Smarticus Tells History
What we likely all once knew about history, has likely been forgotten. Here, at Smarticus Tells History, we move around the timeline picking up some of the most interesting and sometimes downright weird stories. Stories such as the Rabbit Queen, or how Cleopatra wasn't Egyptian, the Black Plague and many more.They are all true, no matter how quacky and quirky some may seem. We keep them short and mostly to the point. So put your listening ears on, have a beer or two, and learn a thing or two!!!
Smarticus Tells History
Episode 56: Avian Elegance and Culinary Bliss
What if fashion could lead to the near-extinction of entire bird species? Join us as we explore the dark side of 19th-century feathered fashion and its devastating impact on avian populations. But before diving into this fascinating and somber tale, we share our delightful baking adventure with the classic Southern hummingbird cake. From the rich and tropical ingredients to the unexpected challenges in the kitchen, we recount our journey to create a dessert that's both heavy in components yet light and fluffy in texture. Get your slice ready, and prepare for a culinary and historical treat!
Feathers were once worth more than gold, and the craze for extravagant hats adorned with exotic plumes drove mass hunting and near-extinction events for species like the snowy egret and lyrebird. We trace the use of feathers in fashion from ancient times through the 19th century, highlighting how South American birds and indigenous dress influenced European style. We also examine the roles of fashion icons and ornithologists in perpetuating this trend, leading to widespread exploitation of bird populations. This episode promises to be a blend of sweet indulgence and historical insight, shedding light on the consequences of a seemingly innocuous fashion statement. Grab your slice of hummingbird cake and join us for a captivating look at feathered fashion's impact on wildlife.
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Recipe:
https://grandbaby-cakes.com/hummingbird-cake-recipe/#recipe
Sources:
Welcome to Smartacus.
Speaker 2:Tells History.
Speaker 1:Alright, enough with the echo and fanfare. You're here for history, right, and not that boring crap you learned in high school. This stuff's actually interesting, like things you've never heard about the Civil War, cleopatra, automobiles, monopoly, the Black Plague and more Fascinating stories, interesting topics and some downright weird facts from the past. It's a new twist on some stories you may know and an interesting look at some things you may have never heard. So grab a beer, kick back and enjoy. Here's your host, smarticus.
Speaker 3:Hello history enthusiasts, welcome back to another episode of Smarticus Tells History. I am your host, smarticus, accompanied by my co-host, phoenix. Hi, today we're going to be talking about the fashion trend that saw the exploitation and extinction of several bird species, a trend that was so massive in the 1800s that it affected the entire world.
Speaker 2:But first food, and as a wink and a nod to our feathered friends, we're eating hummingbird cake yeah, I haven't tried mine yet.
Speaker 3:I have um. Have you? I figured you had um you usually do.
Speaker 2:Sometimes I like to wait to get more of an authentic thing I usually try to, but this I mean, you know, there had to be a little tasting and the making I tasted the frosting.
Speaker 3:That was the only thing I tasted so far oh my god, oh, this is pretty good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I told you. So for those of you who don't know, hummingbird cake is an old southern favorite. My grandmother was from Louisiana, so I've had this most of my life.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's so good. There's pineapple in it, there's pecans, there's bananas, obviously.
Speaker 3:Oh, I didn't. Yeah, I didn't put pecans in mine. I'm not a pecan person. But I'm sure it makes a crunchy texture.
Speaker 2:Sorry, licking my lips here. What I did was I stuck them in a coffee grinder so it turned them into powder. Oh, yeah, so you just get a little hint of the flavor, but because my daughter would not have eaten it if I had actually left big old chunks in there.
Speaker 3:No, yeah, that's a good idea. Yeah, yeah, in the recipe I think it says just to crush them or to buy the ones that are pre-crushed. Yep, but no, this is really good. It does have. I mean, I guess, just like any other cake, it has tons and tons of sugar in it. Yes, and when I poured it out, there was also an alarmingly amount of vegetable oil. I thought, oh yeah, it was a cup and three quarters of freaking vegetable oil. I know a cup and a quarter.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it was a cup and a quarter of vegetable oil.
