Birds of Home:
A History of European Songbirds
and Other Immigrants in North America
Frederick L. Brown, Ph.D.

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A walk around almost any neighborhood in the United States and southern Canada will reveal house sparrows and European starlings, flying, feeding, nesting, chirping, and singing. They are the feathered companions of our daily lives, reviled by many, loved by a few, ignored by most.

European-American acclimatizers brought thousands of such European songbirds of some twenty-seven different species to North America from 1851 to 1913, setting them free in order to improve cities and countryside, to serve as controllers of insect pests and as pleasant reminders of home in song and feather. While most of these bird species died out, starlings and house sparrows survived, becoming an ever-present, visible legacy of this acclimatization movement.

This book project explores the motivations of those acclimatizers, among whom German and English immigrants played an outsized role. It considers the evolving views of merchants, scientists, farmers, bird protectionists, and others toward these feathered newcomers, along with the experiences of the birds themselves. It portrays the many ways these immigrant birds have fit into immigrant humans' efforts at home-making and belonging in a new place, the many different ways humans and birds have created this history together.

Meet the Birds: Historical Field Guide

Chapter outline:

1. "This Little Friend of Man": Bringing House Sparrows to North America. This chapter considers the mass movement to introduce house sparrows into North America, about 1842-1880.
2. "Ill-Bred Little Feathered Gamins": House Sparrow Journeys. This chapter considers evolving attitudes toward house sparrows among scientists, farmers, bird lovers, and the general public in North America, about 1880-1910.
3. "Finch-Fools of the Harz": A Bird Merchant's Journey. This chapter considers the worldwide bird trade, focusing on Germany and especially Harz Mountains merchant Carl Kastenbein, about 1860-1900.
4. "Singers of Sweet Youth": Bringing European Songbirds to German America. This chapter considers German-American groups and individuals, who introduced European songbirds in Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Portland, Ore., about 1870-1910.
5. "Increasing the Beautiful": Bringing European Songbirds to New York. This chapter considers the elite movement to introduce European songbirds, including starlings and skylarks, in New York, as well as the European roots of human-bird relations in North America, about 1838-1900.
6. "That Noisy Bird Invader": Starling Journeys. This chapter considers evolving attitudes toward starlings among scientists, farmers, bird lovers, and the general public in North America, 1889-present.
7. "Profuse Strains of Unpremeditated Art": Skylark Journeys. This chapter considers West Coast acclimatization efforts of early twentieth century, and surviving skylark population around Victoria, B.C., 1907-present.

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Banner photo: detail from photo by Zeynel Cebeci, wikimedia commons
Last updated April 2024