THE FOX BUSINESS WITH ACCOUNTS FROM FOX FARMS IN MAINE BY WILLIAM R. SAWTELL

When women worn animal furs and the trapping and processing of animal skins was a big business across the northern tier of states and Canada and Alaska, some entrepreneurs decided that breeding farms were a better way to secure a supply than to depend on the randomness of traps scattered in the woods, and farming the animals was also less time-consuming than working a trapline. The fur of the fox was highly sought after for making coats, stoles. and other “wraps” popular in various lines of women’s apparel. Here William Sawtell decribes a part of an era that has largely passed: fox farming in Maine. The 32-page text includes some examples of advertisements that ran in various trade magazines and newspapers and some descriptions of the business by those who were engaged in it.