Green Meadow Club Pledge

Starting in 1914 the Green Meadow Club page in the People's Home Journal occasionally included a little membership form.
Here it is below in the context of a typical page (Jan 1915)

You may find the text difficult to read. I've transcribed it below.

I promise to learn all I can about the little wild people about me; to try to make them my friends; never to believe ill of them until I am sure of it; never to harm or frighten them needlessly, to do all I can to protect our song and insectivorous birds; to be gentle and merciful to all animals.

Carefully worded language. First, clear anthropomorphization--"little wild people"/"friends." Second, somewhat qualified promises--one is free to believe ill of animals if one is sure of it (rats and house sparrows) and one doesn't need to protect game birds. Nevertheless, the general rule is for kindness and against cruelty. This pledge was required in order to be a member of this community.

Thousands signed the pledge and returned it, nevertheless, there were occasional direct solicitations. On this page (lower right) one finds the following question.


Here's the transcription

Thousands of the boys and girls in THE PEOPLE'S HOME JOURNAL's big family have already joined the Green Meadow Club. Scores of pledges are being signed and sent to us every day. We want every one of our boys and girls to enroll as a member. All that is necessary is to sign the little pledge printed on this page and mail it to us. This will make you a full fledged member of what promises to be the greatest organization in the world for the protection of our birds and animals. SEND PLEDGE TODAY!

The ambition is grand--nothing less than the "greatest organization in the world" for wildlife protection.

The club would achieve this goal, in at least one respect.

Tomorrow: The Green Meadow Club Bird Sanctuary Campaigns

The Origins of the Green Meadow Club

The Bedtime stories featuring the cast of characters and the settings that Burgess would use for the next 50 years were established in 1910. Three stories were printed in Good Housekeeping and Old Mother West Wind was published in 1910. In June of 1911, the People's Home Journal published a single story of Burgess's, "Danny Meadow Mouse Learns Why His Tail is Short." Harrison Cady was the illustrator (he would go on to become, though not immediately, Burgess's regular illustrator) and an editorial introduction invoked the Uncle Remus comparison.

BOYS AND GIRLS: A SECOND UNCLE REMUS?

For our boys and girls especially we are publishing this month a charming little story...by Thornton W. Burgess, whose book Old Mother West Wind has made him famous and who is hailed as a second Uncle Remus. This story is too good for any of our boys and girls to miss. And we surmise that very few of our grown-ups will fail to finish the story after reading the first few paragraphs....

The People's Home Journal is now largely forgotten (except by Burgess/Cady collectors!). It was a monthly household-oriented magazine published from 1885 to 1929. It claimed a circulation of about 900,000 when Burgess started contributing, putting it on par with other "household journals." (Note Good Housekeeping's circulation during this era was only around 300,000.) See the 1911 table below for details.

Beginning in April, 1913 (he had begun his daily newspaper story in February of the previous year), Burgess provided a monthly Mother West Wind-style story with illustrations by Cady. This lasted until the journal ceased publication in 1929. These would be called the "Green Meadow" stories, after one of Burgess's main story settings.

The People's Home Journal already had a "club" for children, established only few issues earlier, titled "Aunt Mary's Attic Club." This featured the main adult voice in the Journal's children's page--Aunt Mary--and was initially a kind of adjunct to the Journal's club for grown-ups, "The Sunshine Society." Here's the solicitation (February 1913)

Will You Join Our Club?

Don't you think it will be jolly to have a club and call it "Aunt Mary's Attic Club"? Many of our boys and girls are already hoping we'll do this, and I'd like to know that every one of you are in favor of the plan. Of course there won't be any dues, and the only requirements for membership are that you read the children's page of THE PEOPLE'S HOME JOURNAL and remember our watch-word, "Happiness." All who write to me before March tenth, saying they want to join Aunt Mary's Attic Club will have their names entered on the list of charter members....

It is worth thinking a moment about the functions and purposes of these sorts of clubs. On the one hand, they are (and were) well-known tactics for boosting/maintaining circulation. They are essentially engagement tools, offering opportunities for readers to interact with the editors of the publication and with other readers. The renewal of a subscription is a means of maintaining membership in the magazine's community. On the other hand, because they do bring large numbers of people together, they can be used for directed social good. The Journal's "Sunshine Society," for example, promoted cheerfulness in the face of life's adversities as a way of making the world a better place (though as some critical scholars have noted, this approach was actually a good way of deflecting readers away from any meaningful social activism).

By March, Aunt Mary's Attic club already had many members and Aunt Mary's proposal was to have all club members start a garden. I've embedded the column below:


Then in May, 1913, the Attic Club was gone, replaced by the Green Meadow Club (though "Aunt Mary" would still figure as an editorial voice for a little longer). The editors claimed the idea came from readers [UPDATE: In fact, the idea came from Burgess himself].

The central feature of the Green Meadow page was the Burgess story and its Cady illustration. For the first few installments, the story was followed by a contest announcement, in which children were asked to submit their own experiences with the animal featured that month (for cash prizes). Here's the page for June, 1913.

(Note that Happy Jack Squirrel would play a central role in another Burgess club during WWI).

In subsequent months, there would be more emphasis on nature study.

Tomorrow: The Green Meadow Club pledge

Feathered Soldiers

[UPDATE: This post is based on Burgess's original headline/copy; it was actually published in modified form in the October 1918 PHJ]

From the People's Home Journal, this remarkable piece of rhetoric:

Feathered soliders are fighting for you are you backing them up?

Anyone who does anything to help win this war is fighting for You--for our beloved country--for all the freedom loving people of the world. It makes no difference what it is so long as it is something to help win the war. It may be knitting for the army, going without meat, caring for a garden, doing one of a thousand things which must be done. Whatever it is it makes the doer a soldier in the cause of humanity.

Ever since this terrible war started a great feathered army has been fighting day and night, summer and winter to help the allies win this war. Without the help of these feathered soldiers the battles we have won would have been lost. Our fighting men would not have had sufficient food to given them the strength for the heroic work they have done. Our allies would be facing starvation and we ourselves would be little better off.

The action required? The creation of bird sanctuaries by members of the "Green Meadow Club."

Some of the rhetoric we've already begun to unpack--Burgess's involvement in the Pure Food Movement and his subsequent involvement in the Vigilantes in support of Hoover's Food Administration. Remember, victory in the first world war was basically framed as a matter of food supply. The use of wildlife for nationalistic purposes is an old practice, though it is a bit shocking to imagine birds as soldiers. Nevertheless, this kind of linkage of birds with national security was one of the arguments that finally won birds many of the protections they enjoy today.

But what was the role of the People's Home Journal? And what of Green Meadow Club bird sanctuaries? Those are some questions we'll pose in the next few posts.

Tomorrow: The origins of the Green Meadow Club.