ABSTRACT
Ready-made linen shirts became essential apparel for European sailors and soldiers, involuntary consumers serving imperial agendas globally. The physical proof embedded in the sample, assessed by expert eyes and skilled hands, was fundamental to the functioning of the provisioning system and infused the shirts, coats and trousers with a technological rationality directed to imperial ends. Snowshoes fascinated the European military and colonial subjects, including among those who initially defined indigeneity with this footwear. Snowshoes enabled fur trade life and military ventures. New England colonists relearned the importance of snowshoes on several occasions. Settlers, French and British, learned the value of snowshoes, along with the skills of traversing snow-covered forests and ice-bound rivers and some settlers eventually profited by producing these wares. Many French and British professional officers despised guerrilla warfare and the winter dependence on snowshoes.
