Feather Duster - History

History

In 1870, the original idea for the feather duster was conceived in a broom factory in Jones County, Iowa, USA. A farmer brought a bundle of turkey feathers into the factory asking if they could be used to assemble a brush. E.E. Hoag used these feathers to invent the first feather duster. Using a short broom stick and splitting the feathers with a pocket knife, the duster was found to be too stiff for use. In 1874, the Hoag Duster Company was founded, which became a pioneer of feather dusters in the U.S. state of Iowa.

In 1874, Susan Hibbard of Geneva Lake, Wisconsin, USA used discarded turkey feathers to invent a feather duster. Hibbard filed a patent (U.S. patent #177,939) on November 13, 1874 which was issued on May 30, 1876. After a hard fought legal battle against her husband, George Hibbard, and the National Feather Duster Company in December 1881, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago ruled in favor of Hibbard giving her priority of invention of the feather duster.

South African ostrich feather dusters were developed in Johannesburg, South Africa by missionary, broom factory manager, Harry S. Beckner in 1903. He felt that the Ostrich feathers made a convenient tool for cleaning up the machines at the broom factory. His first ostrich feather dusters were wound on broom handles using the foot powered kick winders and the same wire used to attach broom straw.

The first ostrich feather duster company in the United States was formed in 1913 by Harry S. Beckner and his brother George Beckner in Athol, Massachusetts and has survived till this day as the Beckner Feather Duster Company under the care of George Beckner's great granddaughter, Margret Fish Rempher. Today the largest manufacturer of Ostrich Feather Dusters is Klein Karoo International (Feathers) which is located in Oudtshoorn, South Africa.

The feather duster was considered a status symbol in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.