FOR THE BIRDS

The Ladies’ Forest and Song-Bird Protective Association was established in Santa Cruz in the autumn of 1902. It’s first president, Josephine Clifford McCrackin, was already well-known for her dedicated efforts to help preserve Big Basin as California’s first state park.

“California is deeply indebted to Mrs. Josephine Clifford McCrackin of Wrights, for her noble and praiseworthy efforts to preserve the birds and trees of her State. One of her friends writes: ‘This good woman, one of our earliest literary workers and a former associate of Bret Harte on the old ‘Overland Monthly,’ despite her age, has done our State more good than a thousand prominent citizens. After having saved several of our noblest groves of redwoods … by having bills passed for their purchase by the State is now turning her attention to the preservation of our beautiful song birds. Her energy is tremendous and she carries through all she proposes to do.” 

By the late 19^th century, the most popular ornaments for women’s hats were feathers, even whole bodies of birds. Over 5 million wild birds were killed annually in order to supply the booming American millinery business.

In the 1890s women conservationists around the country rallied to protect America’s birds, thereby setting in motion one of the nation’s earliest environmental success stories. Two Boston society ladies, Harriet Hemenway and Minna Hall, founded the Massachusetts Audubon Society in 1896, sparking the establishment of hundreds of societies throughout the nation. The Santa Cruz based Ladies’ Forest and Song-Bird Protective Association also became affiliated with the Audubon Society. It took many years of hard work by such groups, but change did eventually come. In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt signed the first executive order creating a federal bird reservation. Passage of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, put an end to the use of wild birds as hat ornaments by making it “unlawful to pursue, hunt, take, capture, kill, possess, sell, purchase, barter, import, export, or transport any migratory bird.”

Lady wearing hat, circa 1910 - Library of Congress

In 1903 the Ladies’ Forest and Song-Bird Protective Association felt it was time to recognize their group’s contributions in protecting both songbirds and redwoods. The form of recognition came in the most traditional Santa Cruz style of the time. That August “[t]he younger Mr. Welch was present at the [Big Trees] grove and received us with the greatest courtesy. When Mrs. Bickford, the First Vice-President of the Ladies’ Forest and Song-Bird Association of Santa Cruz county, suggested that Mr. Welch permit one of the largest trees to be dedicated to our association … he said he would use all his influence with the rest of the company to secure to the association this tree … I have no doubt we will yet see this tree marked (on a sign at the foot of it) with our name and date of birth. Mr. Welch is a man who has the greatest love for the beautiful in nature, and is devoted to the task of preserving the wonderful grove.”

Mrs. McCrackin was planning a celebratory picnic at Big Trees Grove to mark the tree dedication so they could “make it a grand occasion generally …” And as for the tree in question, the association “modestly chose the one next to Teddy Roosevelt.” Though we don’t know which of the trees next to Teddy was bestowed the honor of being the Ladies’ Forest and Song-Bird Protective Association Tree, we are sure of one thing, the birds are enjoying it.

Sources: “Supplement – Report of the A.O.U. (American Ornithologists' Union) Committee on the Protection of North American Birds for the Year 1903,” The Auk, January 1904 by William Dutcher; “’New’ Santa Cruz and the Big Trees,” Santa Cruz Sentinel, August 16, 1903 by Josephine Clifford McCrackin.