Stitching Room of a German Shoe Factory.

In all of the European countries in which the manufacturing of shoes is an important industry, the transition from the household to the factory system was hampered by guilds, elaborate national and local restrictions, and by the national reluctance with which a people accustomed for generations to fixed methods of work, in which they have acquired a large degree of skill, abandon those methods for new ones. It was natural, also, that in spite of the superior advantages of machine methods, hand process of manufacture should still continue side by side with them, in the European countries, though machine work had long since usurped the whole field of the shoe industry in the United States.

As an American goes about among the European shoe factories he is greatly surprised at the state of affairs. He is struck by three things which are very conspicuous. They are: (1) Lack of use of machinery, lack of all sorts of devices in order to save hand labor, which is carried out so extensively in the United States. (2) Lack of the division of labor, one factory attempting to make four or five kinds of shoes. (3) Lack of methods employed for handling large quantities of materials.

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 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.

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.

The advantages of the American system are: (1) The managers and workers of a factory turning out a certain line of goods become highly specialized in that line, and can produce better results than the workers in a factory attempting to make two or three lines of goods. (2) A large shoe factory is laid out as a rule to do a certain kind of work, and it seldom changes. This practice makes possible a greater production. On the other hand we have something to learn from the European organization. American manufacturers must meet the foreign trade. In order to do this, the manufacturer must cater to the habits, customs, and climatic conditions. The European manufacturer does this.

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