THE AMERICAN SHOE 319 



received the uppers and understock from the factories near 

 by, bottomed the boots and shoes, and returned them to the 

 factories, where they were finished and sent to the market 

 packed in wooden boxes. Thus the industry developed and 

 prospered and was carried on without any further improve- 

 ment in methods until the introduction of machinery a little 

 more than a half century ago. 



The first machine w^hich proved itself of any practical 

 value was the leather rolling machine, which came into use 

 about 1845 and w^ith which it was said a man could do in a 

 minute what would require half an hour's hard work with a 

 lapstone and hammer. This was closely followed by the 

 wax thread sewing machine, which greatly reduced the time 

 required for sewing together the different parts that formed 

 the upper, and the buffing machine, for removing the grain 

 from sole leather. Then came a machine which made pegs 

 very cheaply and with great rapidity, and this in turn was 

 followed by a hand power machine for driving pegs. In 1885 

 there was introduced the splitting machine, for reducing sole 

 leather to a uniform thickness. Peg making and power peg- 

 ging machines were soon perfected and there had appeared a 

 dicing out machine, which was used for cutting soles, taps, 

 and heels by the use of different sized dies. The year 1860 

 saw the introduction of the McKay sewing machine, which 

 has perhaps done more to revolutionize the manufacture of 

 shoes than any other single machine. The shoe to be sewed 

 was placed over a horn and the sewing was done from the 

 channel in the outsole, through the sole and insole. The 

 machine made a loop stitch and left a ridge of thread on the 

 inside of the shoe, but it filled the great demand that existed 

 for sewed shoes, and many hundreds of millions of pairs have 

 been made by its use. 



At the time of the introduction of the McKay machine, 

 inventors were busy in other directions, and, as a result, came 

 the introduction of the cable nailing machine, which was pro- 

 vided with a cable of nails, the head of one being joined to the 

 point of another; these the machine cut into separate nails 

 and drove automatically. At about this time was introduced 

 the screw machine which formed a screw from brass wire. 



