The Fur Trade In the American West

From the birth of the nation until the 1840s the fur trade was one of the vanguards of American industry. It would be comparable to the Henry Fords, Andrew Carnegies, and John D. Rockefellers of a later era. Women wore coats, hats and collars made from beaver. Generally speaking, every man wore a hat and every hat was beaver. Basically there were two types of fur trappers, the engage, or a company employee such as those working for the Hudson’s Bay Company and the aristocrat of the trade, t