Women’s Moccasins

Morgan’s collections of nineteenth-century Iroquois material culture serve as a point of reference for contemporary Haudenosaunee artists. Now stored at the New York State Museum in Albany and the Rochester Museum & Science Center, many items such as a beaded table cover and an iconic blue wool skirt with a celestial tree motif were made by the talented Caroline G. Parker herself.

Parker presented these moccasins to Morgan as a token of appreciation for his efforts to fund her formal education. Small mementos were used to solicit donations to the “Civilization Fund” established by Morgan’s fraternity, the Grand Order of the Iroquois. Morgan wrote to Henry Schoolcraft: “If any romantic character (say a bachelor) will send up to 100$ to instruct one of the girls; at the end of the year she shall send him a letter of thanks, and a pair of moccasins.”

Morgan bequeathed these moccasins, along with a daguerreotype of Caroline Parker, to Miss Mary Elizabeth Steele in a May 1851 draft of his will in order to “furnish a slight evidence of my remembrance” (“Last Will and Testament of Lewis H. Morgan”, Box 23, RBSCP). Morgan and Steele were married two months later. Leaving Parker’s portrait and handmade moccasins in his will for Mary Steele highlights the degree to which Morgan treasured not only Parker’s work, but also the friendship he had established with Parker.