CHAPTER ELEVEN
RUBBER SHOE MANUFACTURE

Examine the rubbers we wear during the winter and stormy weather.

Rubber shoe coverings are made to protect the shoe from water and snow and may be in the form of either slippers or arctics. The covering is rendered waterproof by means of a compound rubber.

Rubber is the name given to a coagulated milky juice obtained from many different trees, vines, and shrubs that grow on that part of the earth’s surface which forms a band some three or four hundred miles on either side of the equator.

Rubber is graded commercially, according to the district where it is found. In the order of importance it may be divided into three general sorts, viz., American, African, and Asiatic. The best and largest quantities of rubber come from Brazil, along the banks of the Amazon River. The countries in the northern and western part of South America, and the Central American States and Mexico furnish considerable rubber. Eastern and western Africa also produce many kinds of rubber in large quantities, though somewhat inferior to the Brazilian product. The Asiatic rubbers are unimportant in quantity, and, excepting the rubber obtained from cultivated trees in Ceylon, are decidedly inferior in quality.

The fluid rubber obtained from Brazil is called Para and is used principally in the manufacture of rubber footwear. The method of gathering and coagulating the rubber juice (called latex) varies in the different countries. The native first clears a space under a number of trees and proceeds to tap the trees with a short-handled ax, having a small blade, by cutting gashes in the bark. A cup is fixed under each cut to catch the fluid as it flows out. As fast as the cups are filled, they are emptied into a large vessel and carried to the camp to be coagulated. A fire is started in a shallow hole in the ground, and palm nuts, which make a dense smoke, are thrown on. An earthen cover which has a small opening on top is placed over the fire, allowing the smoke to escape through the opening. A wooden paddle is first dipped in clay water and then into the latex and then held over the smoke. The heat coagulates a thin layer of rubber on the paddle. It is dipped again and again in the latex and smoked each time. After being dipped many times, a lump (called biscuit) of rubber is formed. A cut is made in the biscuit and the paddle removed. Then the rubber is ready for market. The world’s crop of rubber in 1911 was about ninety thousand tons.

Few people realize the number of operations necessary to produce from the crude biscuit of India rubber the highly finished rubber shoe of to-day. Briefly stated, the various steps are washing, drying, compounding, calendering, cutting the various parts, making or putting these parts together, varnishing, vulcanizing, and packing. Each of these processes requires a distinct and separate department, and many of these processes are subdivided into minor operations.

The huge stock of Para rubber, that is rubber obtained from the Amazon section, to be found in any of the leading rubber factories counts well up into the thousands of dollars. With rubber at or near $1.50 per pound, a stock of ten to fifty tons runs up into the five or six figures.

This crude rubber, as it comes from the Amazon, contains more or less dirt, pebbles, and other foreign substances, which must be removed.

The large cakes of crude rubber are first broken up by a cracker machine, consisting of two large, revolving steel cylinders, from which the product falls into pans or trays. It goes then to a machine known as a “washer” or “sheeter,” where it is run between revolving cylinders, upon which a continuous spray of clean water is maintained. After being rolled into rough sheets, it is put into a tank, from which it is taken to the “beater” machine, in which water runs continuously, and then it is washed again and “sheeted out.” It is then dried in one of two ways.

(1) The older way. The sheets are hung over rods in a large room, and allowed to dry in the air. To facilitate the same, a fan or blower is often used to cause a circulation and removal of the moisture-laden air. This requires a period of from one to two or three months.

(2) The second method is called vacuum drying. This process is gradually being introduced, so that now probably more rubber is dried in vacuum than by air. The vacuum drier consists of a large iron cylinder filled with plates, through which steam is allowed to circulate. The rubber is placed on the plates and the air is exhausted from the cylinder by means of an air pump until very nearly twenty-six degrees of vacuum are obtained. By this process only from two to three hours are required to produce perfectly dry rubber.

