In an 1899 issue of The Pansy magazine, Isabella shared these wise words:
“A good conscience is more to be desired than all the riches of the East. How sweet are the slumbers of him who can lie down on his pillow and review the transactions of every day, without condemning himself! A good conscience is the finest opiate.”
You can find more of Isabella’s words of wisdom to read, print, and share. Just enter “quotables” in the search box to see more.
In February 1881 Isabella was thirty-nine years old and an extremely busy woman. She was editor of The Pansy magazine, and was also the magazine’s primary contributor of fiction and non-fiction articles.
She was the primary creator of the Presbyterian church’s Sunday school lessons for young children, which were published in The Sabbath School Monthly and distributed to Presbyterian churches across the country. She also wrote stories for other Christian magazines that were published in America and Europe.
Almost every week she had a speaking engagement somewhere in Ohio—where she and her family were living at the time—or in a neighboring state. Sometimes her appearances included a public reading of her newest story or novel; sometimes she lectured on the proper content and delivery of Sunday school lessons for young children, a topic on which she was an acknowledged expert.
At home in Cincinnati, she was a busy minister’s wife in a demanding household that also included:
How Isabella managed to juggle so many responsibilities all at once is a mystery, but there must have been times when the mounting pressures threatened to overwhelm her.
One of those pressure points may have occurred in January 1881, when her husband became pastor of a congregation in Cumminsville, Ohio. The new church was only about five miles away, but it meant the family had to once again pack up their lives and begin again in an entirely new place.
Is it any wonder, then, that this curious little paragraph appeared in a Cincinnati newspaper just one month later:
The “Cleveland Sanitarium” was a polite name for an inpatient psychiatric hospital near Cleveland (some 250 miles from Isabella’s new home in Cumminsville).
At that time the hospital was formally named “The Northern Ohio Hospital for the Insane,” and “paralysis of the brain” was among the many conditions they treated. In the hospital’s 1880 annual report to the governor, they gave this definition of the condition:
It wasn’t the first time Isabella had sought help for her physical and emotional needs. Twenty years earlier, as a new bride, Isabella checked into the Castile Sanitarium in New York and stayed five months. During her stay there she gardened and played croquet, walked and spent as much time out of doors as possible in between her scheduled therapy treatments.
She may have had the same experience during her stay in Cleveland. The Cleveland Illustrated Guidebook, published by William Payne in 1880, describes the hospital’s grounds where “nature and art have united to make [them] attractive.”
Immediately in front is a stream, separating the grounds from the … railroad track. A grove skirts the entire grounds, affording an abundance of shade and strolling room for the patients, and adding to the general beauty of the location.
Perhaps the beautiful grounds reminded Isabella of the New York sanitarium and the benefit she’d found in similar treatment twenty years earlier.
Here’s what is most striking about this episode: Isabella didn’t hesitate to get help when she needed it. She checked into a hospital that literally had “Insane” in its official name, and she didn’t seem worried about the stigma. Maybe that’s because mental and emotional health were viewed differently in the 1880s. Conditions like “paralysis of the brain,” melancholy, and nervous exhaustion were treated as medical conditions—ailments that could be cured with rest, therapy, and proper care. Or maybe Isabella was just remarkably practical about her own wellbeing. When life became overwhelming, she took action.
Unlike Isabella’s previous stay at a sanitarium (which you can read about here), we can’t know what treatments she received this time. But just a little more than a month later, on March 14, 1881, the Cincinnati Enquirer published a single line update about Isabella:
And just like that, Isabella was home. A little over a month of treatment, and she was back to her family, her work, and her impossibly busy schedule. We don’t know exactly what happened during those weeks in Cleveland, but we know the outcome: she recovered and went on to maintain her extraordinary productivity for decades to come. Sometimes the bravest thing we can do is admit we need help—and then actually get it.
Isabella’s Mystery Illness and the Water Cure
Fantastic Cures for What Ails You
Between 1900 and 1910 American consumers were introduced to some revolutionary new inventions and products that would significantly change their lives. In 1903 the Wright Brothers powered their first sustained airplane flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
In 1908 the first Model T Ford automobile rolled off the production line in Detroit, Michigan.
Other inventions during the decade included the safety razor (1901), Cornflakes (1907), teabags (1904), washing machines (1908), and vacuum cleaners (1901).
