Civil War Shoemaking

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D.A. Saguto--HCC

Re: Civil War Shoemaking

#26 Post by D.A. Saguto--HCC »

Pablo,


Thanks for sharing all of these good postings on your patent findings.

=================
"Take a close look at the Encyclopedia by Diderot and D'Alembert,c.1760. fig. 28,#2 depicts a length cut two-piece last that is pin secured."
=================

Not to burst your bubble here, but fig. 28, no.2, no.3, ['Recueil de Planches',1763, vol. 20] "Cordonnier" [shoemaker], plate II, shows three-piece shoe-stretchers ["forme brisee"=split-last]. No pins. The last is sawn in half longitudinally. A groove is cut in both halves, and the third piece is the "key" or wedge to expand it inside of the shoe. The "key" is spaped like a spear and diamond-sectioned, so that turned one way upon instertion it spreads the toe wider, turned the other it spreads the mid-foot area.

Same plate, fig. 28, no.1 to the left, is the last ["forme a monter"] for making shoes on, and as you can see it is a solid, one-piece "comb" last as expected at that date.

Since you have access to 'Recueil de Planches' [the plates], [the 'Encyclopedie' is just the volumes of text BTW], check out the 4 plates on the lastmaker ["Formier"] in vol. 21, 1765. Plate II, shows lasts at the top, and these shoe-stretchers ["forme brisee"=split-last] at the bottom, with all their "keys", grooves, variations, etc. Interestingly, the next plate shows various bootmakers' "fitting-trees", boot trees for treeing the legs into shape while finishing [as opposed to storing boots by owners]. The one at the top has a front, back, and a center "key" as usual, but the one below that is in halves, with the "key" running down the middle front to back. No explantion is offered. Also, oddly, the trees are illustrated with "heels" protruding at the bottom, and the shoe lasts look to be broad and dead flat up the back--artistic lisence? French-weirdness? Who knows.
pablo

Re: Civil War Shoemaking

#27 Post by pablo »

DA,
The Encyclopedia is a great resource not only for its information but what for what it can imply. Yes , the fitting ( split ) trees are displayed separately from the shoe lasts for lasting (monter ), but the idea of longitudinally cut lasts is there! Whether to stretch or make boots with... concerning the groove,recall that in the "Sketches of Lynn" by Johnson , he wrote about the Kimball block last having a groove for the block to slide upon. That was in 1848 and the precedent for the groove can be seen in Diderot's illustrations. As you rightly pointed out, Rees specified a block last for boot work and was well aware of European boot making stating that he had seen boots from many parts of the Continent.
Those block lasts would have been kin to the Fig 28,no.2 illustration. I doubt that Rees block lasts were the original and invented in 1813.
Pablo
D.A. Saguto--HCC

Re: Civil War Shoemaking

#28 Post by D.A. Saguto--HCC »

Pablo,

Mostly for the benefit of those who weren't privy to our long and informative phone call the other day, subsequent to your last posting, I just thought I'd follow-up in this wise.

Diderot shows one-piece ["comb"] shoe lasts for making ["a monter"], shoe stretchers ["forme brisee"=split last] for stretching shoes that are too tight, as well as fitting trees for shaping bootlegs. What you've been looking at are the two shoe stretchers--basically solid lasts sawn in two vertically heel to toe, so there are two halves, with a groove down the middle of the flat sides [inside the assembled stretcher] for the "key" to spread them apart and adjust the amount of stretching action.

I agree with you that while Rees is the "first" mention we have so far of two-piece "block" lasts, presumably with a removable instep block, for making boots, obviously they weren't his invention, and they probably pre-date the publication of his book in 1813. But the question is then by how much? I could say "maybe a year or two", or "maybe ten years", but without proof to back that up, I'm just guessing and that's no good for building a case. The earliest illustration of one is in 1824, in 'L'Art de la Chaussure' [by anonymous], and this shows what we know as a classic two-piece block last--the separate block made by two saw-cuts, a long angled straight cut, and a short transverse one across the toe--no grooves, mortise or tenons.

The Kimball last, with the removable instep block that went right to the toe [separated by a straight saw-cut stem to stern, with a longitudinal mortise and tenon groove to locate it] is a very cool innovation. I've only seen maybe three surviving, all for women's or misses' cloth bootees, and all missing their instep blocks. Do we know whether Kimball ever made men's lasts that way, or boot lasts? For Kimball's inspiration we needn't look as far back as Diderot though. The two-piece "block" lasts were around by then [conservatively for 35 years], and as for the mortise and tenon sliding joint to locate and register the parts, he had the common fitting tree for treeing out boot legs, which as far as I can see had a vertical mortise and tenon slide-joint all along [18th and 19th c.].

Have you seen 'Kimball's Systematic Guide for Measuring and Making Ladies' Boots and Shoes'; John Kimball, [Boston, 1879]? He claims here that he introduced his "Kimball last" [for women only] in 1842 [not '48], along with the A,B,C,D, letter width grading system we know today. And, he says "this last is actually in extensive use at the present time, serving, to a considerably extent, as the standard one", [for women's boots]. For women's bootees, c.1850-80, at first low-heeled or even heel-less, on through the '80s, the one-piece "comb" lasts survive in great numbers compared to the [3?] Kimball's, but seeing that old lasts were customarily burned for firewood by the factory workers, who knows how many Kimball lasts simply went up in smoke. If you examine one of these lasts, you'll see how horribly expensive they must have been to produce, with that mortise and tenon sliding joint. Far cheaper were the one-piece "comb" lasts [used with instep-leathers], which stayed pretty much the norm in shoe supply catalogues for women's bootees, as well as children's. Do you have any evidence the Kimball last [mortise and tenon sliding joint] was ever made/used for anything but women's footwear? All I have seems to suggest it was for women only.
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Re: Civil War Shoemaking

#29 Post by dw »

Al, Pablo,

I have to tell you guys...I have been following this discussion closely and I am simply fascinated! I don't have a head for remembering these facts (heck, I can barely remember my own history), and I am too lazy to write out a bunch of index cards, but this type of discussion is so valuable to the Forum and to the Trade.

