareness reached the public that “dozens of species” were in danger, there was “a spiritual awakening.” McCommons spotlights the disparate coalition who brought this knowledge to the masses, among them Boston socialite Harriet Hemenway, who launched a bird hat boycott, and Tabasco sauce manufacturer E.A. McIlhenny, who captured the horrors of a “plume hunt” on film. McCommons adorns his narrative with colorful characters that bring fascinating depth to the historical period, such as boys whose childhoods were spent subsistence hunting. The result is an immersive saga of a shift in both public conscience and everyday practice. (Mar.)