Vintage and Antique Bird Cages

The vintage and antique bird cage (or birdcage) is something of a paradox: A container to hold creatures humans are obsessed with specifically for their freedom and ability to soar through the air. Ancient Sumerians, Egyptians, Persians, Babylonians, Hindus, Aztecs, Polynesians, Vikings, Romans, and Greeks all kept birds as pets in cages. Birds that could mimic human voices were a particular fascination. The earliest cages were probably made of twigs, rope, reeds, or bamboo. Ocean explorers would release a bird as a means to detect dry land. If the bird returned to its cage on the ship, it found nothing but water on its flight. The Portuguese brought small, golden-voiced birds known as canaries to Europe in the 1400s, where they became fashionable pets for aristocratic women. (Later, canaries were found to die faster than humans in the presence of dangerous gases and would be sent into mines as a safety check.) Around 1499, traders began to bring parrots and other exotic birds from Africa, Java, and India to Europe, and such colorful, talking birds were the novel pet for royals and elites. When explorers discovered the Americas, they started to bring back macaws. In the royal courts of Medieval and Renaissance Europe, chaffinch, greenfinch, siskin, and bullfinch were kept in decorative birdcages in women's bedrooms and were taught to sing popular melodies for the ladies' amusement, long before humans had recorded music. During the Enlightenment, these old bird cages were often architectural and castle-like, designed so the bird could have some room for motion and play, but not so much space that it could get away. Because of their sweet singing, birds were popular pets in the American colonies and the early United States. By the 19th century, bird stores were as commonplace in small towns as barbershops, and the bird cage was seen as a decorative element in a well-designed Victorian parlor that put the songbird on display. Canaries were the most popular bird, but Victorian Americans also kept linnets, thrushes, nightingales, European robins, bullfinches, goldfinches, purple finches, mockingbirds, cardinals, grosbeaks, and buntings. Before the mid-1800s, wire was expensive in the United States, so a standard bird cage would be made out of a wooden box with openings on three sides covered with wire bars. These were meant to hang against walls, both indoor and outdoor. Occasionally, a large parrot cage might be forged out of wrought iron. German American immigrant brothers, Charles and Henry Reiche, opened a bird store in Manhattan in 1843, where they established possibly the most popular bird-dealing business in the country, even shipping thousands of pet birds to Gold Rush-era San Francisco. In 1848, the brothers asked fellow German immigrant, Gottlob Gunther, to make all-wire "German style" bird cages to sell to their customers. In 1853, Charles published the influential book, "The Bird Fancier’s Companion." In it, he explained that pet owners who wanted to keep their canary singing, "should keep them in cages of about a foot in diameter, either round or square; as in a large cage they will not sing so well or constant, having [too] much room to fly about and amuse themselves.” After pet birds died, owners would often have them taxidermied to display in their homes. Of nightingales, Charles Reiche wrote, "Their cage should be at least 15 inches long and a foot high, in which are placed three perches, two below and one above. The top of the cage should be of green muslin, or such like, instead of wire, which prevents the bird from injuring its head, by flying up, which it is in the habit of doing during the season of migrating.” As it was for medieval Europe royals, a fancy bird cage became a status symbol in 19th century America. Similar to wunderkammers or "cabinets of curiosities," such antique bird cages were ornate objects meant to show off phenomena from the natural world. An 1856 edition of "Godey's Lady's Book" highlighted a merchant who sold decorative bird cages that resembled pagodas, cottages, seashells, and even a hot-air balloon. By the 1860s, wire had become cheaper in the United States, and wire companies sprang up to make bird cages and other goods for bird stores and fancy gift shops. A decade later, new companies were founded explicitly for the purpose of manufacturing decorative bird cages, which were also sold in furniture shops and general stores. In 1874, the Andrew B. Hendryx Company—founded in New Haven, Connecticut, a region known for its brass factories—began obtaining patents for bird-cage designs. The