But in 1907, an entirely new product took the country by storm: the Thermos bottle. This cleverly designed vacuum bottle could keep drinks hot or cold for hours—something no other portable container could do.
It’s easy to imagine Isabella Alden embracing this new invention, especially given the lifestyle she adopted after she and her family moved to California around 1901.
The Aldens settled in Palo Alto, where son Raymond was teaching at Stanford University. A few years later, Isabella and her husband became involved with the newly-founded Mount Hermon Christian camp near Santa Cruz. Mount Hermon reminded her of her beloved Chautauqua Institution, and it quickly became her summertime place of peace where she could rest, read, and worship among the giant redwood trees. Isabella recalled:
“Tent life seemed to belong to it as much as houses belong in most other places. We ate out of doors, and worked out of doors, and practically slept out of doors, with all the curtains of the tent looped high.”
When Thermos bottles first appeared in stores, they were luxury items. Depending on size, prices ranged from $3.50 to just over $5.00—the equivalent of about $125 to $150 in today’s money.
Travelers quickly embraced the Thermos bottle as a necessity worth the investment. Upper-middle class households purchased them, too, using Thermos bottles to keep food and drinks at stable temperatures without relying on wood-fire stoves, electricity, or refrigeration—all expensive options.
The American Thermos Bottle Company of Norwich, Connecticut, launched a full ad campaign in magazines, trade journals, and newspapers. As sales increased, they launched additional products—pitchers and carafes, food storage bowls, and even completely furnished picnic baskets. With growing demand came increased production, and by the 1920s Thermos bottles were much more affordably priced.
Isabella never specifically mentioned a Thermos in her memoirs or her stories, but throughout her life she eagerly embraced new inventions and technologies. It seems probable that during those early rustic summer days at Mount Hermon, she might have had a Thermos bottle at her side for a cool drink of water.
Isabella’s niece, author Grace Livingston Hill, was also quick to embrace new inventions, and mentioned Thermos bottles in her novels, including The Prodigal Girl (1929) and The Street of the City (1942). In her novel Ladybird (1930), Grace wrote about the main character Fraley MacPherson marveling over a picnic lunch:
“There were other little packages with other sandwiches, some with fragrant slices of pink ham between them. There were hard-boiled eggs rolled in paper. There were olives and pickles, and chocolate cake and cookies, and white grapes and oranges—a feast for a king! There was coffee amazingly hot in a Thermos bottle. And in the wilderness!”
Whether or not Isabella actually owned a Thermos, she certainly lived during one of the most innovative decades in American history—and she took advantage of it. Her writing shows someone who was genuinely curious about new inventions and quick to see how they might improve her daily life. That openness to change and progress is just one more reason her work still feels surprisingly modern today.
New Free Read: “Midnight Callers”
A New Luxury
iPhones and Isabella
It’s National Sewing Machine Day
The Edison Connection
“She’s a Beauty”
Have you ever listened to someone tell a seemingly ordinary story, only to realize halfway through that they’re actually revealing something profound? That’s what happens in this month’s free read. “Family Portraits (Painted Unawares)” is a short story Isabella Alden published in a Christian magazine in 1900.
The story introduces us to Mrs. Andrews, a chatty neighbor who drops by on a hot summer day to tell about her son Harlan’s brief visit home from Boston. What begins as simple rambling about the weather, dinner plans, and a fishing trip gradually reveals itself as something much deeper—a portrait of a family bound together by selfless love.
Mrs. Andrews doesn’t realize she’s painting this portrait. She’s just telling her story in her own enthusiastic way. But it isn’t long before we begin to see what she can’t: a family where people consistently choose each other’s happiness over their own desires and where love—not biology—creates the deepest bonds.
A Note on Isabella’s Craft
What’s striking about this story is Isabella’s restraint. She doesn’t preach. She doesn’t tell us what to think about Mrs. Andrews or her family. She simply lets Mrs. Andrews talk, and trusts us to see the beauty in what’s being revealed.
Isabella has a gift for finding profound spiritual truth in everyday lives. In her stories, she elevates working-class people who live out their faith in practical, unassuming ways.
Maybe that’s why, more than 120 years after she wrote it, this story still has meaning. Today we still struggle with the tension between our own desires and others’ needs. We still wrestle with complicated family relationships. We still chase after perfect holidays and celebrations, forgetting that love is what makes any day special.