The making of a rubber shoe is not the simple matter which might at first be supposed. An ordinary rubber shoe consists of at least seven or eight different parts, sometimes twenty-one parts to a pair, while a high-button gaiter has seventeen distinct parts, and a rubber boot has twenty-three different pieces. There are insoles, outsoles, stays, piping, foxing, and a dozen other different pieces, each one of which is necessary to the proper construction of a rubber shoe or boot. The thinner sheets for the uppers are cut by hand, the deft work of the cutters in following the patterns outlined on the sheets being the result of years of practice. The sheets of rubber from which the uppers and soles are cut are at this stage of the work plastic and very sticky. It is necessary on this account to cut the various pieces one by one, and keep them separate. 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.

The sheets of rubber, after being dried, are taken to the “compound” room, where they are sprinkled with whiting, to prevent sticking, and weighed. Next they are taken into the calender room to a “mixer,” by means of which the rubber is combined with other substances, which include sulphur, litharge, whiting, lampblack, tar, resin, lime, palm oil, and linseed oil.

There are different calendering machines. The ones called the upper calenders form sheets of rubber stock for the upper part of the shoe. The soling calenders form the stock for the sole or bottom part of the shoe; other calender machines are used to coat a layer of gum on one side of the fabrics used for lining and various strips, fillers, toe, and heel pieces. The gum sheets are sent to the cutting room.

Generally, linings for nine pairs of shoes are cut at once. The linings are cut both by hand and by machine. Men who cut with dies, by hand, stand at the bench and use iron mallets, like those used in cutting heels. Inner soles, heel pieces, and linings are all cut by means of dies in the same manner.

The edges of the several parts are spread with cement, and then the parts are taken to the making room and distributed. In the making department the boots and shoes are put together. Women make the light overshoes; men make the heavy ones. Rubbers are made by women, but men put on the outer soles.

Linings are first applied smoothly to a wooden last and cemented together, the cement side out. The rubber parts are then stuck on and rolled firmly with a small hand roller. Young women become very skilled in this work, taking up the several parts in rapid succession, placing them accurately upon the last, and rolling and pounding them firmly together.

Perhaps the most interesting single process is that of putting the rubber boot together. This work is done by men, and requires, in addition to accurate eyesight, rapid and very deft movements of the hand and considerable strength. No nails, tacks, or stitching are required. The natural adhesiveness of the rubber, assisted by the use of rubber cement, holds the parts solidly together.

In the making of the shoe the last is covered with the various pieces which are so made as to adhere where they are placed. It is exact and nice work fitting all these pieces perfectly, each edge overlapping just so far and no farther. The lighter shoes are made by women, but the heavy lumbermen’s shoes, arctics, and especially the boots, are made by men, for this work needs strength as well as dexterity.

The goods which require varnishing are put on racks and treated with a mixture of boiled linseed oil, naphtha, and other materials, which are applied with brushes, and impart a gloss to the surface.

On vulcanizing boots and shoes, the shoes are placed on racks supported by iron cars, which are run over tracks into the vulcanizing chamber. This consists principally of a large room provided with a steam coil on the floor. The temperature rarely exceeds two hundred and sixty degrees Fahrenheit. In vulcanizing shoes, the heat is increased gradually from the beginning, about one hundred and eighty degrees Fahrenheit, otherwise the goods would be blistered, due to the rapid evaporation of moisture and other volatile constituents. They are kept in these heaters from six to seven hours. This causes a union of sulphur and rubber, which is not affected by heat or cold.

They are wheeled on another truck to the packing room, where they are inspected, taken from the lasts, tied together in pairs, or placed in cartons, as the case may be. They are then sent to the shipping room to be packed in cases ready to be delivered to the cars waiting at a side track of the railroad, or sent to the storehouse until they shall be called for by the jobbers or retail dealers.

An important branch of the rubber business is the manufacture of tennis shoes. This is a generic term, which is applied to all kinds of footwear having cloth tops and rubber soles. As the name indicates, they were first used in playing the game of tennis, but they have come into very general use as warm weather and vacation shoes, and every year shows an increased popularity. These shoes are made in a similar manner to the rubber shoes, the rubber soles being cemented to the cloth uppers and vulcanized the same as the rubber overshoes. Many different styles are made, and each year shows some improvements in the shapes, in the textiles which are used, in the colors and combinations of soles and uppers.

