The Kanien’keha:ka (Mohawk) ironworker has become synonymous with New York City. Celebrated for their daring balancing acts hundreds of feet in the air while constructing iconic landmarks, Kanien’keha:ka ironworkers have made a distinct impact on New York City since the 1920s. As their fame grew worldwide in the second half of the twentieth century, the “Mohawk ironworker” evolved into a mythical and allegorical figure in New York City folklore and a fantasy of the Western imagination.
 
Associate Professor Allan Downey will discuss this paper and associated animation which will illustrate the complex, intersecting ways popular discourse on Indigenous ironworking has influenced contemporary perceptions of Indigenous masculinity. The project explores Indigenous narratives of this history as acts of community resurgence, intellectual sovereignty, and restoration that offers a markedly different interpretation of Indigenous history.

Allan Downey is Dakelh, Nak’azdli Whut’en, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous History, Nationhood, and Self-Determination, and Associate Professor of History and Indigenous Studies Department at McMaster University. Allan is the co-director of Rotinonshón:ni Ironworkers (2020) and the author of The Creator’s Game (UBC Press, 2018) which received several national awards including the 2019 Canada Prize from the Canadian Federation of the Humanities and Social Sciences. Allan is currently writing his second book titled Nationhood Rising: The Indigenous Ironworkers that Built America set to be released in 2026.