This story reminds us that the best relationships are built on small, daily choices we make, like prioritizing someone else’s happiness above our own, or spending time together, even if it’s brief and imperfect. Even more importantly, it reminds us that we don’t have to be extraordinary people to create extraordinary love.
Click here to download “Family Portraits (Painted Unawares)” from BookFunnel.com, then read it on your computer, phone, tablet, Kindle, or other electronic reading device.
Or you can select BookFunnel’s “email” option to receive an email with a PDF version you can read, print, and share with friends.
What stood out to you? Did you see yourself in any of the characters? Share your reflections in the comments below!
Isabella Alden was a teacher at heart. Before she became a bestselling author, she earned her living as a schoolteacher and devoted countless hours to preparing meaningful Sunday school lessons for her students. So when the Chautauqua movement began in the early 1870s, it was a natural fit—she was involved from its earliest days.
The Chautauqua idea started simply enough as a summer gathering where Sunday school teachers could learn best practices for their work and enjoy a bit of recreation when classes weren’t in session.
What began as a “Sunday School Assembly” in 1872 gradually evolved into something much bigger—a “summer university” that welcomed people of all incomes, backgrounds and education levels. It was, wrote Harper’s Monthly Magazine in 1879, “a school for those who, conscious of their need, earnestly desire the highest culture possible for them.”
One of Chautauqua’s founders was Rev. Dr. John H. Vincent, who served as Sunday school secretary of the Methodist Episcopal Church and was a close friend of Isabella’s. Like her, he prized knowledge, learning, and mental discipline.
But what really united them was their shared conviction: that it was possible—even essential—to study art, science, literature, and history through the lens of religious truth.
In 1909 Rev. Vincent addressed the Chautauqua Women’s Club on a topic close to both his and Isabella’s hearts: the importance of education in religious experience. Fortunately, his speech was preserved in an issue of Chautauqua Herald, the assembly’s monthly newspaper.
In many ways, his thoughts on balancing education with Christian faith feel remarkably relevant today—more than a century later. Below are some key points that illustrate the heart of his message. See if you agree with his ideas.
Education and religion used to be too separated. But that is not the case in our time.
In our time education and religion are drawing closer together every day, and one sign of our progress is the growing recognition of religious teaching. I believe that people will increasingly see the value in religious teaching as it becomes purer and freer from the bigotry that once characterized it.
We all remember when fanaticism, bigotry, and opposition to science (as if science were opposed to religion!), found theirplace in the church and prejudiced the minds of scholarly people. As we broaden our perspective and gain a wider view of the world of Nature, this fanaticism is dying out and the scholars and the religious teachers are no longer enemies.
Religion opens the whole field of education, in which theology is fundamental. Religion in its truest sense is education.
Educated people ought to be religious. Religious people ought to be educated. When we surrender our intellect to God through religion, He returns it to us as a precious gift to use. Let us, then, as a form of religious expression, learn how to think—and delight in it.
There are seven points in the consideration of religious life as related to personal culture.
First, religious experience and personal growth work together by developing power of thought.
Second, we should cultivate our ability to reason. Let us ask, why is this? and, why is that?—applying our reasoning not only to intellectual pursuits, but to the realities of daily life.
Third, religion is a great thing to cultivate imagination, and we must develop imagination if we want to broaden our lives. But we must also keen imagination in check.
Thought, reason, imagination—these are all effects of religious experience.
Fourth, we should identify a noble, guiding purpose in life. What am I living for? That is the question we should ask ourselves. How can I beautify my little corner, and how can I do good to my neighbor? Why, every line I read or word I speak leaves its mark on some other human being. Men and women can sink to a lower level very easily. It is a great thing when one woman influences to higher thought one man or ten men.
Fifth, religion should help us see ourselves accurately—not too high, not too low.
Sixth, let us remember that a genuine religious spirit combined with the pursuit of learning will develop philanthropy—a pure philanthropy rooted in Christian values.
And seventh, let us remember that religion develops character. Practice builds virtue—the hallmarks of character that Peter describes when he says “add to your faith courage—add to your faith integrity—add to your faith strength.” Peter understood the secret of inner spiritual life.
“Add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge moderation, and to moderation”—patience, strength—“godliness, and to godliness, brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you and abound, they make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.” (2 Peter 1:5-8)
Religion thus becomes a process of self-mastery in which we take time to focus our abilities and develop them.
