The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1882-03-30
Ostrich Feathers.

During the war ostrich feathers went
up to an enormous price in this country.
When we had to pay as high as 260 for
gold to pay not only for the crude feath-
ers, but for the work of preparing them
for the market, and the heavy duties ex-
acted upon them in their finished form.
they became almost unattainable. At
\ That time the arts of bleaching and dye
ing feathers were hardly known in this
country. A German, Isidor Cohnfeldt,
was the first to establish the new indus
try here, and already New York has the
largest establishment for feather manu-
facture in the world, and is enabled to
maintain lively competition in this
line of products with the principal
European cities. This principal estab-
lishment employs in its busiest season.
the spring and summer months-525
girls and 36 men, and all the year round
finds work for from 435 to AGO persons,
turning out 81 $50, 900 worth of goods
per annum. Few people have any idea
of the amount of rough treatment an
ostrich feather will stand and has to go
through to make it the beautiful thing
which eventually adorns some lady's
Gainsborough hat or o Knight Templar's
chapeau.
As it comes from. Africa in its crude
state, it is plain, rough, discolored and
dirty. In that condition it may be
worth anywhere from IS to $3.50 per
pound, according to its length. fineness,
absence of color and thickness. First,
after being counted and tied together by
their qullls, with long strings, the feath
xv.r 81 h,,,chal I,u
to free them from the dirt. The work.
man lays them On one brush and works
them in great tubs of soapsuds, rubbed
with brown soap, and washed more Wig
orously than laundresses wash clothes.
After that they are bleached by q
process which turns even black feathers
to snowy white. From the bleaching
tubs they go to the dye watts. We now
excel in this country the European
feather dyers in the delicacy and dura-
bility with another, tousling, hacking
and mussing them in such way that
their destruction seems inevitable. They
are then soused of all our colors except
the coral tint, in which the Old World is
still ahead. However, that tint has not
been much in demand by fashion.
"When it is. our dyers say, I'VE shall OF
course beat them in that too" When
thoroughly dried, beaten, redried,
combed and sorted, the feathers pass
into the hands of girls. The thick, un.
slightly stem of each feather is pared
down thin on the under side, and
in place of its stiff and ugly
quill tapering substitute of wire,
covered with cotton and paper,
is firmly fastened on. By careful sort
ing, clipping, selecting out and match
ing pieces from different feathers,
composite second feather is made, to
underlie the long and perfect one which
constitutes the top of each completed
plume, and these various pieces are Sc
curely sewed together, so that it requires
a sharp eye to detect that the fine con-
struction, OF double thickness, is not a
single feather. In exceptionally valu-
able plumes. the lower as well as the
upper feather is whole and not made up
OF pieces, but in all cases the completed
plume is double. If the stem of the
upper feather is discolored 1t is carefully
scraped.
After steaming, to soften the feathers,
they are next curled and "laid." In the
first process girl by passing the fibers
between her thumb and dull knife
blade, gives them regular curl all along
both sides of the feather, and the second
consists in giving them series OF dex-
trous little twists which throw the curled
ends upon the upper side of the plume.
All this work adds an average of ten per
cent. to the value of the feathers. A
pound OF fine ones, suitable for plumes,
will contain $50 feathers, sufficient for
seventy. five plumes, and costs, say $3.50.
The finished plumes command from "a
to S15 each, according to length and
quality, but the general average is low.
cred by the small comparative value OF
the lower grades.