Rubber shoes should not be expected to give satisfactory service unless properly fitted. If too short, too narrow, or if worn over leathers with extra heavy taps, or unusually thick, wide soles, strains will be brought upon parts not designed to stand them and the rubber will give way. Rubber goods, particularly boots, if too large will wrinkle and a continued wrinkling and bending is liable to cause cracking.

Extreme heat or cold should be avoided. Rubber boots or shoes should never be dried by placing them near a heater of any kind. If left near a stove, register, or radiator, the rubber is liable to dry and crack. If left out of doors in winter, or in an extremely cold place, they will freeze. Then when the warm foot is put into them and the rubbers are worn, the rubber will crack.

Oil, grease, milk, or blood will cause rubber to decay in a very short time. If spattered with any of these, the rubber should be promptly and thoroughly cleaned with warm water and soap.

The oil in leather tops will rot rubber, so that care should be taken in storing and packing to prevent the leather and rubber from coming in contact.

Various heavy goods are advertised as proof against snagging. It should be remembered, however, that no rubber can be made strong enough to be absolutely proof against tearing or puncturing by extremely sharp edges, such as stiff stubble, sharp-edged rocks, broken glass, etc.

Mud, barnyard dirt, or filth of any kind should never be allowed to dry on rubbers. They should be cleaned as carefully as leather boots or shoes.

Exposure to strong sunlight for any length of time produces an effect on rubbers similar to that of putting them near a stove or radiator. Rubbers should not be left in the sun to dry. When not in use they should be kept in a cool, dark place.

Rubber Heels

Rubber heels are generally made for boots and shoes as follows. The compounded rubber is sheeted on a calender roll, on a drum, until several layers are obtained, thus making a sheet of about one inch in thickness. The heel is cut out from this sheet by means of a die and placed in a mold. It is there subjected to an extremely high pressure, generally obtained by hydraulic power. The plates of the press are heated with live steam. The heels are removed at the end of nine or ten minutes and the sheet which was formerly nearly an inch in thickness is now only about half an inch and has by pressure been molded into the shape of the heel desired, is semi or partially vulcanized, and also is imprinted upon the bottom with the name or other brand of the company.

The cup-shaped portion of the heel is now coated with a layer of rubber cement, and firmly placed on the boot ready to go to the vulcanizer, where vulcanizing of the heel is then completed.

Many articles of rubber are vulcanized by the use of chloride of sulphur, which process is sometimes known as “cold cure.” The action of sulphur chloride itself is so violent that it must be diluted, and for this purpose carbon bisulfide is often used. In some cases, as, for example, the manufacture of tobacco pouches, the articles are submerged for from one to two minutes in the liquid, then removed and washed thoroughly. In another case, as in the manufacture of some kinds of rubber cloth, such as hospital sheeting, the coated cloth is suspended in a suitable room and the chloride of sulphur and carbon bisulfide mixed and evaporated by action of heat so that the cloth is subjected to the action of vapor alone. Only articles with comparatively thin walls can be successfully vulcanized by the cold cure, as at best the vulcanizing action of the chloride is only superficial.

No account of vulcanization processes as employed in the manufacture of rubber goods is complete without the mention of “steam cure.” A great variety of rubber goods under the general term of mechanical sundries are cured by this method. This includes rubber matting, door mats, water bottles, druggists’ sundries, etc. This process consists in brief of submitting the articles to be vulcanized to the action of live steam for from half an hour to an hour, or until the goods are thoroughly vulcanized. The temperature and duration of time required depend to a considerable extent upon the thickness of the walls of the article. In order to prevent the goods from being pitted and damaged by the action of steam, they are wrapped with cloth or imbedded in pans of soapstone. A great variety of rubber tubing is cured by this method.

In rubber cloth making, the crude rubber is put through the washing process, dried and mixed with sulphur, litharge, coloring matter, etc., and then is taken to the cement room, where it is “cut” with naphtha, forming a thick paste or dough. This is taken to the spreading room in large tubs and fed into the roller machine, which is like a long table made of steam pipes placed horizontally in a single layer. Below one end is a roll of cloth, which is passed between two iron rollers on the end. The dough is fed in between these rollers and is spread smoothly over the cloth, which is rolled up and removed to a heating room, where it is unrolled and hung on racks, and then subjected to sufficient heat to cause the combination of the sulphur and rubber.