Rev. Vincent’s speech captured so much of what Isabella believed and practiced throughout her life. She never saw a conflict between being educated and being faithful. Her novels explored complex themes and moral questions. The articles she published in The Pansy magazine taught children about science, geography, and literature—all while maintaining a foundation of Christian values. Like Rev. Vincent, she understood that true education develops the whole person: mind, character, and spirit. It’s a vision of learning that, at the time, was both revolutionary and deeply needed.
Is it possible to pursue knowledge while maintaining spiritual grounding?
Can we cultivate our minds without losing our moral compass?
Dr. Vincent and Isabella would say yes. And given the lives they both lived—dedicated to learning, service, and faith—their example suggests they might be right.
If Isabella Alden were alive today, there’s no doubt she would be a very tech-savvy person. From telephones to indoor plumbing, from typewriters to motor cars, she embraced new devices and technologies and incorporated them into her stories and her daily life.
In 1909 Isabella wrote a short story titled “Midnight Callers,” which was published in a Christian magazine. It’s a wonderful story about a young woman toiling in the Lord’s vineyard and wondering if her efforts make a difference.
Miss Rachel Holland is a weary Christian mission worker who can’t help questioning the impact of her tireless labor. But her world changes one night when a hopeless ruin of a man stumbles into her office, desperate for help. Will she stand by her faith and summon the energy to serve her heavenly Master yet again?
But “Midnight Callers” is also a story that shows us a snapshot of the world in which Isabella lived. Her characters in the story don’t live in a dusty old past we can’t relate to; instead, they live in a very “modern” world (by 1909 standards).
Rachel Holland, the heroine of the story, writes with a fountain pen, which was a newly popular writing instrument in 1909.
Another character, the Rev. Dr. McKenzie, uses a telephone closet to call “Blue two double O”—a reference to an era of manual telephone exchanges and party lines.
Although fountain pens have long since been replaced by keyboards and “Blue two double O” is now a touch-key on our smart phone contact list, the core of “Midnight Callers” still has relevance for readers today.
The story reminds us that while technology may change, our human need for hope—and help from the “present Power” that never fails—is eternal.
Choose the reading option you like best:
You can read the story on your computer, phone, tablet, Kindle, or other electronic reading device. Just click here to download your preferred format from BookFunnel.com.
Or you can select BookFunnel’s “email” option to receive an email with a PDF version you can read, print, and share with friends.
Typewriters and Writing Machines
It’s Christmas time, and shopping for the holiday is now in full swing. During Isabella’s lifetime, Christmas ads filled the issues of newspapers and magazines, tempting shoppers with bargains and gift ideas.
Among the many advertisements for books, handkerchiefs, slippers, and gloves were ads for a gift the whole family could enjoy: a piano.
The idea wasn’t as extravagant as it might sound; by the late 1890s pianos were quite affordable. Dealers and manufacturers offered consumers credit or payment plans that made purchasing a piano within the reach of families with more modest incomes.
Families weren’t the only ones who took advantage of these arrangements. In Pansy’s Advice to Readers, Isabella wrote about a group of school girls who bought a piano for their gymnasium by raising the money themselves and making regular payments to the dealer.
Such arrangements meant pianos were no longer an article of luxury available only to the wealthy. As more families were able to purchase pianos, American social life began to change. Previously, people gathered at churches, concert halls, and other public places to enjoy music; but affordable pianos allowed people to enjoy music at home and within their own family circle.
But even affordable pianos presented a challenge: someone had to learn how to play them.
Once a piano was installed in a home, there were lessons to be had and endless hours of practice in order for a player to become proficient. But in the 1890s self-playing devices came on the market that again changed how families brought music into their homes.
There were two kinds of self-playing devices: those that attached to pianos, and those that were placed inside them.
Invented in America, the pianola was a cabinet-type device that was pushed up against a piano keyboard. It depressed the piano keys with protruding felt-covered levers controlled by a perforated paper roll. A person had to be seated at the device to work the pumping pedals so air pressure created suction to rotate the roll.
The other type—the player-piano—operated in the same manner with a rotating perforated roll, but the device was installed within the piano itself.
According to the editor of The Piano and Organ Purchaser’s Guide for 1908, these devices “made tens of thousands of pianos eloquent with good and popular music”—pianos that formerly were silent, except when there was a dance at home, or on a Sunday, when a few hymns were played.
