Barred Owl, by Stephen Ramsden.
FAQ Regarding Audubon name
Following are some answers to questions that might be on your mind and some resources that you may find helpful as you do your own research.
What prompted the Georgia Audubon Board to reexamine its name?
The organization that is today known as Georgia Audubon has not always borne the Audubon name. The organization was founded in 1926 as the Atlanta Bird Club, a name that was maintained for 47 years. In 1973, the Board of Directors made the decision to become part of the Audubon network and changed the organization’s name to Atlanta Audubon Society. In 2020, the organization changed names again to Georgia Audubon to better reflect our mission of building places where birds and people thrive across Georgia.
National Audubon Society was founded in 1905 and named after John James Audubon, 50 years after his death. Audubon was a naturalist and illustrator whose work was an important contribution to the field of ornithology in the mid-19th century and the spread of interest in birds and nature in the United States. While there can be no doubt of the impact of his life’s work and passion for birds, he also bought and sold slaves, and expressed racist and harmful attitudes about Black and Indigenous people that are now more understood. Today, more than 100 years later, our Board has been asked to examine John James Audubon’s legacy through a better informed lens.
Who was John James Audubon?
John James Audubon was a 19th-century artist and naturalist who achieved fame for his series of paintings of North American bird species released in sections between 1827 and 1838. In addition to being collected in the super-sized book The Birds of America, engravings of the birds he painted were sold by subscription and became a hugely popular way to explore avian life. Many of his original paintings and prints can be viewed now at the New York Historical Society.
So popular were the paintings and engravings that after his death, Audubon’s name became associated with bird conservation. Many conservation groups now bear his name in tribute, as do numerous parks, streets, zoos, sanctuaries, and birds with “Audubon” in the name.
However, there is another side to John James Audubon which has emerged recently through historical research and popular discourse. Audubon was a man who owned, purchased, and sold enslaved people. He also wrote about returning escaped enslaved people to their owners and of his strong opposition to the growing abolitionist movement. (Read more about John James Audubon here.)
Was John James Audubon a conservationist?
While John James Audubon did not identify as a conservationist in the modern sense of the word, he did make important contributions to the early conservation movement.
Audubon was born in 1785 and lived during a time when the idea of protecting natural resources was not yet widespread. His main focus was on documenting and illustrating the birds of North America, which he believed were not well-known or appreciated by many Americans at the time.
However, Audubon did recognize the need to protect the habitats where the birds he studied lived. In his writings, he often commented on the destruction of forests and wetlands. Audubon advocated for creation of the country’s first natural history museum and the establishment of bird sanctuaries which could provide safe spaces for birds to breed and thrive.
Audubon’s work inspired the founders of the early groups that took his name. From this work which popularized an appreciation for birds and nature, a national conservation movement was born. Many of today’s important bird conservation actions—the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the ban on DDT—as well as critical community-based science efforts like the Christmas Bird Count, the Breeding Bird Atlas project, and the Great Backyard Bird Count owe a debt to Audubon’s art and the movement it inspired.
Was John James Audubon the founder of the Audubon Societies?
The Audubon societies, and the bird conservation movement, were created nearly 50 years after John James Audubon’s death.
John James Audubon died in 1851. In 1896, Harriet Hemenway and Minna B. Hall founded the Massachusetts Audubon Society, dedicated to stopping the killing of birds for plumage for women’s hats. In 1905, the founders of the National Audubon Society similarly chose the Audubon name for their organization because of its association with beautiful images of birds and Audubon’s important work in spreading knowledge of the diversity of bird species.
Why is this a problem now?
Audubon’s name long conjured strongly positive images for many people, and for more than a century has been synonymous with birds and bird conservation.
But now that positive association is no longer unequivocal, with a spreading awareness of Audubon’s ownership, purchase, and sale of enslaved people and his defense of the practice as an anti-abolitionist. These revelations about Audubon’s activities and beliefs have upended his image and tarnished his legacy. As a result, we feel the need to examine whether our continued use of the Audubon name is at odds with our values and our commitment to equity and inclusion and whether having “Audubon” in our name is harming more than helping our efforts to expand our reach and bring more people into bird conservation.
Wasn’t Audubon just a person of his time?
Audubon owned and sold slaves, as did many peers in the United States in his time. His household was supported by enslaved people and Audubon sold enslaved people to finance his collecting and publishing work. While on a collecting trip to a plantation, he reported an encounter with escaped enslaved people where he returned them to their owners. Audubon has also been associated with the collection of human skulls from Indigenous people, a practice that some naturalists of his time participated in. Skulls that Audubon found or acquired during his travels made their way to Philadelphia. There, they became study specimens for Dr. Samuel George Morton, whose theories on skull size and intelligence formed the background of scientific racism. (Read more here.)