Chemistry in the Manufacture of Rubber Goods

Too much stress cannot be laid upon the importance in all rubber factories of the chemical department. During the last two or three years there has been an unusual development along these lines, and to-day no factory for the manufacture of rubber goods is complete that does not possess a well-equipped laboratory. Not only does this department enable the manufacturer to control the purity and uniformity of his compounding ingredients and the innumerable grades of crude rubber, but, what is of even greater importance, it enables him to inaugurate research work as applied to his particular line of manufacture. This part of laboratory work is already producing results not only of scientific interest, but of very great practical and economic value. Still another rôle of the modern chemical laboratory is to exercise a control over the finished material, so that the manager of the works may be in possession daily of reasons for any variation detrimental to the standard of his products.

Rubber Terms

Ankle Piece. A large piece of light sheeted gum, which goes around the ankle and extends about halfway up the leg.

Back Stay. A piece of frictioned sheeting similar to the side stay in shape and placed at the back of the heel and ankle.

Gum Counter. A piece cut out of sheeted gum, on the under side of which is placed a counter form or a piece of frictioned sheeting.

Outer Filler. A filling sole cut from rag-coated or frictioned sheeting, and designed to fill up the hollow on the bottom caused by bringing the edges of the gum vamp and counter underneath.

Inner Sole. Usually made of felt or sheeting coated on one side with rag stock. In lasting up, the bottom edges of the lining (which have previously been cemented) are pulled under and adhere to the inner sole.

Leg Cover. A piece of sheeted gum rolled upon a piece of frictioned sheeting called the leg form.

Leg Lining. The lining, usually of felt or wool netting, for the leg.

Para. A name given to rubber from Brazil.

Piping. Strips of frictioned sheeting used to join the lining together over the instep and up the back, and also to hold the lining up on the tree by passing a strip over the top.

Rag Counter. Quarter stiff is a counter piece cut out of rag-coated or frictioned sheeting, which gives stiffness to the counter.

Side Stay. A spike-shaped piece of frictioned sheeting, placed on each side of the ankle.

Rag Sole. A sole stiffening cut out of a sheet of rag stock, which covers the whole bottom. The edges are skived to make a perfect edge.

Toe Filler. A rag-stock filling sole to fill up the hollow on the bottom caused by attaching the lining to the inner sole.

Toe Lining. The lining for the vamp, of the same material as the leg lining.

Vamp. A piece cut out of sheeted gum.

Vamp Form. A piece of frictioned sheeting cut to the shape of the vamp, and put on over the toe lining.

Web Straps. Straps put on with the joined ends between the leg lining and the leg cover, and forming a loop on the inside of the boot to pull it on with.

CHAPTER TWELVE
HISTORY OF FOOTWEAR

We find that primitive footwear, in common with all other beginnings, was of the crudest nature and took the form of the simple sandal. It is probable that man first protected his foot from the rough way by simple pieces of hide, which were bound to the bottom of the foot. The sandal, among the most primitive, is the type of footwear worn to-day. The sandal was simply bound to the foot by thongs of hides, which were brought between the toes and tied around the ankle.

At about the Elizabethan period, shoemaking had really become a very fine art. Some foot creations were made by the Court shoemakers that reflected the individual taste of the monarch, and so great was the competition to produce something novel that very often the styles assumed a grotesque aspect. The toes were elongated so that sometimes they were carried up and fastened by cords and tassels to the tops of the shoes, and it finally became necessary to enact a law to prevent such outrageous types of footwear. The slippers of this period were of the extremely high-heeled variety, and small fortunes were often spent on their ornamentation. They were mostly of the turn-shoe type, and samples which are preserved show the excellent workmanship that was in vogue at that time.

