Hats and Birds

The hat industry has not always been harmless. Regretfully, huge quantities of bird feathers were used to adorn hats in Europe and N. America as late as the early 20th Century. The vast destruction of bird life helped to bring about the organization in 1905 of the National Audubon Society. The NAB was responsible for the Audubon Plumage Law preventing the slaughter of native birds and the importation of paradise aigrettes in the USA. This resulted in a boom for artistic trimming substitutes for hats that extends to this day.