From the heart of Fort Worth, Texas, we bring you an incredible tale about a true American icon: the bald eagle. Benjamin Franklin himself once called this bird a “bad moral character,” a surprising judgment for what would become our majestic national symbol. Join us as we journey back to the very beginnings of our nation, exploring the fascinating story behind how a few of America’s greatest minds struggled to design the Great Seal, only for a different path to ultimately enshrine this unique bird as the emblem of our fledgling republic.
This isn’t just the story of a symbol, but of a living creature’s remarkable fight for survival. Discover how the bald eagle, beloved for its image of freedom and strength, faced near extinction due to human actions like widespread DDT use. Yet, through collective conservation efforts and a renewed American spirit, witness its powerful return from the brink. It’s a hopeful reminder of our ability to protect the wild beauty that truly defines our shared American story.
📖 Read the Episode Transcript
Speaker 1: This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people, coming to you from where the West begins, in Fort Worth, Texas. Up next, the story of how a bird Benjamin Franklin once said was “a bad moral character” ended up as our national symbol. Here to tell the story of the bald eagle is Jack E. Davis, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Bald Eagle: The Improbable Journey of America’s Bird. You’ll also be hearing from our Hillsdale intern, Nate Gallagher. Let’s get into the story.
00:00:48
Speaker 2: So, the bald eagle is truly an all-American bird, when you think about it—a bird that is charismatic in its behavior and its appearance. And so, it was always a stunning sight when a bald eagle crossed the sky. So, in 1776, within a few hours after Congress approved the Declaration of Independence, Congress organized a committee to devise or to create—to design—a Great Seal of the United States. The three members of the committee were Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams. Stellar cast, right? Really, the principal architects of American independence. So, you’d think it’d be a no-brainer for them to come up with a seal that would be acceptable. They failed miserably.
00:01:46
Speaker 3: The design proposed by these three American all-stars featured Ladies Liberty and Justice flanking an all-seeing Eye of God. Surrounding them in a ring, where the initials of each state, inside a small shield enclosed by Liberty, Justice, and the Eye of God, was a shield with insignia from each of the six nations that, according to the artist of the seal, Pierre Eugene Du Simitière, had peopled the colonies—including insignia from other countries on your own national seal. It was a strange choice and likely one of the many reasons Congress disapproved of the design.
00:02:21
Speaker 2: Congress immediately rejected their design, and another committee was formed. It failed. A third committee was formed; it failed. And finally, Charles Thomson, who was the Secretary of Congress, said, “You know, we’re about to go sign a peace treaty. We need a Great Seal to stamp on it.” So, he came up with the design. He could look outside his windows in Philadelphia, where Congress held its sessions in those days, and see bald eagles. They were quite common around Philadelphia, along the Delaware River, and they were practically an everyday sight. And he’s the one who—we don’t know why, exactly. He didn’t leave a record why he chose the bald eagle, but he’s the one who came up with the idea to put the bald eagle on the Great Seal of the United States. And Congress loved it. The bald eagle has this distinctive look. It’s easy to capture its image, and as a bird that—as a species—is endemic to North America, and an image that really has the sense of power and strength behind it, it made sense that Americans would like it. But also, the bald eagle in its life itself represents freedom and liberty and independence. Those were qualities that Americans associated not just with their country but with themselves. And so, you have this free, independent bird of courage and strength. It was just ideal. Even though America loved the bald eagle image, early on, they loathed the species itself—the living bird behind it. They treated the bald eagle as a predator. They were accused—it was meant that they were a jeopardy to American husbandry, to farmers, and to livestock farmers, and to people who raised chickens in their backyards. And so, it was regarded as a civic duty to shoot and kill a bald eagle, and thousands of them were shot and killed throughout the 19th century. So, by the late 19th century, bald eagles had all but disappeared from the eastern seaboard. And then, in 1945, DDT went on the open market. It was available to anybody to buy.
00:04:50
Speaker 4: It begins with the war-born development of DDT. This diabolical weapon of modern science saved millions of humans but killed billions of insects. Man, with this newly discovered power, has at long last the upper hand in our age-old struggle.
00:05:05
Speaker 2: We ended up blanketing the Lower 48 states to beat the bugs, if you will. We’d beaten the Japanese; we’d beaten the Germans. Now, it was time to beat the bugs. And so, by the 1950s, bird populations, songbird populations, and raptor populations were noticeably declining, and the bald eagle population reached its nadir in 1963. A census was conducted that year of the bald eagle population across the Lower 48 states, and there were fewer than 500 nesting pairs. Now, let’s put that in perspective. When Congress adopted the Great Seal of the United States in 1782, the estimated bald eagle population in North America was 500,000. We redeemed ourselves later in the century by calling for its protection, and in 1972 the Environmental Protection Agency banned the sale of DDT. But also, Congress in that same year passed one of the most important conservation acts in U.S. history, and that was the Clean Water Act. Through the 1980s, ’90s, and on into the 21st century, we brought all these bays and bayous and sounds and lakes and rivers that were on the verge of ecological collapse around the country back to teeming life. And today, the bald eagle population in North America is estimated to be 500,000—the same as it was in 1782.
00:06:41
Speaker 1: And a terrific job on the production, editing, and storytelling by our own Nate Gallagher. And also, a special thanks to Jack E. Davis; he’s a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and the author of The Bald Eagle: The Improbable Journey of America’s Bird. And my goodness, Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin couldn’t get the deal done! Three times they were rejected by Congress with the Seal of the United States, and it took Charles Thomson, the Secretary of Congress, to get it done. But my goodness, we learned something special about this bird, both loved as a symbol but hated as a predator. Thanks to the EPA, the Clean Water Act, and our own laws to protect this bird, we now have as many as we had in our nation’s founding. The story of America’s symbol, the bald eagle, here on Our American Stories. Lee Habib here again, and I’d like to encourage you to subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, or wherever you get your podcasts. Every story we hear is uploaded there daily, and your support goes a long way to keeping the great stories you love from this show coming. Please subscribe to the Our American Stories podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
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