What woman does not love a new pair of shoes? While I have tried to keep my personal shoe collection to a bare minimum in recent years, I have had the desire to expand my 19th century shoe collection. One would think a pretty dress is enough when doing living history, but after the umpteenth time of being asked to show someone my shoes, I have realized it is probably time to bite the bullet and invest in some period footwear.
Since I spend most of my time in an 1880s village, I opted for a boot fashionable to that decade. I was fortunate enough to find a pair on clearance in my size, so I purchased them a whilr ago as a birthday present from me to me. When they arrived, my husband commented how they looked uncomfortable. I unlaced one to try it on, and much to my surprise, it actually did not feel all that torturous. Apparently there is something to be said for handmade craftsmanship, quality, and value.
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| My brand new 1880s style boots! |
This made me interested in the history of footwear. Ever since people first began to use footwear, styles have been adapted and updated to meet the trend of the times, but I learned the overall process of making shoes has not changed much in all of those years. The first documented footwear can be traced back to 1495 B.C. Thebes, where pictures of sandal makers graced the walls of an Egyptian structure. Teutonic tribes in Northern Europe wore a leather protection on their legs below the knee. When the Romans came in contact with the barbarians of the north, they adapted their own sandals and shoes to have a similar leg covering.
Boots and shoes were worn throughout the middle ages, and I remember being amused in one of my college history classes when we learned the length of one's shoe was an indication of one's social status in medieval society. The more important you were, the longer your shoe was. While not worn by every person, this exaggerated shoe length can sometimes be found in artwork of the time. Also during the middle ages, cordwainers (shoe makers) and cobblers (shoe repairers) established an association to protect their craft, and it was officially recognized by King Henry III in 1272. This guild is one of the oldest in operation in London today.
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| The Romance of Tristan (1468) |
The first European shoemakers to arrive in North America were Philip Kertland, who settled in Lynn, in 1635 along with Thomas Beard and Isaac Richerman, who settled in Salem, in 1691. This was a time when a shoemaker could be seen working while wearing a leather apron and using a lapstone, hammer, wooden pegs, handmade thread, and a boot tree last. Apprentices, most often young boys, would learn the trade from master shoemakers.
With a growing industry, regulation was soon to follow. Pennsylvania Province made it a crime in 1720 for a tanner to make shoes. The same act fixed the price of leather and placed a price ceiling on finished shoes for sale. Anything sold above the set rates would be subject to forfeiture. It was a tough trade, and the shoemaker often traveled from town to town in search of business. By the mid-eighteenth century, quite a few cobblers began opening shops and employing others, each tasked with one part of the shoe making process. Near the end of the 18th century, the fledgling shoe industry received a huge boost when the Tariff Act of 1789 was passed, taxing imported goods to raise funds for the newly established United States' federal government.
The 19th century brought about the Industrial Revolution, and while it took longer to gain steam in the United States than it did in Europe, the development of machine technology forever changed the shoe industry. A quick review of technology advancements that came about in the United States during the 19th century:
1815: A machine-made wooden peg began to be used for fastening soles to shoes. Before this time, the bottom of a shoe was most oftentimes merely sewn with heavy thread. (A pegging machine was subsequently developed in 1833 to replace the need of hand-driven pegs, but these machines were not widely used in shoe production until 1857.)
1845: A rolling machine was patented and began to be widely used in the industry. This machine replaced the manual labor of pounding sole leather with a hammer in order to make it firm. What was once a thirty minute process by hand could now be done in about a minute by machine.
1846: Elias Howe patented his first sewing machine, and it did not take long before others such as John Brooks Nichols, a shoemaker by trade, adapted sewing machines to sew with tough leather.
1858: Lyman R. Blake, a shoemaker, patented a machine that could sew the soles of shoes onto the uppers, and Gordon McKay, seeing an entrepreneurial opportunity, purchased those patent rights. McKay had a difficult time selling his machines to shoe factories, which were still doing much of the work by hand with organized teams and outsourced gangs, so he tried leasing the machines instead. McKay's success was probably largely due to the Civil War, since there was a high need for shoes in the country at the time but not enough shoemakers around to fill the demand. William Porter & Sons was the first factory to use the McKay sewing machine in the early 1860s. Part of the leasing agreement was that there would be a stamp on the heel of every shoe to indicate it was sewn by the McKay machine, for which McKay would receive royalties.
1862: A nailing machine was patented, eliminating the need for hand driven nails. Also, August DeStouy patented a machine with a curved needle for sewing turn shoes.
1871: Charles Goodyear received his first of two patents for a machine designed by employed engineers to sew the welt to the bottom of the shoe. This became known as the Goodyear welt machine.
