Two UCLA professors share the unique avenues of study they’ve followed feathers to explore
Humanity has always found feathers fascinating.
Emily Dickinson described her embodiment of hope having them. Lawmakers throughout the centuries used them to physically sign a number of world-shaping documents. And paleontologists have even discovered that they may have grown on many dinosaurs.At the beginning of the 20th century, the value per pound of ostrich feathers was almost equal to that of diamonds, Sarah Abrevaya Stein, a UCLA distinguished professor and Viterbi Family Endowed Chair in Mediterranean Jewish Studies , wrote in her 2010 book, "Plumes: Ostrich Feathers, Jews, and a Lost World of Global Commerce."
Tracing the industry’s 40-year boom - during which ostrich feathers became so associated with style that a shipment worth 20,000 British pounds was aboard the Titanic when it sank - to its bust around the beginning of World War I, Stein’s book unearths the forgotten history of how Jews were central to all’hubs of the global feather trade.
"’Plumes’ explores how Jews nurtured the feather trade across a global commodity chain and throughout the far-flung territories where ostriches were reared and plucked, and how their feathers were sorted, exported, imported, auctioned, wholesaled, and finally manufactured for sale," Stein wrote in a piece for the Jewish Book Council. "The book considers how Jewishness was a magnet to the industry for some, for others a tonic that facilitated commercial relationships."
Feathers have also proved to be a source of academic study for Ellen Pearlstein, a UCLA professor of information studies with a faculty appointment in the UCLA/Getty Program in the Conservation of Cultural Heritage, who wrote "The Conservation of Featherwork from Central and South America."
In her other research, she has studied how the Native American Pomo people handmake elaborate baskets using plant materials with thousands of feathers artistically woven in to create patterns. Designed as commemorative gifts for milestone events such as weddings and births, these baskets convey deep meaning and respect for the innate beauty of the birds whose plumage has helped furnish them.
Pearlstein has also learned from a friend, Bradley Marshall, who is a Hupa regalia maker, about the art and science of choosing feathers for other ceremonial objects. A wand, for example, has to be constructed to move in a particular way, and so the weight of certain feathers plays a role - especially when they come from condors.
"These are extraordinarily valuable feathers, since condors were nearly extinct but were brought back through Indigenous community action," Pearlstein said. "The Yurok in particular have reintroduced the condor, and so many California communities recognize the privilege of using its feathers."
Regardless of culture or community, humanity’s interest in feathers is rooted in part, Pearlstein says, in how they help us imitate the beauty and performative nature of birds. (There’s a reason the word "peacock" has become a verb.)
Another reason she believes birds fascinate us so much? They demand it.
"Birds can be very vocal animals, whether it’s the caw of a crow or the clucking of a chicken, or they make themselves known in other ways, like the extraordinary bearing of an eagle," Pearlstein said. "It’s no surprise we remain in awe of birds - both their presence and their plumage."
