2nd October 2024 – Fashion, Feathers and Fury: Women’s Fight for Change

Wednesday 2nd October 2024

Fashion, Feathers and Fury: Women’s Fight for Change

Lecturer: Tessa Boase

Tessa Boase delivered a fascinating lecture about the fashion for bird feathered hats and the consequences for the birds worldwide in the late 1800s.  We were introduced to the ladies who actually founded the now RSPB and their portraits now proudly hang at the RSPB headquarters.  At its height the plumage trade was huge and tons of birds and feathers would arrive at London Docks.  The lecture shone a light on the story of a time when every women of every class wore a hat, and of the brave eco-feminists who fought back on behalf of the birds. Tessa wrapped up the hour by informing us of the plaques, headstones and statues which now celebrate these incredible women.

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Reading List for October Lecture:

Etta Lemon: The Woman Who Saved the Birds by Tessa Boase (Aurum
Press)

Kindred Nature: Victorian Women Embrace the Living World by Barbara T Gates (University of Chicago Press)

A Bird in the Bush: A Social History of Birdwatching by Stephen Moss
(Aurum Press)

Plumes: Ostrich Feathers, Jews, and a Lost World of Global Commerce by Sarah Abrevaya Stein (Yale University Press)

Rebel Girls: How Votes for Women Changed Edwardian Lives by Jill
Liddington (Virago)

All our lectures are held in the Royal Spa Centre, Newbold Terrace, Leamington Spa CV32 4HN at 11:00m and 2:00pm.

Click here for next month’s lecture.