We now come to the first shoemaker in America. When the Mayflower made the second trip to America, she carried among others a shoemaker named Thomas Beard, who brought with him a supply of hides. Seven years afterwards there arrived one Phillip Kertland, a native of Buckinghamshire, who settled in Lynn in 1636.

Kertland was the pioneer shoemaker of Lynn and for years he successfully worked at his craft, teaching others his methods and ways, so that fifteen years after his arrival, Lynn was not only supplying the requirements of its inhabitants, but was also sending a part of its products to the port of Boston. As early as 1648 we find tanning and shoemaking mentioned as an industry of the colony of Virginia, special mention being made of the fact that a planter named Matthews employed eight shoemakers on his premises. Legal restraint was placed on the cordwainer in Connecticut in 1656, and in Rhode Island in 1706, while in New York the business of tanning and shoemaking is known to have been firmly established previous to the capitulation of the Province to England in 1664. In 1698 the industry was carried on profitably in Philadelphia, and in 1721 the Colonial Legislature of Pennsylvania passed an act regulating the material and the prices of the boot and shoe industry.

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 invented 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 other instrument 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 American shoemaking, this industry was in the strictest sense a hand process, and the young man who chose it for his vocation was apprenticed for seven years, during which time he was taught every detail of the art. He was instructed in the preparation of the insole and outsole, depending almost entirely upon his eye for the proper proportions; taught to prepare pegs and drive them, for the pegged shoe was the common type of footwear in the first half of the last century; and familiarized himself with the making of turned and welt shoes, which have always been considered the highest types of shoemaking, as they require exceptional skill of the artisan in channeling the insole and outsole by hand, rounding the sole, sewing the welt, and stitching the outsole. After having served his apprenticeship, it was the custom for the full-fledged shoemaker to start on what was known as “whipping the cat,” which meant traveling from town to town, living with a family while making a year’s supply of shoes for each member, then moving on to fill engagements previously made.

The change from which has been evolved our present factory system began in the latter part of the 18th century, when a system of sizes had been drafted, and shoemakers more enterprising than their fellows gathered about them groups of workmen, and took upon themselves the dignity of manufacturers.

It was soon found that the master workman could largely increase his income by employing other men to do the work while he directed their efforts, and this gradually led to a division of the labor: the shoe uppers, which had prior to this time been sewed by men using waxed thread with bristles, now were done by women, who often took the work home.

One workman cut the leather, others sewed the uppers, and still others fastened uppers to soles, each workman handling only one part in the process of manufacture.

We find that in the year 1795 the evolution of the factory system had reached a stage where in Lynn alone there were two hundred master workmen, employing six hundred journeymen and turning out three hundred thousand pairs of shoes per year. The entire shoe was then made under one roof, and generally from leather that was tanned on the premises.

Factory buildings were not at this time of a very pretentious nature and did not by any means represent the amount of work undertaken by the proprietor; for the small ten by ten factories, which are even to-day in existence in some of the backyards of Lynn homes, came into existence at this time. Many farmers found that shoemaking was a remunerative occupation in the winter, and they, and perhaps their neighbors, gathered in these shops and took from the different factories shoes on which to fasten the soles, or uppers to bind, which, after completion of the work, were returned to the factory, where they were finished and sent to market packed in wooden boxes. It was in this way that the industry prospered and developed up to the period of the introduction of machines, which happened but a little over half a century ago.

Up to the year 1811 absolutely no machinery was used in the making of shoes. This year shoe pegs were invented and a machine for making them. The pegged shoe became very widely worn, but it was not until 1835 that any machine for driving pegs was made, and even at this time the machine was but an indifferent success. It was a hand machine and its work was by no means of a reliable nature.

The first machine to be widely accepted by the trade was the “rolling machine.” This was used for rolling the sole leather under pressure, and it is said that a man could perform in a minute with this machine the same office that he would have required half an hour to have performed with the old-fashioned lapstone and hammer. This was followed in 1848 by the most important invention, the “sewing machine,” which was perfected by Elias Howe, and was soon followed by a machine which sewed with waxed thread and made it possible to sew the uppers of shoes in a much more rapid, reliable, and satisfactory manner than had ever been done by hand. This, too, was soon followed by a machine which split the sole leather and by another for buffing or removing the grain.

