October 1, 1920.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



13 



of their manufacturers in affixing rubber heels to them as original 

 equipment. In those early days, the "pneumatic" idea predomi- 

 nated in rubber heel construction. Nearly even' rubber manufac- 

 turer further tried in some way to get a cushion of air underneath 

 the rubber heel or between the rubber heel and the shoe. Perhaps 

 they were a bit skeptical about the cushioning powers of tlieir 

 rubber heel compounds in those days. However, it is a fact that 

 numerous rubber heels appeared on the market which were built 

 especially for "nurses'" shoes (this term clung tenaciously to all 

 classes of footwear designed for indoor wear by women) and 

 which had little to recommend them in the way of quality or 

 wear. Such heels were sold remarkably cheap ; often as low as 

 four cents and at an average of around six cents per pair. 

 RUBBER HEELS REPLACING LEATHER 



When leather was cheap, it is doubtful if a pair of good leather 

 toplifts for a ladies' house shoe could be bought for four cents 

 per pair. And even if bought for less, the shoe manufacturer 

 had many special operations of finishing that were not necessary 

 with a rubber toplift, as the half-rubber heel came to be called. 

 With leather, there was the brass wire slugging to be done around 

 the edges and numerous waxings, brushings and wheelings to be 

 carried on, but with the rubber heels, they need only be nailed on, 

 given a quick drying dose of heel ink and a quicker brushing out 

 with a revolving brush. Production was speeded up, costs were 

 about equal or slightly less and sales were soon found to be in 

 favor of the rubber-heeled shoes when compared with their less 

 resilient, more noisy, leather-heeled sisters. The women came to 

 like rubber-heeled shoes around the home, for they were quiet 

 and restful. 



With these facts evident during the normal leather markets, 

 imagine the state of the shoe manufacturer's mind when leather 

 began to advance by leaps and bounds. No sole leather was cheap 

 and all of it was so valuable that even the trimmings were be- 

 grudged for toplift use. Conservation of sole leather was preached 



when nailed to the underlifting it developed a tendency to spring 

 away at the edges and left an unsightly looking edge. They cor- 

 rected this by cupping it, but they easily went too far the other 

 way and the heels had a sunken look after nailing. So they tried 

 again and found the happy medium degree of cupping that pro- 

 duced the best results. At the same time, they learned that the 

 appearance of the rubber heel had a great deal to do with the 

 sale of the shoes and they accordingly gave the matter of mold 

 making more attention. 



Up to this time no one had given any thought to the quantity 

 application of rubber heels, but the increased demand and the 

 changing needs soon found the heeling rooms crowded with racks 

 of shoes because they could not attach them fast enough by hand 

 to keep up with the other machine processes of production. This 

 quickly brought about a demand for a machine nailing method of 

 attaching rubber heels. Those who lacked vision said it could 

 not be done, and in truth there were many who scoffed at such 

 an idea, but after a great amount of constructive and research 

 work on the part of a prominent shoe machinery company that 

 manufactures most of the heeling machines in the shoe world, cer- 

 tain definite and constructive steps were taken with the rubber 

 manufacturers and "machine nailing" got its start. 



ATTACHING RUBBER HEELS BY MACHINERY 



Heretofore, there had been no standard for setting the nail 

 holes in rubber heels. One rubber manufacturer built heels ac- 

 cording to his ideas, and another with varying ideas built his 

 heels differently. Many were guided by economy and put in as 

 few nail holes as possible, for nail holes meant washers and added 

 labor in handling, and others, believing that the more nails the 

 better the heel would stay on, insisted on plenty of them. Some 

 placed them near the edge of the heel and others placed them too 

 far inside the edge. A few decided to omit the metal washers 

 entirely and make the compound tough enough to hold the nail- 

 head, while others had a special plate that took the place of the 



Tite-Edge Spring Step Non-Slip S.^fetv Cushion Air Heel Suction Sh.\pe 



Successful Rubber Heels Have Strong Dominating Features That Recommend Them to the Public 



through the trade press and by word of mouth from every leather 

 merchant, and soon many materials other than leather began to 

 creep into shoes at such places as insoles, outsoles, counters, box 

 toes, tips, tops and heels. Then came the great incentive to use 

 rubber heels in quantities hitherto undreamed of. Urged by neces- 

 sity, it was soon found that rublier heels satisacd the bulk of the 

 trade far better than the poor quality leather heels and it was 

 found also, that they could be applied much more cheaply and 

 with less trouble than leather heels. 



HALF HEELS OUTSELL WHOLE HEELS 

 About tb.is time the rubber heel business began to look itself 

 over. The manufacturers discovered that they had overlooked 

 points which when corrected would unquestionably improve sales. 

 They found tliat there were definite needs in the shoe manufac- 

 turing field to be considered ; that rubber half heels were better 

 sellers than rubber whole heels, and consequently they began to 

 balance their equipment accordingly. They learned that the idea 

 of making a half heel with a fiat back was entirely wrong because 



many washers. Various patents were obtained at that time and 

 many are in use to-day. 



Progress required that there should be some unanimity of opin- 

 ion on all these matters and some standard of nailing established. 

 So, despite the apparent hopelessness of the task, a well-known 

 machinery company finally presented to the rubber heel manu- 

 facturers a composite template of nail-hole layouts that would 

 leave each manufacturer free to decide how many nail-holes his 

 heels might have, how near the edge they might be placed, and 

 permitted him to follow almost identically all of his former prac- 

 tices and only required agreement to a few minor points which 

 did not antagonize and really mattered very little. It really was 

 a wonderful piece of diplomacy and design that was offered to 

 the rubber trade and it readily found favor because of its fairness. 

 No sooner was this standard template plan outlined to the rubber 

 manufaciurcrs than there was a mad scramble to get heels on 

 the market made according to this new standard. Unfortunately, 

 there did not seem to be much time to do much experimenting 



