Footwear industry

“ The Government, which had long since established such controls over boot manufacture and tanning as were necessary to safeguard Army supplies, began in August 1917 to do something for the civilians, and in 1918 it instituted a scheme for producing boots and shoes of good standard quality at a price considerably lower than that of ‘non-standard’ footwear. ”

“ A remarkable change has also taken place in the field of boot and shoe production. Hardly more than ten years ago the United States imported shoes from Europe—especially women's footwear from Austria, while other grades were made of leather imported from England and Germany. To-day, it not only makes its entire supply of leather at home and exports it in considerable quantities, but it floods Europe with ready-made shoe depots in Paris and even in the principal cities of Germany. ”

“ To give the customer what is wanted in footwear variety calls for the steady changing of styles season after season.
A thorough understanding of conditions of fashion demand that good taste must be represented in footwear styles. Occasionally there will be a demand for freak styles that do not meet the generally accepted idea of good taste and common sense, but these constitute the exception. The shoe business of the country is conducted on sound principles. It requires foresight to anticipate the wishes of the public and to have styles ready to supply when the demand is made. ”

“ The ease with which shoes can be transported long distances, due to the relatively high money value contained in small bulk, rendered the shoe industry more sensitive to changes in marketing than other industries. Indeed we may say that the shoe industry epitomized the general economic evolution of the country. ”

“ The soles and other parts that are needed for a shoe are put up in different qualities and grades, and a manufacturer can buy any grade of sole he wants, so that it is considered an advantage to buy some parts, instead of cutting them. In a side of sole [108] leather there are twenty-five or more different qualities and grades of soles, and very few manufacturers, especially in the women’s trade, can use all of these. The greater variety of shoes a manufacturer turns out, the more advantageous it is for him to cut his own sole leather, and prepare all parts in his own factory. ”

“ And the government has taken pains to tell us how far 'the mysteries of the shoemaker's art and the variations between different methods of making shoes' are outside of the understanding of the purchaser of them. To him, it is said, 'shoes are shoes, except as they differ in appearance, comfort, wearing qualities, and price.' But to the manufacturer distinctions multiply and to the production of a shoe a complete line of machinery is necessary. Indeed, the government makes the mystery of the art and the necessity of the instrumentalities, in part, the basis of its argument. ”

“ The leather industry, particularly boot and shoe manufacture, is perhaps the most highly specialised of all in the sense that an operator may work a lifetime in any one of the between three and four score processes through which a shoe passes and know little of all the rest. ”

“ A shoe manufacturer cutting his own soles and buying sole leather in sides, after sorting out the soles suited to his own requirements, will sell what he cannot use to remnant dealers, who in turn re-sell them to shoe manufacturers requiring that particular class of stock. The scrap leather, or remnant dealer, thus forms a useful link in the chain of distribution, furnishing a market where shoe and leather manufacturers may dispose of their surplus products to best advantage, and providing a source of supply for buyers who wish any particular article to suit their individual needs. ”

“ We refer in these remarks to the manufacture of what is known as “sale work.” There are many, very many, “custom workers,” who proceed by correct rules, and upon scientific principles; men who understand how to adapt the shoe or boot to the foot, so that when the customer first draws the boot or shoe on, it fits naturally and easily, adapting itself to any, and every deformity or slight irregularity which the foot may present. We make general statements, which every intelligent shoemaker, or large manufacturer, will at once acknowledge. ”

“ In women’s factories where sole leather is not cut, they do not have a complete sole leather department. Instead, they have what is called a stock-fitting department. There are independent cut sole houses, etc., in the trade, which supply the soles to manufacturers. The same system of buying supplies also applies to many other parts of the shoe, as in the top lift, half sole, welt, rand, etc. In the upper leather department, manufacturers of both men’s and women’s shoes often buy trimmings and other parts of the upper all prepared. ”

“ Originally, closing, making the boot, shoe, and slipper, and even ladies’ and children’s shoes, was the work of one individual; now they are separate branches, and the closer has not only risen in this country, but his work is universally celebrated from this circumstance, for its strength and beauty. Perhaps nothing in the way of workmanship is equal to what is termed blind-stabbing: the leather, held between the workman’s knees, is pierced with a small pointed awl, which he holds together with the flax or silken thread that is to follow, in his right hand ”

“ However, while United's system has made it easier to enter the shoe manufacturing industry than to enter many, perhaps most, other manufacturing industries, it has not necessarily promoted in the shoe manufacturing field the goals of a competitive economy and an open society. Without attempting to make findings that are more precise than the evidence warrants, this much can be definitely stated. ”

“ The best materials may have been used for sole and upper leather; the most exquisite closing and stabbing been put in till the work “looked like print;” the workmanship may have been “firstrate,” but deficient in the primary and most essential part—the suitable form of the last on which the article was to be moulded. The boot or shoe would not be a suitable or comfortable covering for the foot, and the unfortunate wearer again finds that he has put his feet into the “shoemaker’s stocks.”
Every one who wishes to be comfortably fitted, should have a pair of lasts made expressly for his own use ”

“ We reach this conclusion because the trend toward vertical integration in the shoe industry, when combined with Brown's avowed policy of forcing its own shoes upon its retail subsidiaries, may foreclose competition from a substantial share of the markets for men's, women's, and children's shoes, without producing any countervailing competitive, economic, or social advantages. ”