In 1855 William F. Trowbridge, who was a partner in the firm of F. Brigham & Company, of Feltonville, Massachusetts, then a part of Marlboro, conceived the idea of driving by horse power the machines then in use. The introduction of power became very general, so that in the year 1860 there were scarcely any factories which were not driven by either steam or water power.

The year 1858 was marked by the invention by Lyman R. Blake of the McKay sewing machine, which probably more than any other has exerted a revolutionary effect on the industry.

The McKay machine did not at this time sew the toe or heel; the sewing was started at the shank and carried forward to a point near the toe on one side, and the same operation repeated on the other side; but it seemed to possess great possibilities and created a great deal of interest throughout the trade. It was, of course, a very crude machine and very different from the McKay machine of to-day. It was set on a bench and 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. Colonel McKay immediately started to improve the machine. He employed skilled mechanics to work on it and attempted to introduce it in different factories, but encountered a great deal of opposition and criticism in regard to its future. It is said that he offered to dispose of the machine to the shoemakers of Lynn and allow them its exclusive use if they would pay him three hundred thousand dollars, an offer which was not accepted.

The machine left a loop stitch and 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.

While Colonel McKay had met rebuff and discouragement in attempting to introduce his machine, the public necessity was such that manufacturers were obliged to take it up immediately; but Colonel McKay was still embarrassed by lack of capital to carry on his rapidly increasing business. It was at this time that a system of placing machines in factories, which system has proven to be the most potent factor in the upbuilding of the shoe industry, was started. This was a royalty system, whereby the machine or machine owner participated in the profits accruing from the use of the machine.

It hardly seems that there can be any question as to the principle of royalty being one of the greatest forces in building up the successful industry which we have to-day; it afforded an easy means whereby machines could be introduced without entailing hardships on the manufacturers, who, had they been obliged to pay the actual worth of the machines, would have been entirely unable to adopt them. Instances are known where hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on machines, which machines were abandoned without having made a single shoe.

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.” This was provided with a cable of nails, the head of one being joined to the point of another; these the machines cut into separate nails and drove automatically. At about this time also was introduced the “screw machine,” which formed a screw from brass wire, forcing it into the leather and cutting it off automatically. This was the prototype of the “rapid standard screw machine,” which is a comparatively recent invention, and is very widely used at the present time as a sole fastener on the heavier class of boots and shoes. Very soon thereafter the attention of the trade was attracted to the invention of a New York mechanic for the sewing of soles. The device was particularly intended for the making of turn shoes and afterwards became famous as the “Goodyear turn shoe machine.”

Closely following the Goodyear invention came the introduction of the first machine used in connection with heeling,—a machine which compressed the heel and pricked holes for the nails; this was soon followed by a machine which automatically drove the nails, the heel having previously been put in place and held by the guides on the machine. Other improvements in heeling machines followed with considerable rapidity, and a machine came into use shortly afterwards which not only nailed the heel, but which was also provided with a hand trimmer, which the operator swung round the heel, after nailing. From these have been evolved the heeling machines in use at the present time.

One of the early uses to which the sewing machine was put was the sewing together of the pieces of soft and pliable leather which make the upper of a shoe—a simple thing, involving only a slight adjustment of the original machine. It is a far more complicated operation to sew the upper to the thick and heavy sole, and years passed by before the secret was discovered, and the McKay machine appeared. In the shoe sewed on the McKay machine, the thread ran through into the inside of the inner sole, leaving a rasping ridge on which the stocking of the wearer rubbed. The McKay shoe displaced only the coarser grades. The hand-sewed shoe remained the favorite of wealth and fashion, and was worn exclusively by those who cared for comfort and could afford the price. In sewing a shoe by hand, a thin and narrow strip of leather, called a welt, is first sewed to the insole and upper, and the heavy outsole is sewed to this welt, so that the stitches come outside and do not touch the foot, the insole being left entirely smooth. It is a delicate operation by hand, and many years elapsed before a machine was contrived by which it could be done. At last the problem was solved. The “Goodyear welting and stitching machines” appeared—so named for Charles Goodyear, who financed and perfected them, a son of the man who taught the world the use of rubber. These two machines are the nucleus of the Goodyear welt system, to which must be attributed the revolution of an industry. Although they are entirely distinct machines, they are inseparable, for neither can be used effectively without the other in making the modern Goodyear welt shoe.

