Birds: How to Use Your Privilege to Disrupt Capitalism
is a documentary short (in development) remembering and celebrating the 19th-century Boston society women who staged one of America’s most successful boycotts, founded the Massachusetts Audubon Society, and saved the birds.
I.
EDUCATE ONESELF
Boston socialite Harriet Hemenway had been born into an old Massachusetts family known for progressive activism, was herself an organizer for various women’s reform clubs, and an avid naturalist.
In 1896, she read an article detailing how the mainstream fashion for bird hats was decimating bird populations, driving many species — Florida’s snowy egret, most notably — to the brink of extinction.
II.
BECOME INCENSED
By the time she finished the article, Harriet was furious.
III.
APPLY PEER PRESSURE
After calling on her cousin, Minna Hall, the two consulted the Blue Book (Boston’s social register) and launched a series of tea parties at which they pressured their friends to stop wearing feathered hats.
“Do women who wear birds ever stop to think what an injury to the moral influence of our sex they are inflicting?”
IV.
DIVERSIFY AND INTENSIFY
After recruiting 900 other upper-crust women for the boycott, Harriet and Minna established the Massachusetts Audubon Society. Well aware they needed the support, attention, and leadership of men to lend the organization political legitimacy, the women invited esteemed ornithologist William Brewster to serve as president with a mandate to advance legislation to restrict the killing of birds and sale of their plumage.
In addition, the group included children and employed a number of grassroots organizing and educational tactics to further influence public opinion and consumer behavior.
V.
PERSIST
New Audubon Society chapters were founded (and run mostly by women) across the country. What was known as the “bird-hat” campaign of the Audubon Society in Boston influenced passage of the Lacey Act (1900), which prohibited interstate commerce of protected species taken in violation of state laws.
Game warden Guy Bradley is shot and killed by poachers in 1905 while attempting to enforce wildlife laws in South Florida’s Everglades, provoking more outrage.
Still, these laws, advocacy, and awareness did not stop the plume trade and it would be another 18 years before the landmark Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 outlawed the sale of migratory birds and commercial hunting ceased, effectively ending the plume trade by the end of World War I.
Harriet Hemenway died in 1960 at the age of 101. Her name is not well known outside New England.
Guy Bradley
STRUCTURE
Chaptering this narrative using a step-by-step breakdown of "how to use your privilege to disrupt capitalism" allows us to connect the organizational methods of these wealthy 19th century women with tools available to us today. This approach also lends itself to humor, levity, and a playful tone not as common to historical and nature documentaries.
A sit-down interview as well as a verite birdwatching sequence with environmental writer Dr. Jenny Price, author of Flight Maps, will anchor the story in the historical context of 1890s Boston and the gender politics at the time that made this issue particularly complex.
STYLE
Sequences of animated cut-paper silhouettes against overcast backdrops will depict a desaturated world in which plumage (on hats and on live birds in the urban environment) are the only vibrant color.
Silhouetted figures will also interact with archival media and contemporary footage, passing in front of still images or stopping to comment in voiceover in the style of a Lady Whistledown.
Meditative nature footage grounds us in the stakes of the women’s fight and a 4:3 aspect ratio accommodates archival footage.
I spent my childhood in the woods down the street from our house in Massachusetts — a 2,200-acre tract of conservation land known as the Middlesex Fells. My mother, a naturalist/educator who led nature hikes in the Fells, taught us to identify hawks by flight pattern, dissect owl pellets, and listen for mourning doves.
Even as a very young person, I knew the story of Harriet Hemenway and Minna Hall, the Brahmin society women who took it upon themselves to put a stop to the slaughter of birds for fashion. While I would not truly appreciate the women’s struggle for voice and enfranchisement in the drawing rooms of Back Bay until much later, the idea that one or two people can have a massive impact on the world has remained with me from the beginning.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I no longer live near New England woods (having had to relocate away from the harsh winters that exacerbate a disabling heart condition), but I stop to watch birds in my New Orleans neighborhood all the time, sometimes imagining a bleaker world without them.
As capitalism continues to ravage our world’s natural resources and climate change reshapes landscapes we've built our identities around, the story of people who defied immense odds by mobilizing their community to successfully disrupt harmful industry is more critical than ever. By structuring this doc short as a lighthearted “how to” explainer, I hope to remind viewers that by harnessing the forces of community and intentional spending we hold the power to bring down empires.
TEAM
A New England native, Jane Geisler now lives and works in New Orleans. With a strong background in research, writing, and film editing, she is drawn to stories centering the history of women and the natural world. Her creative process reflects the limitations imposed by chronic illness as well as the resiliency of chronic curiosity.
Full bio here.
+1 781 718 3967
janegeisler@gmail.com
Jane Geisler, Director
Darcy McKinnon is a documentary filmmaker based in New Orleans, whose work focuses on the American South and the Caribbean. Recent projects include A King Like Me and Roleplay, premiering at SXSW 2024, Commuted (PBS, 2024), Algiers, America (Hulu, 2023), Under G-d (Sundance 2023), Look at Me! XXXTENTACION (SXSW, Hulu, 2022) and The Neutral Ground (Tribeca, POV, 2021), recipient of LEH Documentary of the Year 2022. Her work has been on POV, Reel South, LPB, Cinemax and Hulu, and has screened at Sundance, Tribeca, SXSW, CPH:DOX and more. She is the recipient of American Documentary’s 2023 inaugural Creative Visionary Award.
Gusto Moving Pictures
+1 504 228 4247
darcy@gustomovingpictures.com
Darcy McKinnon, Producer