“The present of a pianola is a present to every member of the family.” So declared a magazine advertisement in 1904 that urged consumers to consider buying a mechanical piano player for Christmas.
It wasn’t just families that could now listen to beautiful music in their homes. This ad in a 1904 issue of Booklover’s Magazine suggested a pianola cabinet player was the ideal gift for a bachelor’s home.
Those self-playing piano devices opened up whole new musical worlds for people. Many who never visited the opera or a concert before became thoroughly acquainted with world-class musical and orchestral compositions.
Sales of pianolas and player pianos peaked in the mid-1920s when gramophone recordings and the arrival of radio caused their popularity to wane.
But while in their heyday, pianos, pianolas, and player pianos made an important mark on American culture, bringing music and joy to thousands of families. Isn’t that a wonderful gift to receive?
You can learn more about pianolas and player pianos by clicking here.
You can read the e-book on your computer, phone, tablet, Kindle, or other electronic device. Just click here to download your preferred format from BookFunnel.com.
Or you can select BookFunnel’s “My Computer” option to receive an email with a version you can read, print, and share with friends
This week, as we approach Thanksgiving, we’re sharing a lovely poem Isabella published in The Pansy magazine in 1886. “Miss Marion’s Thanksgiving Day” is about a wealthy but lonely lady who looks across the hills at the local almshouse and finds her purpose.
Two big houses broad and high,
Outlined against an autumn sky.
Set on two hills, the houses stand,
One grim and cheerless, one fair and grand;
One teems with life throughout its walls,
One silent in all its stately halls.
One is of wood, and one of stone,
Each set in broad acres all its own.
One is the almshouse, gaunt and gray,
One the beautiful home of Miss Marion Ray.
Miss Marion Ray—her kith and kin
All to their rest have entered in.
Now she dwells with servants in lonely state,
In the mansion behind the iron gate.
A lady tall, and sad, and fair,
With a quiet face and a gentle air—
A sweet, worn face, and hair of gray,
Was the lonely lady, Marion Ray.
Sometimes in the night, when all is still,
She has looked at the lights on the other hill,
And wondered much if it were sadder fate
To live in the house with the wooden gate.
But something happened, the other day,
That has stirred the heart of Miss Marion Ray:
A mother went out of the almshouse door,
Went out of it to go back no more;
Went out to be buried under the leaves,
While the wind of November moans and grieves,
And left a wee blossom with eyes of brown,
To the tender mercies of all the town.
Miss Marion has thought of the baby's fate
Till love and pity have grown so great
She has opened her Bible there to see:
"As ye did it to Mine, ye did it to Me;"
And so, on the morn of Thanksgiving Day,
In the early morn, when the sky is gray,
At the almshouse door a carriage stands,
With shining horses in gleaming bands;
And into the eyes of the little child,
The sad-eyed lady looked and smiled.
On the silken shoulder the glittering head,
Then —"I love 'oo, lady," the baby said.
Gathered close to the hungry heart,
The child and the lady never to part—
Carried home to the mansion grand,
The proudest and richest in all the land.
Never a pauper, the lovely child
Into whose face the lady smiled.
"Done to the least it is done to Me."
What grander honor on earth could be?
Oh, a sweet and joyous Thanksgiving Day
Has come to the home of Miss Marion Ray.
The heart of this story—and of so much of Isabella’s work—is the quiet call to charity, the simple act of extending kindness to those in deepest need.
What do you think? Does this poem illustrate Christ’s instruction from Matthew 25:40: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me”?
Under Isabella Alden’s tenure as editor, The Pansy magazine went from a monthly children’s magazine to a weekly publication. The content also changed; from the early days of short stories, poems, and Bible lessons, the variety of articles expanded to include lessons in science, nature, and geography.
In a regular column devoted to geography, Isabella cleverly turned what could have been a run-of-the-mill travelogue into a fun experience for her readers. Each month she chose a U.S. city as a topic; but instead of writing about the city herself, she invited children who had visited that city to write to her and tell about their trip and the sites they saw. Sometimes the children’s assessments and side-comments were more interesting than their descriptions of the city itself.
