Julie Parker sat in a secluded, white room under a ventilation system that roared as loud as a jet engine. She wore a lab coat and lime-green gloves — her typical workday attire — as she brushed solvents onto the brittle orange, downy feathers that adorned the two-century-old eagle headdress she was working on. “It takes several passes to release the dirt from the feathers onto the blotting paper,” she said. “It won’t come out perfect, but it’ll be greatly improved.”
