INGENUITY AND LUXURY 



in Milford and other Worcester County towns, where 

 brogans were made, and sold to the planters in the 

 Southern states for negro wear. The custom at this 

 time was for the manufacturer to make weekly trips 

 to Boston with his horse and wagon, taking his goods 

 in baskets and barrels, and selling them to the whole- 

 sale trade. 



EARLY METHODS 



"Prior to 1815 most of the shoes were hand sewed, 

 a few having been copper nailed; the heavier shoes 

 were welted and the lighter ones turned. This method 

 of manufacture was changed about the year 1815, by 

 the adoption of the wooden shoe-peg, which was in- 

 vented in 1811 and soon came into general use. Up 

 to this time little or no progress had been 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 Ameri- 

 can shoemaking, this industry was in 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 

 instructed in the preparation of the in-sole and out- 

 sole, depending 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 



[no] 



