Museum object · Jewelry and Adornment
Gray-brown feather hatband accessory worn by Cab Calloway
mid 20th-late 20th century
Smithsonian NMAAHC collection
Source catalog description
This description refers to material held by Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Visual details below describe the original material.
A feather accessory for hatbands worn by Cab Calloway. The feather accessory is a small bundle of white, gray-brown, red, and white spotted black feathers with calamuses bound together with black tape. The trimmed white feather at the back has a white calamus, white rachis, white barbs, and white afterfeathers. The trimmed, fan-shaped feather stacked over the white feather has solid gray-brown barbs, afterfeathers, and a black rachis. Over the gray-brown feather is a thin, tall, red barbed feather with a red rachis that extends slightly above the top of the gray-brown feather. In the very front, near the taped wrapped base, is a fragment of a white speckled black feather. The white spots are mostly round with one, irregularly shaped one near the bottom.
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Sources & collection details
Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture — original record ↗
Catalog metadata · CC0 · Source checked 2026-10-13
Catalog reference: A2015.273.1.24.2
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