A Brief History of Shoe Manufacturing in the US (Part One)

PRLog (Press Release) - Oct 23, 2009 -
Shoe making in the United States of America began as a specialized trade for cobblers who emigrated from Europe.  These boot-makers and shoemakers worked locally.  They usually set up shop in their homes, purchased leather from local tanneries and made the shoes using hand tools.  Shoes were sewn by hand over a wooden last, which gave the shoe its form.  All shoes were “custom made”, since a cobbler would make a particular pair of shoes for a particular pair of feet.  Although each town had its cobbler, the Northeast, and particularly the area of eastern Massachusetts, became the center of shoemaking in the United States.

The nature of shoemaking in the US changed during the aftermath of the Revolutionary War.  Suddenly the US was a country in its own right and with this newfound nationhood came an increase in population and therefore an increase in the demand for shoes.  The shoemaking process was compartmentalized.  Instead of cobblers, shoemakers became “craftsmen” and would sometimes specialize in only one part of the shoemaking process, i.e., the making of the sole or the attaching of the sole to the upper.  Merchants also entered the economic picture.  Instead of buying shoes from a cobbler directly, consumers would buy them from a merchant who sold perhaps a collection of shoes made by a variety of cobblers.  Improvements to the national transportation system changed the geography of the American footwear market.  Materials used to make the shoes such as the leather were now purchased from different parts of the US and from abroad.  On the other end of the shoemaking process, shoes were sold to a wider market.  For example, shoes made in eastern Massachusetts might be sold to consumers in the South.

This gradual specialization of shoemaking increased as the US entered the 19th century.  Factories sprung up that were dedicated to only one step of the shoemaking process.  Machines were used to stitch uppers to the soles instead of stitching the shoes by hand.  By the end of the 19th century, shoes were made in approximately 20 percent of the time it would take to make a pair by hand, and the manufacturing process could be divided into 150 distinct “steps”.  The Civil War only increased this need for shoes to be manufactured quickly and cheaply.  The War also resulted in the first widespread standardizing of shoe sizes.  Standardized sizes made it easier for soldiers to receive the correct size of army boots.