3i8 GEORGE HOUGHTON 



made in the methods of manufacture. The shoemaker sat 

 on his bench, and with scarcely any tools other than a hammer, 

 knife, and wooden shoulder stick, cut, stitched, hammered, 

 and sewed, until the shoe was completed. Previous to the 

 year 1845, which marked the first successful application of 

 machinery to American shoemaking, this industry was in the 

 strictest sense a hand process, and the young man who chose 

 it for his vocation was apprenticed for seven years, and in 

 that time was taught every detail of the art. He was in- 

 structed in the preparation of the insole and outsole, depend- 

 ing almost entirely upon his eye for the proper proportions; 

 taught to prepare pegs and drive them, for the pegged shoe 

 was the most common type of footwear in the first half of the 

 last century; and familiarized himself with the making of 

 turned and welt shoes, which have always been considered 

 the highest type of shoemaking, requiring exceptional skill 

 of the artisan in channeling the insole and outsole by hand, 

 rounding the sole, sewing the welt, and stitching the outsole. 

 After having served his apprenticeship, it was the custom for 

 the full fledged shoemaker to start on what was known as 

 whipping the cat, which meant travelling from town to town, 

 living with a family while making a year's supply of shoes for 

 each member, and then moving on to fill engagements pre- 

 viously made. 



The change from which has been evolved our present 

 factory system, began in the latter part of 1700, when a 

 system of sizes had been drafted, and shoemakers more en- 

 terprising than their fellows gathered about them groups of 

 workmen, and took upon themselves the dignity of manufac- 

 turers. The entire shoe was then made under one roof, and 

 generally, from leather that was tanned on the premises; one 

 workman cut the leather, others sewed the uppers, and still 

 others fastened uppers to soles, each workman handling only 

 one part in the process of manufacture. This division of labor 

 was successful from the very start, and soon the method was 

 adopted of sending out the uppers to be sewed by the women 

 and children at their homes. Small shops were numerous 

 throughout certain parts of Massachusetts where the shoe- 

 maker, with members of his family or sometimes a neighbor, 