1877: Edge-trimming and heel-trimming machines were patented, which led to some push back from factory workers. Whittlers had been doing this work by hand, and they were paid rather high wages. This was time consuming work as they had to trim the sole and welt of the shoe to a uniform distance around the upper leather; they also had to cut away surplus leather on the heel. The new machines boasted speed, uniformity of work, and savings to manufacturers.
1883: A lasting machine was introduced in factories, and workers organized in opposition to this machine in the workplace. Lasters were paid $20 to $30 per week to pull the leather over the wooden forms that were used to determine the size and shape of shoes and tack it in place to the soles. A hand worker could last about 50 pairs of shoes in a day, working the standard ten hour day that was common in the 1880s; a machine operator could last 300 to 700 pairs of shoes in a day.
There is a reason stories about children going shoe-less in the 19th century during warm weather months are so abundant prior to the late 19th century. In 1863 a pair of handmade shoes took a little over 18 hours to complete, and the cost of labor for shoes was $4.58 on average. Families could not always afford to constantly replace worn out shoes, and so sometimes footwear was reserved for church, other special occasions, and the winter months, when it was needed most. But by 1895 a pair of shoes produced by machine workers could be completed in about two and one-half hours, and the cost of labor for shoes was $0.60 on average. Needless to say the price of shoes declined dramatically by the end of the 19th century.
Thank you, Industrial Revolution along with a little American ingenuity and entrepreneurship! 21st century women who are obsessed with shoes are forever grateful.
The 19th century brought about the Industrial Revolution, and while it took longer to gain steam in the United States than it did in Europe, the development of machine technology forever changed the shoe industry. A quick review of technology advancements that came about in the United States during the 19th century:
1815: A machine-made wooden peg began to be used for fastening soles to shoes. Before this time, the bottom of a shoe was most oftentimes merely sewn with heavy thread. (A pegging machine was subsequently developed in 1833 to replace the need of hand-driven pegs, but these machines were not widely used in shoe production until 1857.)
1845: A rolling machine was patented and began to be widely used in the industry. This machine replaced the manual labor of pounding sole leather with a hammer in order to make it firm. What was once a thirty minute process by hand could now be done in about a minute by machine.
1846: Elias Howe patented his first sewing machine, and it did not take long before others such as John Brooks Nichols, a shoemaker by trade, adapted sewing machines to sew with tough leather.
1858: Lyman R. Blake, a shoemaker, patented a machine that could sew the soles of shoes onto the uppers, and Gordon McKay, seeing an entrepreneurial opportunity, purchased those patent rights. McKay had a difficult time selling his machines to shoe factories, which were still doing much of the work by hand with organized teams and outsourced gangs, so he tried leasing the machines instead. McKay's success was probably largely due to the Civil War, since there was a high need for shoes in the country at the time but not enough shoemakers around to fill the demand. William Porter & Sons was the first factory to use the McKay sewing machine in the early 1860s. Part of the leasing agreement was that there would be a stamp on the heel of every shoe to indicate it was sewn by the McKay machine, for which McKay would receive royalties.
1862: A nailing machine was patented, eliminating the need for hand driven nails. Also, August DeStouy patented a machine with a curved needle for sewing turn shoes.
1871: Charles Goodyear received his first of two patents for a machine designed by employed engineers to sew the welt to the bottom of the shoe. This became known as the Goodyear welt machine.
1877: Edge-trimming and heel-trimming machines were patented, which led to some push back from factory workers. Whittlers had been doing this work by hand, and they were paid rather high wages. This was time consuming work as they had to trim the sole and welt of the shoe to a uniform distance around the upper leather; they also had to cut away surplus leather on the heel. The new machines boasted speed, uniformity of work, and savings to manufacturers.
1883: A lasting machine was introduced in factories, and workers organized in opposition to this machine in the workplace. Lasters were paid $20 to $30 per week to pull the leather over the wooden forms that were used to determine the size and shape of shoes and tack it in place to the soles. A hand worker could last about 50 pairs of shoes in a day, working the standard ten hour day that was common in the 1880s; a machine operator could last 300 to 700 pairs of shoes in a day.
There is a reason stories about children going shoe-less in the 19th century during warm weather months are so abundant prior to the late 19th century. In 1863 a pair of handmade shoes took a little over 18 hours to complete, and the cost of labor for shoes was $4.58 on average. Families could not always afford to constantly replace worn out shoes, and so sometimes footwear was reserved for church, other special occasions, and the winter months, when it was needed most. But by 1895 a pair of shoes produced by machine workers could be completed in about two and one-half hours, and the cost of labor for shoes was $0.60 on average. Needless to say the price of shoes declined dramatically by the end of the 19th century.
Thank you, Industrial Revolution along with a little American ingenuity and entrepreneurship! 21st century women who are obsessed with shoes are forever grateful.