“ At our Whitechapel Factory there is one shoemaker whom we picked off the streets destitute and miserable. He is now saved, and happy, and cobbles away at the shoe leather of his mates. That shoemaker, I foresee, is but the pioneer of a whole army of shoemakers constantly at work in repairing the cast-off boots and shoes of London. Already in some provincial towns a great business is done by the conversion of old shoes into new. They call the men so employed translators. Boots and shoes, as every wearer of them knows, do not go to pieces all at once or in all parts at once. ”

“ With the same benign detachment he seems to have mused at his desk about the shoe industry and the people engaged in it. It would not take more than a passing acquaintance with the girls and men in shoe manufacturing towns to know that if there was established a village library equipped with the history of shoes, the aesthetics of shoes, shoe economics, shoe technology, and shoe hygiene, not one of the girls or men who worked in the shoe factories would darken its doors to read about shoes. They would not for this simple reason; the workers' "individual and vocational interest" does not exist. ”

“ Such boots are to be seen in shop windows in Cheyenne, Denver, Fort Worth, Oklahoma City and Las Vegas. They are seldom encountered east of the Mississippi River, and nowhere are they common or likely to become so, for they cost a great deal more than a suit of ready-made clothes and something less than a good saddle. In this day of inflated food values those who can afford such luxurious footwear are scarce. ”

“ I think we both imagined that Calfskin Common had something to do with a low grade of hides, and the Little Woman said she supposed there must be a prospective demand from some foreign country that would advance the price of cheap shoes. Of course it would be nice to have our investments profitable, but on the whole perhaps I'd better lay in an extra pair or so of everyday footwear for the Precious Ones. ”

“ The boot and shoe manufacturers, if they have not bought largely of raw material, have, at least, taken such steps as will guarantee them against a sudden advance. The clothing manufacturers have wisely purchased for their future wants; in fact, in almost every avenue of activity this policy has been pursued. ”

“ According to Barny O’Rierdon, in Ireland they are entirely avoided, as a man comes into market with a barrow full of brogues, and every one helps himself; there is no measuring in the case, and if a brogue is too long, he claps a wisp of straw in the toe.
There is a large class of persons in London, &c., who sell boots and shoes, but do not manufacture them. The greater part of those persons know no more how a boot or shoe is made, than the boots and shoes can be said to possess such knowledge. ”

“ A change has come over the craft of boot [iv] and shoe making. The use of machinery has effected nothing short of a revolution in the trade. The old-fashioned Shoemaker, with his leathern apron and hands redolent of wax, has almost disappeared from the workrooms and streets of such towns as Northampton and Stafford in Old England, or Lynn in New England. ”

“ The shoe-makers, in conjuction with the tanners and curriers, complained that providence had in vain endowed leather with the valuable property of perishableness—if the selfishness of the iron-trade were allowed to counteract this benign arrangement by driving nails into all men’s shoe-soles. ”

“ There is enough good leather in the world to make good sightly boots and shoes for all who need them, enough men at leisure and enough power and machinery to do all the work required, enough unemployed intelligence to organise the shoemaking and shoe distribution for everybody. ”

“ It is true that in the eighteenth century, both in Europe and America, the art of leather and boot and shoe making had so far advanced that good durable foot wear was produced by long and tedious processes of tanning, and by careful making up of the leather into boots and shoes by hand ”

“ The classes of shoemakers are many: the kafsh-dooz, or slipper-maker, as we should term him, makes the coloured leather, or shagreen slippers worn by the women; these only just reach the commencement of the heel, and when new are very elegant. They are shod with iron heels, which is a separate trade of itself. The orussee-dooz, or men’s shoemaker, is another trade. The chekme-dooz, or riding-boot-maker, a third; these boots are always made loose enough to kick off, and are practically better for long journeys on horseback than European boots. ”

“ The shoemaker provides for this, first, by allowing sufficient length of sole to extend beyond the termination of the toe, and second, by the fit of the upper and the preparation of the sole. In this way, if the toe of the shoe strikes against a hard substance, the big toe of the foot will remain untouched.
Seventy-five per cent of the people have more or less trouble with their feet. Some of these troubles are caused by the manufacturer putting on the market shoes whose [82] lines look handsome and attractive to the eye, but are lacking in any other good features. ”

“ The wealthier and more tasteful class of consumers still continue, however, to prefer bespeaking (or to have their measure taken for) their shoes and boots, than to run the risk of any of these chance bargains; and thus, so far, the trade maintains a certain degree of respectability, which is alike beneficial to both the employer and the employed.
The English boot and shoe about thirty years since, was generally speaking, the first article of its kind in the world, and so there was nothing to apprehend while the master’s price was good and the workman’s wages were good also ”

“ The workman, it will be noticed, cuts the leather upon a sloping bench, exactly like that of the shoemaker already engraved.
The warmth and mildness of the East, rendered a close, warm shoe unnecessary; and, indeed, in the present day, they partake there more of the character of slippers; and the foot, thus unconfined by tight shoes, and always free in its motion, retained its full power and pliability: and the custom, still retained in the East, of holding a strap of leather, or other substance, between the toes, is represented in the Theban paintings ”

“ And, before quitting this subject, let me also remark that if Playfair knew as much about shoes as he does about science, he would know that a machine to make shoes is a most unwholesome invention, because every shoe or boot which is not made expressly for the foot which is to wear it, is an ill-made shoe, and will cause suffering and deformity to the unwise wearer. The vast mass of the population of every ‘civilised’ nation has deformed feet, because they buy and wear ready-made shoes, thrusting their extremities into houses of leather never designed for them. ”