Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site (32WI17), Material Culture Reports, Part V: Buttons As Closures, Buttons AS Decoration: a Nineteenth Century Example From Fort Union

William J. Hunt, Jr.

Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site (32WI17), Material Culture Reports, Part V: Buttons As Closures, Buttons AS Decoration: a Nineteenth Century Example From Fort Union

Author(s): William J. Hunt, Jr.

Year: 1986

Summary

Between 1829-1865, Fort Union served as the administrative

center of the Upper Missouri Outfit of the American Fur

Company. After becoming a National Historic Site in 1966,

the U.S. National Park Service sponsored four excavations

there. Among the thousands of objects recovered were

several hundred buttons. In the past, archeologists have

been content to describe such mundane without attempting to

analyze artifacts; e.g., place them within a social and

functional contexts. This paper attempts to use buttons as

a means of determining the kinds of clothing worn at the

fort, the cultural contexts in which they were variously

used, and whether general classes of clothing used there

were imported as ready mades or produced at the fort itself.

Cite this Record

Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site (32WI17), Material Culture Reports, Part V: Buttons As Closures, Buttons AS Decoration: a Nineteenth Century Example From Fort Union. William J. Hunt, Jr.. Material Culture Reports ,5. Lincoln, Nebraska: United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Midwest Archeological Center. 1986 ( tDAR id: 92364) ; doi:10.6067/XCV87H1JB2