5 i 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ment is manifest iu other manufacturing industries, like cotton 

 and woolen. The decade following the war was a period of 

 enormous individual expansion, while that succeeding it was one 

 of corporate extension. This fact appears in the marked increase 

 in capital and productive capacity in union with a decrease in 

 the number of separate factories. That the forthcoming census 

 will show further evidences of this change seems certain from 

 the reports that have been published from time to time during 

 the past ten years by those familiar with the progress of the 

 industry. This development, however, has not been at the ex- 

 pense of the operatives, as is shown by the increase in their earn- 

 ings since the introduction of machinery. The gain has been 

 more than a third, as indicated by the above table. In 1885 the 

 Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor undertook an inves- 

 tigation of the net profits of the manufacturing industries of the 

 State, and from returns received from 2,344 private boot and shoe 

 manufacturing firms, employing 66,800 operatives, the average 

 yearly earnings of the latter were $385.89 ; and from 22 corpora- 

 tions, employing 2,731 operatives, the average was $417.06. That 

 would give for the 2,366 concerns annual average earnings of 

 $401.47 for the operatives, considerably in excess of the country at 

 large. The same investigation showed that in the cost of the 

 production of boots and shoes 27'65 per cent was charged to labor 

 and in that of leather 17'07 per cent went to it. This compares 

 with 28*84 in cotton goods, 2072 in woolen goods, and 27'18 in silk 

 goods. On the side of the manufacturer these returns showed a 

 net profit of 14"06 per cent on the capital invested in the boot and 

 shoe industry against 8*13 per cent in leather, 0'65 in cotton goods, 

 and 5'47 in woolen goods. The American shoe operatives as a 

 body are thrifty and prosperous, and certainly much better paid 

 than their fellow-craftsmen abroad. Skilled operatives in this 

 country earn from $11 to $18 a week, while the same class in Eng- 

 land obtain only $5.50 to $8.50, and in Germany $5 to $6.50. Mr. 

 W. L. Terhune, of the Boot and Shoe Recorder, in an account of a 

 trip among the shoe-factories of England, says that the skilled 

 operatives at Northampton told him that they averaged only 

 about $6 a week, so that the annual earnings for the best paid of 

 them scarcely exceeded $300. With the extension, or rather the 

 over-extension," of the business, and the consequent competition, 

 there have come cuts in wages and strikes ; but the same leaven of 

 unrest prevails in the other old industries, and there is nothing 

 peculiar about its manifestation, perhaps, except that the opera- 

 tives and manufacturers in the shoe industry are both better or- 

 ganized than in other branches. 



What the next decade has in store for the boot and shoe indus- 

 try can be only a matter of speculation. At present the machines 



