Rosalie Edge (1877-1962) started her activist career as a suffragist and made her mark when she turned the conservation movement upside-down. She exposed corruption, and became one of the most influential conservationists of her time.
Rosalie Edge (1877-1962) started her activist career as a suffragist and made her mark when she turned the conservation movement upside-down. She exposed corruption, and became one of the most influential conservationists of her time.
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Hello! From Wonder Media Network, I’m Constance Zimmer. And this is Womanica.
This month, we’re highlighting Eco Warriors: women fighting for conservation and environmental justice.
Today we are talking about a woman who started her activist career as a suffragist. But she truly made her mark when she turned the conservation movement upside-down. She exposed corruption, and became one of the most influential conservationists of her time.
Please welcome: Rosalie Edge.
Rosalie Edge was born Mabel Rosalie Barrow in 1877. Her parents – John and Harriet – were part of a prominent New York City family. John was a cousin of Charles Dickens, and he worked as an accountant, making the family quite wealthy. Rosalie grew up alongside Central Park, an engineered sort of nature that served as a playground for high society. The park was an early inspiration for her future career. But, she grew up with the life of a young socialite, attending private school, studying literature, and keeping canaries.
At the age of 32, Rosalie got married. Her husband, Charles Edge, worked in the railroad and shipping industries as an engineer. His job took him around the world, and Rosalie joined him. On one trip to Europe, she met Sybil Margaret Thomas, a prominent British suffragist. Rosalie would listen to Sybil talk about the inequities women faced in the British political landscape. And it inspired her to join the suffragist movement.
In 1915, Rosalie joined New York’sEqual Franchise Society. She also became an officer in New York State’s Woman Suffrage Party. There, one of her roles was writing and distributing pamphlets. And she worked with Carrie Chapman Catt to help pass the 19th Amendment in 1920, which granted American women the right to vote. The victory primed her for her next big fight.
Rosalie’s interest in the natural world stayed with her. She started birdwatching as a hobby. But it turned into something much bigger after she read a pamphlet called “A Crisis in Conservation.” The pamphlet explained the plight of dozens of species of North American birds, whose populations were declining at an alarming rate. But more importantly, it scolded the National Association of Audubon Societies for allowing sportsmen organizations to hunt and kill game birds on what was supposed to be sanctuary land.
Rosalie read the pamphlet in August 1929. Two months later, Rosalie attended the annual Audubon meeting in New York. She walked in and sat right in the front row. And of course, she found the president, T. Gilbert Pearson discussing the pamphlet – though he did not deem the criticism worthy. Rosalie listened for a while, and then decided to speak. She asked: “What answer can a loyal member of the society make to this pamphlet?”
Rosalie didn’t get a satisfying answer. In fact, the president of the society ended the meeting without finishing the day’s activities.
Later that year she ramped up her efforts and founded a group called the Emergency Conservation Committee, or ECC. Rosalie kept her sights on the Audubon Society, and sued them. She won, and gained access to the members’ mailing list.
Next, inspired by the pamphlet that started her on this path, Rosalie teamed up with one of the men who wrote it – Willard Van Name [pronounced like the word “name”]. Willard would write more pamphlets about conservation, the Audubon Society’s failure to protect birds and wildlife, and the need for diverse ecosystems. Rosalie would sign her name to them, and send them out to the 11,000 members on the Audubon mailing list.
Rosalie also continued to attend Audubon meetings, asking incriminating questions and exposing the leaders. She even mounted a campaign to elect two people of her choosing to the board of directors. They lost, but got more than 1,600 votes.
In 1934, Rosalie leased 1,400 acres of land on Hawk Mountain in Pennsylvania, where game hunters were killing predatory birds during migrations. By 1938, the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary Association was created, the country’s first sanctuary for birds of prey. Later, Rachel Carson would conduct research at the sanctuary to monitor bird populations and the effects of DDT.
A few years after the sanctuary opened, a familiar face paid a visit: T. Gilbert Pearson, the former Audubon president, whom Rosalie had confronted years before. T. Gilbert was surprisingly moved by the experience. In a letter to Rosalie, he wrote: “You certainly are to be commended for carrying through to success this laudable dream of yours.” And in a surprising turn of the tables, he included a check for $2 to become a member of the sanctuary.
In her time as a renegade conservationist, Rosalie also pressured The Wilderness Society, the National Conservancy, and the Environmental Defense Fund, among other conservation organizations. In 1962, just ten days before she died, Rosalie Edge attended the National Audubon Society’s annual meeting in Texas. It could have been a tense mood: Rosalie’s work did create a lot of strife for the organization. The Audubon Society lost members and as such, lost dues and revenue. Leaders were forced out. But in the wake of it all, the organization had changed. And Rosalie’s presence there was applauded. All month, we’re talking about eco-warriors. For more information, find us on Facebook and Instagram @womanicapodcast.
Special thanks to Jenny and Liz Kaplan, who invited me to guest host.
Talk to you tomorrow!