Speaker 2:And you end up making with the recipe, you end up making with it. With the recipe, you end up making two nine inch cakes yeah and those babies are heavy yeah yeah, they were super heavy but at the same time it's a really light, fluffy cake it is.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's nice and fluffy. I had to um stick mine back in the oven a couple of times yeah, mine needed longer than the 40-some minutes.
Speaker 2:It said.
Speaker 3:No, it said 24 to 30 minutes is what it said yeah, that's what it was, and so I said, all right, well, I'll try it at 25 minutes first.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 3:I didn't have any toothpicks so I used a butter knife and so I pulled it out at 25 minutes. I stuck the butter knife in there and I pulled it out and it was, and it was on it. So I was like all right, well, it's got to go back in a little bit longer, right? So I did five minutes and, uh, I pulled back out again and then, after I cleaned it off clean the knife off, um, and it was about halfway I'm still on there again, yeah, um, so I was like all right, so I did another five minutes and then, third time was a charm, and it came out clean, nice. So I was like all right, done and it was about 35 minutes.
Speaker 2:I guess at that point yeah, I started to pull mine out the first time after the timer went off because I used I did 25 too. I didn't do 24 minutes. I was like that's weird, I'm not doing 24 that's what I thought too so I did 25 and I started to pull it out and I could see that both of them were jiggling in the middle like a roly-poly person. You know what I'm talking about folks. There was some jiggle in the middle.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I knew as soon as I pulled it out.
Speaker 3:And of course I immediately thought of that video that I think you sent me of Gordon Ramsay and his mother with that pie or whatever. Whatever it was that they were making. Yes, and she's like, is that done in the middle? And he's like, yeah, of course you do. He sticks and he's like, oh, actually it's not. And he's like, how did you know that wasn't done in the middle? And she's like I could see it from the angle. It was jiggling or whatever. Yeah, or whatever it was, but yeah, it was. Mine were also extra jiggly when I pulled them out. They definitely needed at least another 10 minutes in. There is it's, it's nice, it's a nice texture. It's not, um, it's not. Uh, you know, too soft to. You know, like my, you know well, I guess yours too. You know, half the time we do these it's, it's epic failure well, for me it's bread.
Speaker 2:I am terrible at bread, but when it comes to making almost any other kind of like a cake, I can make. Cake man, I'm good with cake I think that's the only thing that we've really screwed up is a form of bread.
Speaker 3:Yeah, what did we have? Oh well, the Lardy cake, which I don't really call a cake because it was more of a bread.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know why I don't want to be called a cake.
Speaker 3:but yeah, it was more of a bread. That one was an epic failure, and then that was horrendous. Yeah, the spotted dick that we had came out, okay, but it was an issue too, though. Yeah, a little bit, I think, yeah.
Speaker 2:Mine was so stinking dry, I mean, and, like I said, you could have used that thing as a doorstop. It was not going to go anywhere.
Speaker 3:It was so heavy, oh my gosh. All right, well, I finished off my piece. Nice, that was actually pretty good. It's just me, I live alone, of course. So I made a whole cake, a whole nine inch cake, with two halves, of course, like it says, and so I'm going to have lots left over. Yeah, mine will not probably finish the week it will have maybe three days left and everyone will have had a piece every single day. Well, I'm a pre-diabetic too, so I probably won't be eating it very much.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you ought to be careful, but yeah.
Speaker 2:I ran out of confectioner's sugar. I was trying to make the frosting. I thought I had enough. In my head I still had enough, but I was wrong. So my husband gets our little ninja thing out. He's like I got you, and he gets a bunch of regular sugar and just starts blitzing the snot out of it and I was like oh yeah, that's how you make confectioner. Yeah, is it okay? Yeah, I had. I knew it in the back of my head because I learned it from somewhere. I can't remember, but he knew it.