During Audubon’s life the abolitionist movement was growing in strength, especially in New York where Audubon lived. By 1820 all of the Northern states had passed legislation to abolish slavery, but Audubon remained a defender of slavery and staunchly anti-abolitionist. (Read more here.)
While these actions took place in the past, as an organization we recognize that for some people, the Audubon name conjures negative, painful images and may be negatively impacting our efforts to share information and appreciation for birds and birding with ALL people. As an organization, Georgia Audubon strives to build places where birds and people thrive. Just as bird diversity strengthens ecosystems, the diversity of human experiences, traditions, and viewpoints strengthens our conservation, education, and community engagement efforts. Our wish is to make all people feel welcome in the spaces where we work and bird.
Would a name change modify the organization’s mission?
No. Regardless of whether our name is ultimately changed, our mission will remain unchanged: building places where birds and people thrive. Through our conservation, education, and community engagement work, we will continue working to build a conservation-minded and fully engaged Georgia where birds prosper, habitats flourish, and understanding grows. We also intend to continue working to better engage and serve people and communities whose interests have historically not been meaningfully considered.
How might changing the organization’s name help your work?
We are a bird conservation organization. To save birds, we need many allies, partners, and broad popular support. A name once chosen for its popular appeal and association with beautiful images of birds is now also associated with slavery and racism. As a result, that name may be a barrier to people who might otherwise become involved in or support our work. As an organization, we feel that we must at least explore the possibility of changing our name by engaging in respectful conversations with our members, donors, volunteers, sponsors, partners, program participants, and others with whom we engage.
Does a name change mean you also reject his bird paintings?
John James Audubon’s paintings are beautiful and inspiring. We can value his art and achievement as a naturalist while rejecting some of his conduct and morality. Audubon was a skilled artist whose folios of bird paintings and his five-volume treatise on ornithology revealed to the world the richness and variety of avian life, and his direct impact on the birth of an American conservation movement continues to matter to us.
Aren’t you participating in “cancel culture”? Isn’t it better to acknowledge past wrong-doings, rather than erase history?
It’s not our intent to “cancel” John James Audubon. We are mindful of the past and of his contributions to the work we do today. But as we look at the future and seek to engage new audiences with birds, it is important that we take a close look at our name to ensure we put our organization in the best position possible to fulfill its mission.
What is your assessment process?
Georgia Audubon’s Board of Directors has empaneled a committee, consisting of board members and staff to guide this process and help our organization gain a deeper understanding about the history of John James Audubon. The committee is looking at the historical path toward our own organization’s adoption of the Audubon name, how it affects our organization today, and implications for our work across the Audubon network. Georgia Audubon is independent of National Audubon, and, as such, we work closely with other independent Audubon chapters on a range of topics. Already, we’ve achieved a greater awareness of issues surrounding the Audubon name, and we plan to engage in very important internal and external dialogues about our origins and culture. We would also like to raise awareness among our members, volunteers, donors, partners, and program participants about John James Audubon’s personal history.
Should the name change, would you still be an Audubon chapter?
Yes, regardless of the final decision, we will remain a chapter of the National Audubon Society. Our work will not change; it will expand. Our work alongside the 600 other organizations in the network will continue and we will support the work of the national organization to maximize successes for birds and habitat. The problems that birds face are too important for any one chapter to take on. We will work together as we have for nearly 100 years since our founding in 1926, to conserve birds and habitat across Georgia.
If you decide to change, what would be your new name?
Should we decide to rename the organization, the Board will determine a renaming process to select a name that reflects who we are and what we stand for. We plan to seek input from all of our members, volunteers, donors, partners, and communities.
Where can I learn more?
Check out these resources to learn more about John James Audubon.
Across the Audubon Network
What prompted the Georgia Audubon Board to reexamine its name?
The organization that is today known as Georgia Audubon has not always borne the Audubon name. The organization was founded in 1926 as the Atlanta Bird Club, a name that was maintained for 47 years. In 1973, the Board of Directors made the decision to become part of the Audubon network and changed the organization’s name to Atlanta Audubon Society. In 2020, the organization changed names again to Georgia Audubon to better reflect our mission of building places where birds and people thrive across Georgia.