For example, when Isabella asked children to write about Minneapolis, Minnesota, she received this response from a boy named Harry Denning:
My uncle is a lawyer and lives in Minneapolis. He says the City Hall is just splendid. It cost three million dollars. Its great tower is three hundred and forty-five feet high, and there are only two others in the United States which can get above that. There isn’t any danger that this building will ever burn up, for it is made fire proof. I wonder why they don’t make all buildings fire proof? Then we would not have to buy engines, and pay firemen, and keep great splendid horses doing nothing all day long but wait for fires. This City Hall which I began to tell you about is three hundred feet square and fills up a great block on four streets. I am going to be a lawyer, and I shall have an office in Minneapolis.
Didn’t Harry have a good idea for building fire-proof buildings? The magazine included this illustration of the Minneapolis City Hall and Court Square:
Another letter was written by Minnie Andrews:
I have an aunt who is very fond of visiting churches. When she goes to a new place, if it is only a village, she wants to see all the churches and know about them. When she was in Minneapolis first, years ago, it was a little bit of a place, and my aunt is an old lady, and does not read the newspapers much, and did not realize that Minneapolis had grown a great deal. She went there last spring to visit a nephew. She reached there in the night, and was taken in a carriage to her nephew’s house, and did not realize the changes at all. The next morning at breakfast, when her nephew asked her what she would like to see in the city, she said she would like to visit the different churches if she could, and that perhaps as the day was pleasant they could go that morning.
“Very well,” said her nephew; “to which ones shall we go?”
“Oh, to all of them,” answered my aunt; “we can take a few minutes for each and see them all this forenoon, can we not?”
“Certainly,” said her nephew; “just as well as not. There are only about a hundred and sixty, I believe.”
And that was the first time my aunt knew that she was in a big city instead of the little town she had left thirty years or so before. But I don’t think her nephew was very polite to an old lady. She saw a good many of the churches, among them Dr. Wayland Hoyt’s, which she said she liked the best of all. It is the First Baptist Church of Minneapolis, and cost two hundred thousand dollars. It will seat about fifteen hundred people. I thought the Pansies would like to hear about it.
Perhaps the best part of Minnie’s letter is how caring she was in regard to her aunt’s feelings and how quickly she came to her aunt’s defense.
Another boy named Thomas Bailey Atwood wrote that when he and his sister visited their uncle in Minneapolis, they went to the Public Library:
It is a very handsome building. They say it cost a good deal—over three hundred thousand dollars. We sat in one of the elegant reading-rooms and read books while our uncle was looking up something in books of reference. There are thousands and thousands of volumes there. The street cars in Minneapolis are all electric. My sister did not like to ride on them when there was a thunderstorm, but I was not afraid. I think I like Minneapolis better than any place I was ever in.
The magazine included this illustration of the city’s impressive public library:
These letters give us a delightful peek into the minds of children from the 1890s. Harry’s practical question about fire-proof buildings, Minnie’s fierce defense of her aunt, Thomas’s brave stance on riding electric streetcars during thunderstorms—each letter reveals not just facts about Minneapolis, but the personalities of the children writing them.
Every child who wrote to her about a city shared real experiences. Isabella understood that children learn best when they’re engaged and when their own voices are valued. By inviting her young readers to become contributors, she turned geography lessons into something personal and memorable. It’s just one more example of why The Pansy magazine resonated with so many children during Isabella’s years as editor. And it’s no wonder children loved writing to her.
Rebecca’s dress was entirely appropriate and becoming. She had gone out from her father’s house very well supplied with clothes, and her ability to re-make them herself had stood her in good stead, so that now her dress of fine black cloth, made severely plain, but with minute attention to details, became her well. So did the black felt bonnet, with its three stylish plumes, which she had herself dressed over.
from Wanted, by Isabella Alden, published in 1894
In her stories, Isabella often used the latest fashion to define a character’s financial and social status, and Rebecca Meredith’s outfit was an excellent example. Because her dress was plain and black, her bonnet “with its three stylish plumes” was the centerpiece of her outfit and called attention to her pretty face.
Bonnets with plumes were very much in style when Wanted was published in 1894. Women’s magazines, like Godey’s Lady’s Book and The Ladies Home Journal showed that hats were be made from a variety of materials—straw, for example, or stiffened fabrics like velvet—and that they were quite modest in size.
Though small, hats at that time were heavily adorned with ribbons, bows, artificial flowers and, most importantly, bird plumes.
