Detroit s industrial health has long been crucial to the American economy. Today s troubles notwithstanding, Detroit has experienced multiple periods of prosperity, particularly in the second half of the eighteenth century, when the city was the center of the thriving fur trade. Its proximity to the West as well as its access to the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River positioned this new metropolis at the intersection of the fur-rich frontier and the Atlantic trade routes.
In"Frontier Seaport," Catherine Cangany details this seldom-discussed chapter of Detroit s history. She argues...