496 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



MANUFACTURE OF BOOTS AND SHOES. 



By GEOEGE A. EICH. 

 XVI. DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN INDUSTRIES SINCE COLUMBUS. 



WITH all the uses to which leather is put, that of making 

 boots and shoes is the most important, and calls for the 

 greater part of the product of the tanneries of the country. It is 

 not only the most important in point of magnitude, but it is one 

 which has opened an unusual field for American ingenuity and 

 invention. When the late Charles Stewart Parnell was in this 

 country some years ago, he expressed a desire to see what could 

 be done in an American shoe-factory. Accordingly, what is known 

 to the trade as a Polish lace boot was selected by the Lynn manu- 

 facturer, whose building Mr. Parnell was inspecting, as the pat- 

 tern to illustrate the processes of the art and the speed of the 

 work. Mr. Parnell hastened from one part of the factory to an- 

 other as the boot in its evolution flew hither and thither, and 

 within twenty minutes after he had seen the pattern placed upon 

 the leather the finished article was handed to him. That, of 

 course, was an exhibition not practicable in ordinary, every-day 

 work. But, compared with the time it would have required to 

 make the boot by hand, it points to the saving that has been 

 effected through the introduction of machinery and emphasizes 

 the mechanical and economical development of the industry. As 

 in the case of tanning, these advances are of comparatively recent 

 origin, dating largely from the civil war and the scarcity of labor 

 consequent upon it. But, though brief the time, the advance from 

 the shoemaker of forty years ago with his hammer and lapstone, 

 to the factory of the present day with its multiplicity of machines 

 and its hundreds of operatives, has been a wonderful one. Indeed, 

 within that period is crowded more in the way of progress and 

 development than is to be found in all the centuries which inter- 

 vene between the time of the Egyptian cobbler and that of our 

 grandfathers. 



There is no article of dress in which more striking changes 

 have been made in the various ages than in the covering for the 

 feet. Until the law was invoked, boots and shoes seemed to be the 

 special field in which the whims of fashion manifested themselves. 

 Coverings for the feet must have been among the earliest articles 

 of dress. It is almost impossible to conceive of a time when ever- 

 recurring injuries from contact with the earth's surface did not 

 suggest some such protection. The primitive form of foot-cover- 

 ing was the sandal, which was simply a flat sole under the foot 

 and secured to it by a thong. These were made of a great variety 