Speaker 3:He was like I got you, don't worry I didn't realize, so I went um, like I said, I didn't buy the extra stuff until uh this morning. I didn't realize, so I went um, like I said, I didn't buy the extra stuff until uh this morning. I didn't realize that powdered sugar came in like a plastic bag. Yeah, um, I mean, it makes sense there is.
Speaker 2:There's some kind that you can get from a box, but I'll tell you what. It's not as good yeah. I don't know how else to say it, other than it's just not as good as the stuff you buy in the bag.
Speaker 3:Well, I left it in the bag, but I'm probably going to end up putting it in like a tote or something.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Just because it is powdered, and I know that if that bag tears like it's just going to go everywhere.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I always stuck mine in a container or another bag.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm going to put it in a container.
Speaker 2:If you're worried about it getting too moist, what you can do is you can stick a marshmallow in there.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, mine are. They're airtight containers, so that should be a problem.
Speaker 2:Carry on Smarticus.
Speaker 3:Okay, I will carry on. Let's see here. Starting in the late 1700s and having a huge boom throughout the 1800s, the fashion industry witnessed a craze for feathers, particularly in Europe and North America. Feathers, once symbols of prestige and luxury, became highly sought after adornments for clothing, hats and accessories. Originally for the elite, this trend eventually trickled its way to those in the lower strata too.
Speaker 2:We're not talking about just any feathers. No, the more ornate the better. Hummingbird feathers with their iridescent shine and color-changing abilities when turned, the lyrebird with its gorgeous tail, plumage egrets with their pretty wispy feathers, and so much more. That's not even touching on the stuffed birds brought into London's kind of weird. If you look at some of the pictures, like the links that I put for our resources, the links that I put for our resources there are pictures of stuff that survived to now from that time and they are frightening.
Speaker 3:Really.
Speaker 2:Really, I mean, I can't imagine going. Oh, you know what I really need to complete this fabulous outfit? I need some little dead bird's head on a brooch right here in between my boobs.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's weird. That's alarmingly weird, Right? And why would they think that that was even fashionable?
Speaker 2:I guess we talk about that a little bit later. On.
Speaker 3:Okay, before you start thinking it was crazy, it was a crazy European thing, I mean, like everything else. It's important to remember that feathers have always been utilized in fashion, going back to antiquity, as decorative elements symbolizing elegance, wealth, status and ceremony. Think of the Native Americans, the Mayans and Incans, ancient Greece and so on. However, the craze during the 1800s was on a whole other level. The market for feathers during its height was large and in demand that the price for an ounce of plumage could earn a hunter $32.
Speaker 2:In today's money, that's $1,000 per ounce, making plumes worth twice their weight in gold. In 1902, over 1,600 boxes of heron plumes were sold in just one London auction house, which is brought further into perspective when you realize that four herons worth of feathers were needed to make just one lady's hat.
Speaker 3:Which brings us to the millinery industry, where it all started. The art of hat making experienced a golden age during the 19th century, as we said, because of bird plumage, but it all started thanks largely to the export of objects and people from Brazil to Europe, starting back in the 16th century. Birds, their feathers and the way the local indigenous people dressed in South America heavily influenced color schemes and aesthetic ideas on the European fashion world. Large, elaborate hats adorned with feathers became essential accessories for women of high society. Feathers were meticulously arranged in intricate designs, often embellished with ribbons, flowers, gemstones and even exotic bugs. This was called the Brazilian style in Europe.
Speaker 2:Which brings a whole new meaning to the Brazilian style, now Totally different. If you seriously go look at one of them, I can't reach what it is.
Speaker 3:Don't look at the Brazilian style, don't do that, no, no, not that the bugs though.
Speaker 2:The bugs, though it was a fan and it it had all these gorgeous feathers it was just you know it's like a little fan for fanning your stuff when it's too hot at church or whatever and there are shiny little bug carcasses mixed with the feathers it's. I was just like no, I don't want bugs near me on any other time. I don't want them on my clothes.