Bird feathers were the most desirable decorative elements on a lady’s hat. In 1894 The Ladies Home Journal predicted that actual wings displayed on bonnets would be “all the rage,” while another magazine wrote that “almost every second woman one sees in the streets flaunts an aigrette of heron’s plumes on her bonnet.”
Milliners used feathers from egrets, hummingbirds, herons, and even song birds of all kinds as adornments.
The more exotic the bird, the more desirable their feathers; and the millinery industry was willing to pay top dollar to anyone who would supply them, no questions asked.
But some people did ask questions and raise alarms, after nature lovers in England and the United States discovered that some birds, like ospreys and egrets, were hunted so mercilessly, ornithologists feared they would soon be extinct.
In London, a Society for the Protection of Birds was formed. Members pledged to never wear feathers of any bird not killed for the purpose of food. Similar organizations were formed in Europe, Canada, and the U.S.
The public outcry began to pay off, as women around the world pledged to stop wearing hats with real bird feathers, and American lawmakers enacted state and federal laws to protect certain species of birds by banning them from use in hats and garments.
One bird that was exempt from protection was the ostrich, because its feathers could be harvested without killing the bird. So it was natural that the millinery industry would turn its attention to ostriches as a source for adornments.
Ostrich farms that had been established in the southern United States in the late 1890s in hopes of selling feathers to the millinery industry suddenly saw an increased demand for their wares.
And because ostrich feathers could be plucked every eight or nine months, ostrich farmers with large herds enjoyed a regularly replenished inventory they could sell.
With the turn of the century, hat styles changed, and the small bonnets that were popular when Isabella wrote Wanted fell out of fashion. The new bonnet styles of the 1900s featured wide brims and brilliant colors.
Ostrich plumes suited the new styles beautifully. Because of their size, the plumes could cover a large hat’s crown and brim.
Even more importantly, ostrich feathers could be dyed to match almost any color. Women and conservationists rejoiced, feeling confident that they could use ostrich feathers for fashion without feeling guilty.
In her 1912 novel The Long Way Home Isabella made sure her fashionable characters wore the latest style in bonnets. Newlywed Ilsa Forbes wore a wide-brimmed hat when she boarded the train with her new husband Andy:
But Andrew had no words, just then; never was the heart of bridegroom more filled to overflowing, and he could not yet think about decorations or supper.
“My wife!” he murmured, as his arm encircled her. “Really and truly and forever my wife. Do you realize it, darling?”
She nestled as closely to him as her pretty, new traveling hat would permit and laughed softly.
There was, however, a problem with those stylish large hats adorned with ostrich feathers. In 1908 a letter to the editor of the Oregonian newspaper applauded the ban on exotic bird feathers, but raised a new and troubling concern about ostrich feathers:
The letter-writer wasn’t the only one wondering if an ostrich felt pain when its feathers were plucked. Soon the Audubon Society and other conservationists began asking the same question and took their findings to state legislators.
In California, where Isabella was living and where many of the country’s ostrich farms were located, the question was answered by lawmakers. In 1900 the state updated its penal code to make it a crime to intentionally mutilate or torture a living animal, which included plucking live birds like ostriches.
So ostrich farmers stopped plucking and began snipping feathers, instead. A 1911 article in the Dallas Morning News explained the process:
Once again, stylish ladies (and Isabella’s equally stylish characters) could wear hats adorned with feathers and maintain a relatively clear conscience.
It’s interesting how Isabella’s attention to details, like hat sizes and adornments, brought her stories to life. While she didn’t preach about fashion in her novels, she paid close attention to these niceties, and used them to bring authenticity to her characters and their world. Contemporary fans of her novels would have noted the subtle changes as keeping up with the times.
For us in 2025, it’s fascinating to learn there’s a whole complicated history behind Rebecca Meredith’s feathers—a history about women who were determined to write wrongs and find ways to be fashionable without compromising their conscience.
Full disclosure: these are Amazon affiliate links, which means if you decide to purchase through them, this blog will receive a small commission. It doesn’t cost you anything extra, but it helps us keep this site running and researching Isabella’s life and the fascinating world in which she lived.
Affordable Christian Fiction
Faith, romance, and a place to belong
Author of Classic Christian Fiction
Author of Classic Christian Fiction
Reviews and giveaways for Christian fiction and sweet, clean fiction. Bringing readers information on great stories and connecting authors with their readers.
Isabella Alden 