Object Lives and Global Histories in Northern North America: Material Culture in Motion, c.1780 - 1980 (Volume 32) (McGill-Queen's/Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation Studies in Art History)

471 Pages·2021·18.209 MB·English

by  Beverly Lemire (editor), Laura Peers (editor), Anne Whitelaw (editor)

Object Lives
and Global Histories
in Northern
North America
McGill-Queen’s/Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation Studies in Art History

martha langford and sandra paikowsky, series editors

Recognizing the need for a better understanding of Canada’s artistic culture both at home
and abroad, the Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation, through its generous support, makes
possible the publication of innovative books that advance our understanding of Canadian
art and Canada’s visual and material culture. This series supports and stimulates such
scholarship through the publication of original and rigorous peer-reviewed books that
make significant contributions to the subject. We welcome submissions from Canadian
and international scholars for book-length projects on historical and contemporary
Canadian art and visual and material culture, including Native and Inuit art, architecture,
photography, craft, design, and museum studies. Studies by Canadian scholars on
non-Canadian themes will also be considered.
The Practice of Her Profession The Allied Arts
Florence Carlyle, Canadian Painter in the Architecture and Craft in Postwar Canada
Age of Impressionism Sandra Alfoldy
Susan Butlin
Rethinking Professionalism
Bringing Art to Life Essays on Women and Art in Canada,
A Biography of Alan Jarvis 1850–1970
Andrew Horrall Edited by Kristina Huneault
and Janice Anderson
Picturing the Land
Narrating Territories in Canadian The Official Picture
Landscape Art, 1500 to 1950 The National Film Board of Canada’s Still
Marylin J. McKay Photography Division and the Image of
Canada, 1941–1971
The Cultural Work of Photography Carol Payne
in Canada
Edited by Carol Payne and Andrea Kunard Paul-Émile Borduas
A Critical Biography
Newfoundland Modern François-Marc Gagnon
Architecture in the Smallwood Years, Translated by Peter Feldstein
1949–1972
Robert Mellin On Architecture
Melvin Charney: A Critical Anthology
The Codex Canadensis and the Writings Edited by Louis Martin
of Louis Nicolas
The Natural History of the New World, Making Toronto Modern
Histoire Naturelle des Indes Occidentales Architecture and Design, 1895–1975
Edited and with an Introduction by Christopher Armstrong
François-Marc Gagnon, Translation
by Nancy Senior, Modernization by Negotiations in a Vacant Lot
Réal Ouellet Studying the Visual in Canada
Edited by Lynda Jessup, Erin Morton,
Museum Pieces and Kirsty Robertson
Toward the Indigenization of Canadian
Museums
Ruth B. Phillips
Visibly Canadian I’m Not Myself at All
Imaging Collective Identities in the Canadas, Women, Art, and Subjectivity in Canada
1820–1910 Kristina Huneault
Karen Stanworth
The Global Flows of Early Scottish
Breaking and Entering Photography
The Contemporary House Cut, Spliced, Encounters in Scotland, Canada, and China
and Haunted Anthony W. Lee
Edited by Bridget Elliott
Tear Gas Epiphanies
Family Ties Protest, Culture, Museums
Living History in Canadian House Museums Kirsty Robertson
Andrea Terry
What Was History Painting and What
Picturing Toronto Is It Now?
Photography and the Making of Edited by Mark Salber Phillips
a Modern City and Jordan Bear
Sarah Bassnett
Through Post-Atomic Eyes
Architecture on Ice Edited by Claudette Lauzon
A History of the Hockey Arena and John O’Brian
Howard Shubert
Jean Paul Riopelle et le mouvement
For Folk’s Sake automatiste
Art and Economy in Twentieth-Century François-Marc Gagnon
Nova Scotia
Erin Morton Jean Paul Riopelle and the
Automatiste Movement
Spaces and Places for Art François-Marc Gagnon
Making Art Institutions in Western Canada, Translated by Donald Winkler
1912–1990
Anne Whitelaw I Can Only Paint
The Story of Battlefield Artist
Narratives Unfolding Mary Riter Hamilton
National Art Histories in an Irene Gammel
Unfinished World
Edited by Martha Langford Object Lives and Global Histories in
Northern North America
Canadian Painters in a Modern World, Material Culture in Motion, c. 1780–1980
1925–1955 Edited by Beverly Lemire, Laura Peers,
Writings and Reconsiderations and Anne Whitelaw
Lora Senechal Carney

Sketches from an Unquiet Country
Canadian Graphic Satire, 1840–1940
Edited by Dominic Hardy, Annie Gérin,
and Lora Senechal Carney

Edited by
Beverly Lemire, Laura Peers, and Anne Whitelaw
Object Lives
and Global Histories
in Northern
North America

Material Culture in Motion
c. 1780–1980
McGill-Queen’s University Press
Montreal & Kingston • London • Chicago
©McGill-Queen’s University Press 2021

isbn 978-0-2280-0398-4 (cloth)
isbn 978-0-2280-0399-1 (paper)

Legal deposit first quarter 2021
Bibliothèque nationale du Québec

Printed in Canada on acid-free paper

This book has been published with the help of a grant from the
Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through
the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided
by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.

Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: Object lives and global histories in northern North America :
material culture in motion, c. 1780-1980 / edited by Beverly Lemire,
Laura Peers, and Anne Whitelaw.
Names: Lemire, Beverly, 1950- editor. | Peers, Laura L. (Laura Lynn),
editor. | Whitelaw, Anne, 1966- editor.
Series: McGill-Queen’s/Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation studies in
art history.
Description: Series statement: McGill-Queen’s/Beaverbrook Canadian
Foundation studies in art history | Includes bibliographical references
and index.
Identifiers: Canadiana 20200312936 | isbn 9780228003991 (paper) | isbn
9780228003984 (cloth)
Subjects: lcsh: Indigenous peoples—Material culture—Canada—
History—Case studies. | lcsh: Indigenous art—Canada—Case
studies. | lcsh: Cultural relations—History—Case studies. | lcgft:
Case studies.
Classification: lcc e78.c2 o25 2021 | ddc 971.004/97—dc23

This book was designed and typeset in Minion 11/14 by studio oneonone.
Contents
Acknowledgments | ix
Maps | xi

Introduction | 3
Beverly Lemire, Laura Peers, and Anne Whitelaw

1 Object Lives: Innovating Methodology | 26
Beverly Lemire, Laura Peers, and Anne Whitelaw

sidebar 1 Management and Methodology | 53
Beverly Lemire, Laura Peers, and Anne Whitelaw

2 Crossing Worlds: Hide Coats, Relationships, and Identity in
Rupert’s Land and Britain | 55
Laura Peers

3 “A Typical Canadian Outfit”: The Red River Coat | 82
Cynthia Cooper

sidebar 2 The Huron-Wendat Capot | 108
Cynthia Cooper

sidebar 3 The Red River Coat and Its Commercial Promotion | 112
Cynthia Cooper

4 Colonizing Winter: Tobogganing, Toboggan Suits, and Imperial
Agendas in the Northlands, c. 1800–1900 | 115
Beverly Lemire

sidebar 4 Gifts of Empire | 145
Beverly Lemire

5 Peter Rindisbacher and the Imagined North: Circulations, Realities,
and Representations | 149
Julie-Ann Mercer
viii contents
6 The Wampum and the Print: Objects Tied to Nicolas Vincent Tsawenhohi’s
London Visit, 1824–1825 | 176
Jonathan Lainey and Anne Whitelaw

sidebar 5 Active Imperial Networks | 200
Jonathan Lainey and Anne Whitelaw

7 A Brief History of a Complicated Sweater: Appropriation, Arctic Sovereignty,
and Postwar Winter Fashion | 203
Laurie K. Bertram

8 Clare Sheridan: British Writer, Sculptor, and Collector in Blackfoot
Country, 1937 | 228
Sarah Carter

9 Dolls, Women’s Art, and Indigenous Networks in the Borderlands
of Northern North America, 1885–1945 | 261
Katie Pollock

10 Dew Claw Bags, Indigenous Women, and Material Culture in History
and Practice | 289
Judy Half

11 Inscribing the North West: Hide Jackets and Colonial Surveyors | 312
Susan Berry

sidebar 6 Jackets in Circulation | 342
Susan Berry

12 From the Sanatorium to the Museum and Beyond: The Circulation
of Art and Craft Made by Indigenous Patients at Tuberculosis Hospitals | 346
Sara Komarnisky

Figures | 377
Bibliography | 381
Contributors | 419
Index | 423
Acknowledgments
Project goals are realized only through the combined efforts and resources
of many people and institutions. The Object Lives project began with re-
search funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
of Canada, and we are grateful for the support provided. In addition, the
University of Alberta committed considerable resources that enabled our
team to work effectively toward our goals. We acknowledge this important
assistance from many quarters. Contributions also came from several people
in the formative and early stages of the project, including Anne de Stecher.
The Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Institute for Studies in Canadian Art at
Concordia University in Montreal likewise provided space and support for
our Montreal team meeting. This was important, as too was the substantial
assistance of the McCord Museum in Montreal, including the active assis-
tance of curator Guislaine Lemay, whose interventions added to our progress
over an extended period. The McCord Museum’s contributions to our re-
search agenda were timely and essential. Curatorial assistance was instrumen-
tal in every location where the team assembled, particularly at the Pitt Rivers
Museum at the University of Oxford in England, where we first gathered
face-to-face for our initial engagement with museum-held objects. We thank
the conservation and collections management staff at the Pitt Rivers Museum
who facilitated our visit and provided insightful contributions to our discus-
sions. We thank Jacqueline Vincent of the Brechin Group for her careful and