Wearing a Mackinaw Coat in a Dearborn Carriage
Jeff from
Gulliver asked about the Mackinaw coat and the Dearborn carriage and whether
they had a Michigan connection. The answer is yes and no.
The
Mackinaw coat was born when a post trader named John Askin commissioned some
local women to sew 40 woolen coats for a British Army post near the Straits of
Mackinac. The coats were made from blankets, some of which had a black-on-red
plaid pattern.
The
Dearborn carriage had no Michigan connection; in fact, it did not derive from a
place name at all. It was named after Henry
Alexander Dearborn of Massachusetts. At various times, he was a member of the
Massachusetts house of representatives and the state senate, and he also served
as the mayor of Roxbury, Massachusetts. The carriage that he favored—a light,
four-wheeled vehicle with curtained sides—took its name from him.
Other
clothing derived from a person’s name include jackets named after Garibaldi,
Eisenhower, Mao, and Nehru, along with the cardigan (Crimean War), bloomers,
the Wellington boot, the Stetson hat, and the mackintosh.
Hawaiian
shirts, Holland linen, the jersey, Capri pants, the balaclava (Crimean War),
the bikini, and denim (Nimes, France) take their names from places.
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