Much of the style of a shoe depends upon the wooden last over which the upper is shaped before being attached to the sole. To find a substitute for the human hand in fitting the shoe to the last and pulling the leather over its delicate lines and curves seemed for a long time impossible.

This took place in the early seventies, when a machine was invented for doing this work. It created a great change in a department of shoemaking which, prior to this time, had been regarded as a confirmed hand process. This machine, as well as those which followed afterwards for a period of twenty years, was known as the best type of machine, by which the shoe upper was drawn over the last by either friction or pincers, and then tacked by use of a hand tool.

At a comparatively recent period another machine which revolutionized all previous ideas in lasting was introduced. This machine is generally in use at the present time, and is known as the “consolidated hand method lasting machine.” It was fitted with pincers, which automatically drew the leather round the last, at the same time driving a tack which held it in place. This machine has been so developed that it is now used for the lasting of shoes of every type, from the lowest and cheapest to the highest grade, and it is a machine that shows wonderful mechanical ingenuity.

The perfection of the lasting machine has been followed recently by the introduction of a machine which performs in a satisfactory way the difficult process known as “pulling over,” which consists of accurately centering the shoe upper on the last and securing it temporarily in position for the work of lasting. The new machine, which is known as the “hand-method pulling over machine,” is provided with pincers, which close automatically, gripping the shoe upper at sides and toe. It is fitted with adjustments by which the operator is enabled to quickly center the shoe upper on the last, and, on pressure of a foot lever, the machine automatically draws the upper closely to the last and secures it in position by tacks, which are also driven by the machine. The introduction of this machine marked a radical change in the one important shoemaking process that had up to this time successfully withstood all attempts at mechanical improvement.

At about the time that lasting was first introduced, came the machines which were used for finishing heel and fore part. These machines were fitted with a tool, which was heated by gas and which practically duplicated the hand workman in rubbing the edges with a hot tool for the purpose of finishing them. From these early machines have been evolved the “edge-setting machines” which are in use at present.

Thus, one after another, every operation has yielded to invention, until very recently the only remaining process was subdued when a machine for cutting uppers was devised. There are machines for shaping, compressing, and nailing heels; for attaching soles to uppers in heavy shoes by wooden pegs or copper screws and wires; for rounding, buffing, and polishing the soles; for trimming and setting the edges of the sole; for performing innumerable operations, some seemingly trivial, but all essential to perfection in comfort, durability or style; so that in shoe factories to-day a greater variety of intricate and expensive machines is used than in factories of any other kind.

At the present time the genius of the American inventor has provided for every detail of shoemaking, even the smallest processes being performed by mechanical devices of some kind. This has naturally made the shoemaker of to-day a specialist, who very seldom knows anything of shoemaking apart from the particular process in the performance of shoemaking of which he is an adept, and from which he earns a livelihood. The American shoe of to-day is the standard production of the world. It is in demand wherever shoes are worn.

In the year 1874 there had been perfected not only the machines which Colonel McKay and Mr. Goodyear had been instrumental in building, but other inventors had introduced similar machines for doing similar work. This brought about the most acute business competition, and finally resulted in many cases where one machine manufacturer alleged that the other machine infringed his rights of patent, and in many other cases the fiercest kind of litigation was established. This had a most disastrous effect upon shoe manufacturers, for in many cases the manufacturer was made to bear the brunt of the blows which contending shoe machinery manufacturers aimed at each other.

Machines in use in factories were stopped by means of injunctions; damage suits were entered, and litigation was very general. During the year 1899, there was ushered in one of the most important events that ever transpired in the history of shoemaking. The most important of the concerns which had been making war upon each other were purchased by one large company and brought under one harmonious management.