companies' bird cages and glass water dishes were always marked, and the designs were constantly updated to keep up with decor trends. By the turn of the century, Hendryx was the top name in "high grade" brass bird cages. In the 1920s, the company started offering bird cages by mail order through magazine ads. Besides Gunther and Hendryx, other late 19th century inventors, including George R. Osburn and Otto Lindemann, were registering bird-cage patents to promote their companies. Osburn acquired 16 patents for "The devices for Feeding, Perching, Swinging, Attaching and Joining different Parts." Lindemann and Company asserted their solder-free bird cages more healthful for the birds, who picked at loose metal wire. In the late 1800s, even the most affordable decorative bird cages would have wire bent and twisted into intricate patterns and possibly "spangles" (metal glitter) in the finish. Around the turn of the century, novelty bird cages were created as spheres, classical-style urns, and Mission-style lanterns. Mostly, antique and vintage bird cages were thought as the homes for domesticated birds; therefore, they should mimic the houses people lived in, whether that was a Swiss cottage, an Italian villa, or a Napoleonic mansion. Other animal fanciers would buy "illusion bird cages" that also contained a fish bowl, which made it appear as though the bird on its perch was dwelling underwater. So-called "breeding cages," meant to make a nesting female bird feel protected, had wooden sides and backs and were often affixed to walls. Panels could be inserted into the cages to isolate the mother bird from her partner, while she roosted in a wire nesting pan. Antique bird cages meant for cardinals or mockingbirds would be large and square, with durable wood frames. A lot of old bird cages could be hung from a bracket or a special stand, placed near a sunny window, where the cage could swing in the breeze like a tree would. Antique bird cages with "cake-stand bottoms" were designed to display birds on a table. Besides the bird cage stands, birds also required furnishings to make their home comfortable, including sandpaper perches, glass seed cups, water fountains, ivory eggs (which encouraged laying and setting), and animal hair for nest-making. By the 1870s, the growing population of middle-class bird owners could purchase their feathered friends glass cage baths; cage swings; nests made tin, wire, and willow; brass bells to strike; cage awnings; and metal mats that made it easier to clean the poop from the cage floor. Vintage decorative bird cages from the 1920s reflect the fashion trends of the decade, including Art Deco design and the Orientalist obsession with all things Chinese or Japanese. Around 1929-'30, Hartz Mountain made boxy wooden carrying cages for canaries. Between 1937 to 1952, 10 singing canaries, accompanied by organist Preston Sellers, were featured on a syndicated radio show called American Radio Warblers. The program was designed to help local bird stores sell canaries, bird cages, bird seed, and all the other accoutrements of bird owning. Recordings of the Warblers were offered on 78 and 45 RPM records designed to train pet canaries to sing. A small canary cage made by 3 Vees during this era is collectible today, as are 1930s bird food containers, feeders, and reading material for bird enthusiasts. In the 1940s, parakeets became popular pets for Americans, and because that species is particularly alert and playful, new toys were marketed for their bird cages, including ladders, mirrors, balls, and bells. Vintage bird cages from the postwar era are often entirely made of plastic. Many collectible plastic bird cages and cage accessories were made in Occupied Japan before 1952. Plastic cage tops in the 1960s were also designed to match the Mid-Century design du jour, like Atomic Style, and the color of the year, whether it was harvest gold or avocado green. Hendryx, meanwhile, continued to produce high-quality metal cages in brass or chrome, but in Modernist designs like its circular hatbox bird cage from the 1950s. During the '70s and '80s, there was an even greater demand for exotic birds such as parrots, cockatiels, and macaws, which led to the production of large designer bird cages for these majestic animals. Such gentle, hand-raised hookbills became even more widely available in the 1990s, so their homes became sleeker, made of steel instead of iron, and engineers developed even better bird-cage systems for portability and feces management. Today, though, vintage and antique decorative bird cages are not seen as suitable or safe homes for pet birds.