Speaker 3:No yeah, that's kind of weird, it's just people are crazy live bugs on you like it's just oh, no, no weird, I mean. I mean, I get they're dead, but you know what I mean, right? No, exactly, they were live. You know their carcasses on you. Why? Why would you want that on you? Um, I can totally understand. You know people. You know wanting jewelry. You know of the fake ones. You know like the uh, the egyptian scarab. Um, yes, you know like whatever, right, that's not. Why would you want a dead animal on you?
Speaker 2:yeah, no, especially some of those beetles that they have down in south america. Heck, no yeah, I don't even want to look at them as a picture, and I don't let alone have it on me, right?
Speaker 3:and I don't know if maybe well, like there wasn't any kind of like epoxy or anything back then. So I don't know what they would like they had.
Speaker 2:They had epoxy, but it was caustic stuff um well, it wasn't.
Speaker 3:What they have now, though, is what I'm right, exactly so the preservation of those things.
Speaker 2:I don't know how in the world they've survived to this day, but someone was taking very good care of their stuff right.
Speaker 3:Well, I was more inclined to think about, you know, the smell of them, like how did they clean them, how did they?
Speaker 2:That's a really good question.
Speaker 1:I didn't even think about looking into that.
Speaker 3:How did they not smell? I would imagine they would smell. I mean, if you think, I mean, even if you have, like you know, Junebug season, if you don't go out there and sweep your porch around, it's going to start smelling. Yeah, I mean even dead leaves smell, yeah, so I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 2:I do know that they had lacquers back in the day though they had, you know, for paintings and sealing your wood furniture and stuff like that. So, maybe they were using something like that, but yeah, I don't know, that, but yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2:Just encapsulate their little dead carcasses and lacquer and stitch that bad boy on the fan. Of course, the mass production of feathered fashion items had a devastating impact on bird populations worldwide. How could it not, when feathers were being integrated into almost every article of clothing a person wore? It didn't help that hunters employed ruthless methods to meet the demand, often resorting to indiscriminate slaughter and habitat destruction. Entire colonies of nesting birds were decimated, with species such as the snowy egret and the great auk facing imminent extinction due to the overhunting for their plumes.
Speaker 3:At one point the demand for lyrebird feathers was so high in Australia that over 400 were killed in one district in a single season, just to satisfy the London market. The lyrebird is one of the oldest species there, with fossils dating 15 million years, and they were nearly hunted into extinction. Egrets, herons, bowerbirds, emus they were all targets in the land down under. Bowerbirds, emus they were all targets in the land down under. According to an article by Malcolm Smith in History Today, Trinidad alone exported 15,000 hummingbirds a week in the 1800s. Nowhere was safe for the poor winged creatures.
Speaker 2:Fashion icons and trendsetters of the 19th century played a significant role in popularizing feathered attire. Empress Eugenie of France and Queen Victoria set the standard for elegance and sophistication and inadvertently contributed to the exploitation of avian species. However, there was another contributor to the demand, and that was, and still is, a bit more overtly grotesque the ornithologists working at the Victoria Museum. They were killing thousands of birds a year in the name of scientific discovery, while blaming the scarcity and flated market valuation on frivolous women. One article from them in 1887 stated all that can be hoped for is that the freaks of feminine vanity may take some other and less harmful direction.
Speaker 3:Amidst the rampant destruction of bird populations, there were many voices demanding conservation. One such person, who was nearly forgotten until recently, was Emily Williamson. In 1889, she founded the Society for the Protection of Birds, spb. In response to the alarming decline of bird species due to the feather trade. The SPB advocated for the Protection of Birds. Spb. In response to the alarming decline of bird species due to the feather trade, the SPB advocated for the ethical treatment of birds and campaigned against the indiscriminate killing for feathers. The British Ornithologist Union, bou, which had only male members and believed that women could never be on their level, firmly denounced the SPB as some group of sanctimonious women trying to play in men's business. Wow.
