Article Critique 1

Article Critique 1

Catherine Cangany’s article Fashioning Moccasins: Detroit, the Manufacturing Frontier, and the Empire of Consumption, 1701-1835, cover the main theme 18th century Detroit. Cangany explores how the moccasin, a fashionable and practical shoe, transformed from a shoe exclusively worn by native groups to a highly fashionable shoe that French and British colonies started to integrate into their own culture to taking the moccasin to manufacturing and becoming Europeanized. Though out many decades, the process of creating moccasins became more ‘industrial’ which made them a symbol of native culture to East Coast fashion. Cangany’s article examines how the production of moccasins became so popular and fashionable among European colonists that eventually moccasins no longer were a native creation.

To begin, Cangany’s article argues that the manufacturing process of moccasins has a long history that had never been previously examined in history. With the emergence of social history in the 20th century, historians such as Cangany started to look at different topics than the normal historical narrative. Cangany’s article looks at moccasins and how they grew from a “cultural borrowing to home craft to manufactured commodity [that] reveals not just the considerable influences of both west and east on [Detroit] but also the local commercial sector’s considerable skill in employing them” . She uses the area of Detroit ( the area of Detroit encompassed both sides of the river) to demonstrate how the popularity of this footwear grew as well as how Detroit became the hub of production of moccasins, and eventually, widely distributed on the East Coast.

To continue, Cangany develops her argument by looking at many different typ...

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... The article concludes with showing how the shoe evolved all the way through to the 19th century, were they are gendered and used for household shoes. The article finishes by expressing that through the moccasin, Detroit was able to become and independent commercial society.

As a final note, Catherine Cangany’s article really touched upon a unique and unexplored topic on local history in the Detroit region. Her article focuses on the production and development of moccasins from the first time European settlers traded with Native groups all the way through to the success of the moccasin in the 19th century. Her article could even be expanded to cover the moccasin to present day. Even today, as I write these words a pair of moccasins are keeping my feet warm. Her article demonstrates why moccasins are still produced and popular for their warmth and comfort today.