Lady Smugglers and Lynx-Eyed Customs Agents: Gender, Morality, and Cross-Border Shopping in Detroit and Windsor

Abstract

This article examines popular attitudes towards cross-border shopping and smuggling in the Detroit-Windsor border region from 1900 to 1960. Reports of individuals attempting to fool border guards by failing to declare items, wearing multiple layers of clothing, or disguising new purchases as used reveal how shoppers felt entitled to goods and were not deterred by customs regulations. Middle-class families that might otherwise balk at breaking the law saw no problem with lying to border agents. This behaviour was highly gendered: women were characterized as naturally inclined to smuggle, given their love of shopping and inability to comprehend the law. Border guards were selective in their application of the law, and middle-class consumers generally had little to fear when they brought back purchases in excess of customs limits. Smuggling went both ways across the border. During the Second World War, Detroit residents flocked to Windsor to purchase meat and dairy products, while in the postwar period, Canadians more typically frequented American stores. This article offers a new way to think about consumer citizenship and how access to goods was assumed to be a right for people living on both sides of the border.