The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers, Digital Edition > My Day
My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt

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HYDE PARK, Friday—Life in the country has been fairly uneventful. I had a few friends at lunch and dinner, a walk and a ride and time to sit and read by the fire. How delightful it all is, but just around the corner lies plenty of activity, so I can revel in this without feeling really lazy.

On Sunday I shall have to leave here to broadcast on the Chicago University hour at 2:30 p.m. This discussion is being arranged so that the public may have a better understanding of the meaning of Art Week, which begins on Monday the 25th.

I must devote the rest of this column to telling you of some of the things which people have been writing me about of late.

First and foremost, I have a really serious letter from the Audubon Societies. More than thirty years ago, they led the fight to stop the slaughter of wild birds for their plumage. It appears, we ladies in those days used too many pretty feathers from wild birds on our hats and in other decorative ways. Now the National Audubon Society has conducted an investigation and finds that they must start a new campaign. They ask the women of the United States to help them.

We ladies are guilty, of course. If we realized that we were stamping out so many beautiful wild birds and destroying the species for all time, we would not be very happy, no matter how becoming our headdress might be. But, most of us buy such things with little thought as to what lies behind the product.

There are always some feathers which are permissible to wear because they can be obtained without injuring the birds. If we dress these feathers up with very nice names, which modern advertising surely can do we will be just as happy wearing them as if they were some of those banned by the Audubon Society.

I hope, therefore, that the Audubon Society's crusade will be very successful, and that all of us who like to think we are well dressed, will shun the use of feathers obtained by killing wild birds. We should look askance at anyone who cannot say: "I bought this before 1940," and hope that if such a lady buys feathers of the banned variety we can at least say of her that fashions are against her.

I realize that the manufacturers of feathered goods will have to use their inventive genius to please the public in some other way, but they have done it before and they can do it again.

E.R.

(COPYRIGHT, 1940, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC.)


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Geographic
  • Hyde Park (Dutchess County, N.Y., United States) [ index ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, November 23, 1940

Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1884-1962
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Digital edition created by The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project The George Washington University 312 Academic Building 2100 Foxhall Road, NW Washington, DC 20007

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Digital edition published 2008, 2017 by
The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project

Available under licence from the Estate of Anna Eleanor Roosevelt.

Published with permission from the Estate of Anna Eleanor Roosevelt.

MEP edition publlished on June 30, 2008.

TEI-P5 edition published on April 28, 2017.

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Transcription created from a photocopy of a UFS wire copy of a My Day column instance archived at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library.
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