National Audubon Society was founded in 1905 and named after John James Audubon, 50 years after his death. Audubon was a naturalist and illustrator whose work was an important contribution to the field of ornithology in the mid-19th century and the spread of interest in birds and nature in the United States. While there can be no doubt of the impact of his life’s work and passion for birds, he also bought and sold slaves, and expressed racist and harmful attitudes about Black and Indigenous people that are now more understood. Today, more than 100 years later, our Board has been asked to examine John James Audubon’s legacy through a better informed lens.
Who was John James Audubon?
John James Audubon was a 19th-century artist and naturalist who achieved fame for his series of paintings of North American bird species released in sections between 1827 and 1838. In addition to being collected in the super-sized book The Birds of America, engravings of the birds he painted were sold by subscription and became a hugely popular way to explore avian life. Many of his original paintings and prints can be viewed now at the New York Historical Society.
So popular were the paintings and engravings that after his death, Audubon’s name became associated with bird conservation. Many conservation groups now bear his name in tribute, as do numerous parks, streets, zoos, sanctuaries, and birds with “Audubon” in the name.
However, there is another side to John James Audubon which has emerged recently through historical research and popular discourse. Audubon was a man who owned, purchased, and sold enslaved people. He also wrote about returning escaped enslaved people to their owners and of his strong opposition to the growing abolitionist movement. (Read more about John James Audubon here.)
Was John James Audubon a conservationist?
While John James Audubon did not identify as a conservationist in the modern sense of the word, he did make important contributions to the early conservation movement.
Audubon was born in 1785 and lived during a time when the idea of protecting natural resources was not yet widespread. His main focus was on documenting and illustrating the birds of North America, which he believed were not well-known or appreciated by many Americans at the time.
However, Audubon did recognize the need to protect the habitats where the birds he studied lived. In his writings, he often commented on the destruction of forests and wetlands. Audubon advocated for creation of the country’s first natural history museum and the establishment of bird sanctuaries which could provide safe spaces for birds to breed and thrive.
Audubon’s work inspired the founders of the early groups that took his name. From this work which popularized an appreciation for birds and nature, a national conservation movement was born. Many of today’s important bird conservation actions—the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the ban on DDT—as well as critical community-based science efforts like the Christmas Bird Count, the Breeding Bird Atlas project, and the Great Backyard Bird Count owe a debt to Audubon’s art and the movement it inspired.
Was John James Audubon the founder of the Audubon Societies?
The Audubon societies, and the bird conservation movement, were created nearly 50 years after John James Audubon’s death.
John James Audubon died in 1851. In 1896, Harriet Hemenway and Minna B. Hall founded the Massachusetts Audubon Society, dedicated to stopping the killing of birds for plumage for women’s hats. In 1905, the founders of the National Audubon Society similarly chose the Audubon name for their organization because of its association with beautiful images of birds and Audubon’s important work in spreading knowledge of the diversity of bird species.
Why is this a problem now?
Audubon’s name long conjured strongly positive images for many people, and for more than a century has been synonymous with birds and bird conservation.
But now that positive association is no longer unequivocal, with a spreading awareness of Audubon’s ownership, purchase, and sale of enslaved people and his defense of the practice as an anti-abolitionist. These revelations about Audubon’s activities and beliefs have upended his image and tarnished his legacy. As a result, we feel the need to examine whether our continued use of the Audubon name is at odds with our values and our commitment to equity and inclusion and whether having “Audubon” in our name is harming more than helping our efforts to expand our reach and bring more people into bird conservation.
Wasn’t Audubon just a person of his time?
Audubon owned and sold slaves, as did many peers in the United States in his time. His household was supported by enslaved people and Audubon sold enslaved people to finance his collecting and publishing work. While on a collecting trip to a plantation, he reported an encounter with escaped enslaved people where he returned them to their owners. Audubon has also been associated with the collection of human skulls from Indigenous people, a practice that some naturalists of his time participated in. Skulls that Audubon found or acquired during his travels made their way to Philadelphia. There, they became study specimens for Dr. Samuel George Morton, whose theories on skull size and intelligence formed the background of scientific racism. (Read more here.)
During Audubon’s life the abolitionist movement was growing in strength, especially in New York where Audubon lived. By 1820 all of the Northern states had passed legislation to abolish slavery, but Audubon remained a defender of slavery and staunchly anti-abolitionist. (Read more here.)
While these actions took place in the past, as an organization we recognize that for some people, the Audubon name conjures negative, painful images and may be negatively impacting our efforts to share information and appreciation for birds and birding with ALL people. As an organization, Georgia Audubon strives to build places where birds and people thrive. Just as bird diversity strengthens ecosystems, the diversity of human experiences, traditions, and viewpoints strengthens our conservation, education, and community engagement efforts. Our wish is to make all people feel welcome in the spaces where we work and bird.