Speaker 2:Right. Regardless of what BOU said, williamson and her group grew to 5,000 members in just six months. That number doubled in 1893. 15,000 letters and 50,000 leaflets were sent out annually, speaking out against the lack of restrictions and care to the various bird populations. In 1892, the usage of bird feathers was still in shops, but not in every one of them. Eventually, they realized they needed to get more male members into the SPB to really start the wheels of change going, and so they reached out to influential men and asked them to become life associates to the group. Many were happy to join.
Speaker 3:I mean why not? I mean it's a good thing.
Speaker 2:I mean, like you know, polite society. Back in the day you needed an invitation. So basically they were all vampires.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. By 1899, there were 20,000 members and they were catching the eyes and ears of Queen Victoria herself. The Queen was very much against animal cruelty and made an order prohibiting the wearing of egret sprays by her military. It was a small victory, but the SPB had still not made much of a dent in the demand for exotic bird plumage of a dent in the demand for exotic bird plumage. Even after they became the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in 1904, thanks to a royal charter by Edward VII, they were still spinning their proverbial wheels.
Speaker 2:Still there were other voices around the world calling for protection and conservation. An Australian ornithologist named Arthur H Mattingly was one of many in the land down under who documented the devastating decline of bird populations. Mattingly's meticulous work and photographs prove the decline of bird species in their habitats, revealing the devastating effects of overhunting and habitat destruction driven by the demand for feathers.
Speaker 3:His work provided crucial scientific evidence to support conservation efforts and raise awareness about the urgent need to protect bird populations from exploitation. It was near the Murray River that he captured a devastating picture that shocked the whole world and really drove a devastating nail into the plume market. It's a grainy black and white picture of a nest. There are two very young egrets, barely old enough to stand on their long, wobbly legs. Below the image is text that says Starving Egrets. Parents Shot for their Plumes, young, young egrets, plumafera calling to passing herons for food, waiting for the end Young, all but dead.
Speaker 2:The picture is heartbreaking when you realize that they are just like any orphans, begging for food and hoping to make it one more day. Mattingly's article, plundered for the Plumes, hit the UK, paris, amsterdam, italy, spain, denmark and Australia and the US, along with the photo and many others. In 1911, the RSPB got a hold of the article and posted the photos on billboards and in shop windows. This started protests against the wearing of feathers in London's West End, and by 1913, the international plume market fell out of favor.
Speaker 3:The last fall of the axe, if you'll allow me the euphemism, was when Colonel Sir Charles Yate went to the House of Commons in the UK and introduced a plumage bill in 1920. It was defeated, but the following year the importation of plumage Prohibition Act was passed by Parliament. It took 33 years for Williamson's dream to come true, but it was three decades well spent, and the RSPB is still around, thanks to its almost forgotten founder.
Speaker 2:The use of feathers in fashion during the 1800s exemplifies the detrimental consequences of human exploitation of natural resources for aesthetic purposes. The insatiable demand for feathered attire led to the near extinction of numerous bird species and the actual extinction of others, highlighting the profound impact of fashion and biodiversity. As we reflect on this chapter in history, it serves as a stark reminder of the need for sustainable practices in the fashion industry and the importance of conservation efforts to preserve our planet's precious wildlife. Conservation efforts to preserve our planet's precious wildlife, championed by individuals like Emily Williamson, arthur H Mattingly and organizations such as the RSPB.
Speaker 3:Well, folks, that wraps up. This episode of Smartacus Tells History. We hope you learned something from this intriguing tidbit from the annals of history. If you have any historical questions or topics you'd like us to explore in future episodes, don't hesitate to reach out. Thank you for joining us and if you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave us a review. We'll be back with more stories from the past. Until then, keep exploring.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to Smarticus Tells History. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to rate and review and make sure to subscribe, and be sure to follow the show at facebookcom. Slash smarticustellshistory or just click the link in the show description. Thanks again for listening. See you next time you.