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Record Nr. |
UNINA9910810491803321 |
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Autore |
Stein Sarah Abrevaya |
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Titolo |
Plumes : ostrich feathers, Jews, and a lost world of global commerce / / Sarah Abrevaya Stein |
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Pubbl/distr/stampa |
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New Haven, : Yale University Press, c2008 |
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ISBN |
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9786612352393 |
1-282-35239-3 |
0-300-14285-4 |
1-282-08938-2 |
9786612089381 |
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Edizione |
[1st ed.] |
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Descrizione fisica |
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1 online resource (1 online resource (xii, 244 p.) ) : ill., maps |
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Disciplina |
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Soggetti |
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Ostrich feather industry - History |
Jewish merchants - History |
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Lingua di pubblicazione |
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Formato |
Materiale a stampa |
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Livello bibliografico |
Monografia |
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Note generali |
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Nota di bibliografia |
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Includes bibliographical references (p. [205]-227) and index. |
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Nota di contenuto |
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Introduction: The pursuit of plumes -- The Cape of Southern Africa : Atlantic crossings -- London : global feather hub -- The trans-Saharan trade : Mediterranean connections -- The American feather world -- Conclusion: Global stories. |
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Sommario/riassunto |
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The thirst for exotic ornament among fashionable women in the metropoles of Europe and America prompted a bustling global trade in ostrich feathers that flourished from the 1880's until the First World War. When feathers fell out of fashion with consumers, the result was an economic catastrophe for many, a worldwide feather bust. In this remarkable book, Sarah Stein draws on rich archival materials to bring to light the prominent and varied roles of Jews in the feather trade. She discovers that Jews fostered and nurtured the trade across the global commodity chain and throughout the far-flung territories where ostriches were reared and plucked, and their feathers were sorted, exported, imported, auctioned, wholesaled, and finally manufactured for sale. From Yiddish-speaking Russian-Lithuanian feather handlers in South Africa to London manufacturers and wholesalers, from rival Sephardic families whose feathers were imported from the Sahara and |
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traded across the Mediterranean, from New York's Lower East Side to entrepreneurial farms in the American West, Stein explores the details of a remarkably vibrant yet ephemeral culture. This is a singular story of global commerce, colonial economic practices, and the rise and fall of a glamorous luxury item. |
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