Would a name change modify the organization’s mission?
No. Regardless of whether our name is ultimately changed, our mission will remain unchanged: building places where birds and people thrive. Through our conservation, education, and community engagement work, we will continue working to build a conservation-minded and fully engaged Georgia where birds prosper, habitats flourish, and understanding grows. We also intend to continue working to better engage and serve people and communities whose interests have historically not been meaningfully considered.
How might changing the organization’s name help your work?
We are a bird conservation organization. To save birds, we need many allies, partners, and broad popular support. A name once chosen for its popular appeal and association with beautiful images of birds is now also associated with slavery and racism. As a result, that name may be a barrier to people who might otherwise become involved in or support our work. As an organization, we feel that we must at least explore the possibility of changing our name by engaging in respectful conversations with our members, donors, volunteers, sponsors, partners, program participants, and others with whom we engage.
Does a name change mean you also reject his bird paintings?
John James Audubon’s paintings are beautiful and inspiring. We can value his art and achievement as a naturalist while rejecting some of his conduct and morality. Audubon was a skilled artist whose folios of bird paintings and his five-volume treatise on ornithology revealed to the world the richness and variety of avian life, and his direct impact on the birth of an American conservation movement continues to matter to us.
Aren’t you participating in “cancel culture”? Isn’t it better to acknowledge past wrong-doings, rather than erase history?
It’s not our intent to “cancel” John James Audubon. We are mindful of the past and of his contributions to the work we do today. But as we look at the future and seek to engage new audiences with birds, it is important that we take a close look at our name to ensure we put our organization in the best position possible to fulfill its mission.
What is your assessment process?
Georgia Audubon’s Board of Directors has empaneled a committee, consisting of board members and staff to guide this process and help our organization gain a deeper understanding about the history of John James Audubon. The committee is looking at the historical path toward our own organization’s adoption of the Audubon name, how it affects our organization today, and implications for our work across the Audubon network. Georgia Audubon is independent of National Audubon, and, as such, we work closely with other independent Audubon chapters on a range of topics. Already, we’ve achieved a greater awareness of issues surrounding the Audubon name, and we plan to engage in very important internal and external dialogues about our origins and culture. We would also like to raise awareness among our members, volunteers, donors, partners, and program participants about John James Audubon’s personal history.
Should the name change, would you still be an Audubon chapter?
Yes, regardless of the final decision, we will remain a chapter of the National Audubon Society. Our work will not change; it will expand. Our work alongside the 600 other organizations in the network will continue and we will support the work of the national organization to maximize successes for birds and habitat. The problems that birds face are too important for any one chapter to take on. We will work together as we have for nearly 100 years since our founding in 1926, to conserve birds and habitat across Georgia.
If you decide to change, what would be your new name?
Should we decide to rename the organization, the Board will determine a renaming process to select a name that reflects who we are and what we stand for. We plan to seek input from all of our members, volunteers, donors, partners, and communities.
Where can I learn more?
Check out these resources to learn more about John James Audubon.
- Webinar: Audubon's American History, with Gregory Nobles - view recording on YouTube
- Audubon Magazine, The Myth of John James Audubon
- Audubon Magazine, What do we do about John James Audubon
- Audubon Magazine, What’s in a Bird Name?
- Commonplace, We Left All On the Ground But the Head: J.J. Audubon’s Human Skulls
Across the Audubon Network
- The New York Times, Is Social Justice for the Birds? Audubon attempts to answer
- The Wildlife News, What’s in a Name? National Audubon Society
- The Christian Science Monitor, How Audubon societies are grappling with a racist past
- The Washington Post, The largest Audubon group yet is changing its name, rebuking an enslaver
- The Washington Post, National Audubon Society, pressured to drop enslaver’s name, keeps it
- The New York Times, The Crisis for Birds is a Crisis for Us All
- National Audubon Society, Survival by Degrees: 389 Bird Species on the Brink
- Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Nearly Three Billion Birds Gone
- Bird Note Radio, Opinion: Why the Audubon Decision Hurts
- NPR, Audubon Faces Backlash After Deciding to Keep Name that Evokes a Racist Enslaver
- The Oregonian, Opinion: Dropping Audubon from Portland Chapters Name Would be a Mistake
- The Washington Post, Opinion: Why The National Audubon Must Change Its Name
