Shoe factory

“ 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. ”

“ In this country the number of factories in the shoe trade appears to be growing less and the average factory larger each year. It is estimated that there are at present something like fifteen hundred factories in all. These range from the smallest product up to the largest. The average factory may be said to produce about twelve hundred pairs of shoes per day. Many turn out five thousand pairs daily, while a few manufacturers turn out ten thousand or more pairs. ”

“ The stitching department is often called the fitting department; the making department, the bottoming department; and the sole leather department, the stock-fitting department. The departments are popularly termed rooms for brevity.
A shoe factory is designed so as to have a width of about fifty feet for each room, while the length is according to the number of shoes to be produced. A width of about fifty feet gives plenty of daylight and ample room in the center of each department, which is very essential in shoemaking. ”

“ In the United States the manufacturer makes a certain line of shoes in one factory, and no other kind. If he has more than one line, he has more than one factory, and each factory turns out a distinct shoe for a distinct purpose. The manufacturer has his salesmen to sell these shoes. ”

“ Though Ocean street, Lynn, has many handsome residences, — the people living there boasting that nothing intervenes between them and Ireland save the stormy Atlantic, — still the city is not regarded as a summer resort, nor a residential district of Boston, but, as a factory town, one of the most important shoe factory centers in the world. When the American Civil War made a great demand for shoes, the old-fashioned method of producing foot wear by hand labor was not adequate to meet the demand. ”

“ In consequence the range of machines employed in a modern shoe factory is very extensive, the various operations being highly specialized, and there being minute subdivision of labour. Through the fundamental principles were not in all cases of American origin, American inventors were foremost in developing such machinery, and America took the lead in employing it to the super session of handwork in shoemaking. ”

“ One point that is overlooked in considering the shoe industries of the two countries is the great difference in organization. In most European factories, the manufacturer gets all the orders of different kinds, and [278] then attempts to make one or two lines with one or two qualities in the same factory. In Switzerland one may find shoes and slippers for men, women, and children made under the same roof. ”

“ Now there prevails and has since the days of McKay—who, by the way, was not the inventor but the promoter of the first shoe machine—a system of handling its output peculiar in manufacturing industries. It never sells, it always rents its machines. That is, a maker of shoes cannot buy for his factory the machines to do his work, as the ship-builder, the miller, the woollen manufacturer, can. He rents the machines for a term of years, paying a royalty on each shoe made. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Old reports on the wages of working women show the binding of shoes to have been a much better paid employment than the sewing trades. Twenty-five cents a pair was paid for binding shoes, and it was said that "a smart woman could bind four pairs a day." But few shoe-binders actually succeeded in binding four pairs a day. Just because it was not factory work, the majority of workers were employed in binding shoes only part of their time, in the intervals of housework, particularly as married women were employed in large numbers. ”

“ The number of workers in the art, both men and women, has vastly increased instead of being diminished, while their wages have greatly advanced over the old rates.
As an illustration of how rapidly modern enterprise and invention proceeds in Yankeeland, it has been related that some years ago in Massachusetts, after many of these shoe-making machines had got into use, a factory which was turning out 2400 pairs of shoes every day was completely destroyed by fire on a Wednesday night. ”

“ In fact, a factory shoe in many cases is not completed until 170 machines and 210 pairs of hands have taken part in putting it together and getting it into shape for the wearer, and each of these machines works with an accuracy which no hand-work can equal. We have so far witnessed the assembling of the several parts of the shoe into one connected whole. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And once the manufacturers acquired retail outlets, the District Court found there was a 'definite trend' for the parent-manufacturers to supply an ever increasing percentage of the retail outlets' needs, thereby foreclosing other manufacturers from effectively competing for the retail accounts. Manufacturer-dominated stores were found to be 'drying up' the available outlets for independent producers.
Another 'definite trend' found to exist in the shoe industry was a decrease in the number of plants manufacturing shoes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But larger government contracts enabled the proprietors to reconstruct their mills, install modern machines, and build up an organization and a prosperous business that still endures. Making boots and shoes for Northern soldiers laid the foundation of America's great shoe industry. Machinery had already been applied to shoe manufacture, but only to a limited extent; under the pressure of war conditions, however, American inventive skill found ways of performing mechanically almost all the operations that had formerly been done by hand. ”

“ In his place has come the factory hand, nearly all footwear being now a product of machinery, and this of greatly varied and effective character. In this form shoemaking has become a thriving industry in New England and in some other parts of the United States. This method has greatly decreased the cost of shoes, invention having so hastened and cheapened all its processes that the number of shoes that it would take an old-time shoemaker a year to make can be turned out in a few hours by modern machinery. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 breakdown of some of these machines will in many of the factories block the entire flow of the work.'
This was the testimony of the president of the United Company, and it received corroboration from a witness for the United States, who said:
'The margin of profit in making shoes is such that it is very essential that our machinery should work smoothly and regularly and with continuity, and economies in the manufacture of shoes often make the difference between a successful manufacturer and one who is not successful. ”

“ In another building, I was shewn his manufactory of shoes, which, like the other, is full of ingenuity, and, in regard to subdivision of labour, brings this fabric on a level with the oft-admired manufactory of pins. Every step in it is effected by the most elegant and precise machinery; while as each operation is performed by one hand, so each shoe passes through twenty-five hands, who complete from the hide, as supplied by the currier, a hundred pair of strong and well-finished shoes per day. ”

“ The soles and some of the heavier pieces are dried out by the machine, and the heels are made by a special machine, but by far the greater part is done by wonderfully skilled hands. All of these parts which go to make a shoe, or the twenty-three parts which go into a boot, are collected and sent to the making department, which, in most factories, is a large room containing several hundred operatives, each working by herself, and bringing the many separate parts into the fully finished footwear. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To make shoes as good as possible, as cheaply as good shoes can be made, and to see that the people making the shoes get the best possible conditions of labor and the highest possible wages—as near as possible to the net value of their product, that is.
Some people, however, object to wearing factory-made shoes; they want shoes of a special kind, to suit their individual fancy. There are also, we will suppose, some shoemakers who do not like to work in the State factories, preferring to make shoes by hand to suit individual tastes. ”

“ You see our girls learn to sew, wash and iron, and keep house. But we were puzzled to find suitable work for our boys; and I proposed in my report that they should learn some mechanical trade, and recommended that the managers should begin with shoe-making.
To my great gratification, the ladies all approved of this; and I can tell you I soon hunted up a shoemaker who was willing to come and teach them for a little money, and in a week there was a dozen boys provided with tools, leather, &c., hard at work, and very happy learning to make and mend shoes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the first place, the shoes of this country are now made almost entirely by machines. The first practical machine invented was the famous McKay sewing machine. It was followed rapidly by others: machines for welting, lasting, heeling, pegging, more than a score for performing the many complicated operations by which the modern “ready-made” shoe is built up. Up to 1899 these various machines were handled by different companies. But in that year the twelve most important concerns were combined into the trust named above, officially the United Shoe Machinery Company. ”

“ There are close on to 250,000 men and women engaged in the retail selling of shoes, most of whom spend their entire effort in the work. Billions of invested capital is required to furnish the means of carrying on this enormous business.
From the standpoint of cost as well as importance as part of a man’s wearing apparel the shoe ranks second only to his suit of clothes. With most women this is true also. ”