The United Shoe Machinery Company owes its origin to a call for a change in conditions menacing the industry of making shoes which could not be ignored. It was created by combining into one the three companies existing in 1899: the Goodyear Sewing Machine Company, the Consolidated & McKay Lasting Machine Company, and the McKay Shoe Machinery Company, each of which respectively made and leased machines adapted to a particular class of operations. The principal machines which each made did not interfere with the principal machines of any other. They were dependent links in an industrial chain. The Goodyear Sewing Machine Company chiefly made machines for sewing the sole to the upper in welt shoes and various auxiliary machines which helped to complete the shoe; The Consolidated & McKay Lasting Machine Company made machines for lasting a shoe; The McKay Shoe Machinery Company made various machines for attaching soles and heels by metallic fastenings, and furnished material for that purpose. A single manufacturer, in order to make Goodyear welt shoes, would be compelled to patronize all the companies, going to each of them for that part of his equipment which it exclusively supplied. Each company had its agents in factories looking after its machines.

The gathering of these three companies into a single organization wrought an instant change. It resulted immediately in greater economy of administration; in relieving the manufacturer of the vexation of sometimes seeing his factory crippled while orders were piling up; in freeing him from the annoyance and expense of dealing with several different concerns in order to get his most important machines and keep them in repair.

The attention which had been paid to royalty machines and which had been such an important factor in building up the industry in America, was magnified by the management of the new company. Large forces of men and expert machinists, as well as expert shoemakers, were maintained in the different districts where shoes were made, and every effort exerted to promote the growth of the industry.

While the royalty system proved to be of great advantage to small shoe manufacturers, the largest manufacturers objected to paying royalty on machines and desired to purchase them outright. Being unable to do so, they placed experts at work to invent similar machines. This has resulted in the United Shoe Machinery Company claiming that these machines are infringements and causing considerable litigation.

If one reviews the history of the trade during the past ten years, there will be little question but that one will find it has been a period of the greatest advancement that the trade has ever known.

Within the time of those who read these words, the way to make a shoe has been completely changed. Methods which held their own for centuries have disappeared, to be replaced by processes which only recently would have been thought impossible, and which have brought within the reach of men of modest means a luxury once enjoyed exclusively by the well-to-do. The feet of the million are clad to-day as finely as the feet of yesterday’s millionaire. Shoes marked by comfort, durability, and style have driven to historical museums the stiff and clumsy boots and brogans which not so many years ago were worn by those who could not pay to have shoes sewed by hand.

The American people spend more than three hundred million dollars every year in buying shoes, and average three pairs apiece, and yet few ever think about their shoes so long as they do not look clumsy, or wear out too quickly, or hurt the foot. Every one likes to buy good shoes as cheaply as he can, and every one likes to feel that shoe manufacturers are independent and successful, and that workmen get good wages, because these things help along prosperity; but that is all. Yet here is an industry in which the United States within a decade has come to lead the world, and there are many things about it which it would be worth while for every one to understand. It is worth while, for instance, to know that there is no important operation on a shoe which need be done by hand; that in the making of every good shoe no less than fifty-eight different machines, and sometimes twice that number, are brought into play; that nearly all these machines are of American invention; and that they have been so perfectly adjusted one to another that they work together almost with the precision of a watch; it is worth while to know something about the marvelous system under the encouragement of which this typical American industry has blossomed and borne fruit until it employs two hundred million dollars of capital and nearly two hundred thousand people, and turns out two hundred and fifty million pairs of shoes a year; and why it is that the average man you meet to-day has a better fitting, better wearing, and better looking shoe than the moneyed man of yesterday—at a fraction of the expense.

This remarkable growth is distinctly American. In the United States the tendency among the artisan class has been to abandon the slow hand process. This tendency has been as strong as the tendency in Europe to adhere to it. Moreover, there has developed among the laboring classes in the United States a mobility such as is unknown elsewhere in the world.

Another advantage which has contributed to the rapid development of the manufacture of shoes in the United States is the comparative freedom from inherited and overconservative ideas. This country has entered upon its industrial development unfettered by the old order of things, and with a tendency on the part of the people to seek the best and quickest way to accomplish every object.