The pace of life history events varies with latitude in many taxa. In birds, especially, life history events tend to be protracted in the tropics. This pattern is likely the result of reduced seasonality in resources and changes in trade-offs associated with risk of mortality. In general, animals invest more in reproduction per attempt and less in adult survival at higher latitudes. Feather growth is a major investment that birds make in their own survival, but geographic patterns of feather growth have received very little study. Evidence from separate studies of molt timing in individual species suggests that high-latitude species complete molt faster than tropical birds. Within species, feathers that are grown more quickly tend to show lower structural integrity than feathers grown more slowly, but seasonality of resources may place temporal constraints on the pace of feather growth. I hypothesized that increased seasonality of resources or decreased investment in adult survival in relation to reproduction would result in an increase in feather growth rate with latitude within species of birds. I tested this hypothesis and alternatives using ptilochronology methods to measure the growth rates of rectrices from museum specimens of 4 species of broadly distributed, resident Neotropical birds across their ranges. I compared these feather growth rates to latitude, climatic suitability, bioclimatic variables, sex, and body mass between and among species. I found that feather growth rate consistently increased with latitude in all 4 species. My results confirmed previous findings that feather growth rate increases with mass in a nonlinear fashion among species; but I found no consistent relationship between body mass and feather growth rate within species. I discuss these results in the context of life history theory and propose 3 potential mechanistic explanations for the relationship between feather growth rate and latitude within species, as (1) a programmed response to increasingly seasonal resources, (2) a decreased investment in adult survival, or (3) fixed to some other factor that may vary with latitude, such as basal metabolic rate.