I know you guys could take this to private email or (as you mentioned, Al) to phone conversation, but then we'd all be poorer and certainly no wiser. So I have to applaud you both for taking the time to share the information. I may never give a lecture or write a paper on this stuff but it gives me a "sense of place"...and I appreciate that.

thanks...

Tight Stitches
DWFII--Member HCC
pablo

Re: Civil War Shoemaking

#30 Post by pablo »

Al,
I have not seen that " Systematic Guide...". Kimball , born in 1815 and settled in Boston as a Manufacturer of shoes per the census, was very involved in lastmaking and his US Pat. 212852 1879
describes how much. It was a "Guide for Last - Makers" which not only reveals his insight to his thoughts on the important aspects of model making, it also profiles one of his lasts! Unfortunately, there is no view of the "groove". The block is truncated in the typical US method of the last two-thirds of the 19th c. Perhaps the most tantalizing Kimball ref I've run across is the 1870 census account of a Kimball last in 1827. Could be another ( relative?) Kimball. No patent record for that last has turned up. It would not be the first time for plagerism of the last kind.
Even you oft quoted Mr. Rees took a title from an American patent ( X1557 1811 ) Samuel Hitchcock and John Bement ..." themselves of this... art and mystery of boot and shoemaking".
pablo
D.A. Saguto--HCC

Re: Civil War Shoemaking

#31 Post by D.A. Saguto--HCC »

Pablo,

Thanks for switching to AL. "D.A." is just my stuffy way of signing things.

Is that 'Guide for Last-Makers' published? Date? Author? Details? As we know and lament, so little was published on lastmaking, compared to shoemaking.

The one Kimball last [a small size woman's] I've managed to collect is missing its block. The last has a straight, flat, top surface that runs from the top of the "island" right down to the toe. In the center of this flat is a square-cut mortise maybe 3/8" wide and 3/16" deep to accept a corresponding tenon on the underside of the instep block. Nothing, however, to register or hold the block, or keep it from sliding forward or backward.

What do you make of that "Kimball Last" in 1827? Same sort of deal? Any clues?

You lost me, what's the connection between Rees and his book title 'Art & Mystery of a Cordwainer', and Hitchcock and Bement? I thought they patented some shoe tacks, or a nailing technique? As for "borrowings", the Brits are very proud of Marc Isambard Brunell, who developed the "first" shoe-nailing machines, and set up a factory in Battersea, London to make 'em for the army fighting Napoleon. Seems Brunell was an guest-worker, engineer, in NYC of all places, in the 1800s, and *might* have gotten his idea from Americans, like Hitchcock and Bement, as well as others, who were experimenting with nailed-soles *before* Brunell went home to set up his own factory. Small world, eh?

Remember that TV series [BBC?] back in the '70s called 'Connections'? You know, what did refrigerator coils, the Crusades, and eggplant all have to do with the invention of the back-scratcher? That guy strung together obscure relevant factoids like nobody's business to flesh-out the story behind all kinds of early technologies. Now that would be a very cool series to do on 'Titans of Industry' on the History Channel, to show the rise and fall of the shoe industry in the USA and Western Europe. Who cares about the Carnegies, or Standard Oil--I want to see a show on the United Shoe Machinery Corporation, or US Shoe Image
pablo

Re: Civil War Shoemaking

#32 Post by pablo »

Al,
Curious that you should mention Connections. I sent off for the publication they let out... back in the eighties & still have it.Great show.
The Hitchcock & Bement patent uses the phrase in the intro and its the only time I've run across
" art & mystery ..." in all the patents I've seen.
I suspect there was another Kimball. Notice the John Kimball birth date - 1815. A last in 1827? Precocious is putting it mildly for model making at 12 years of age. Anyway, what ever it could have been was absorbed or cast aside like so many other model maker ideas as Wilson Schaedler likes to say.Yet... I think I will keep an eye out for it just in case.
The Kimball guide for lastmakers is a patent! Three pages.He laments the lack of standard for length and fullness in the trade and suggests a method for gaging lasts. Its notable as the precursor of the B & S standards agreement of 1887
that established universal measurements for the US...US Pat.212852 1879.

Regarding the Kimball lady last - have you size sticked it? John Kimball seemed insistent on proper sizing .Could be that Kimball was a ladies - man ( women's shoemaker).
pablo
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Re: Civil War Shoemaking

#33 Post by paul »

I recently had a visitor in the shop who is joining the local Rough Riders group. It seems Prescott was a big starting point for the Rough Riders and enlistment was great here. Buck O'Niel was sheriff and mayor and was instumental in the local movement. Anyway, my visitor is interested in information about boots worn by 'Teddy' and others in the Spanish American War.
Who is our history expert on this time period and would you like to be in contact with this fellow? His wife is one of our leading reporters here in town and is often picked up by AP and others.
Thank you in advance, PK
tmattimore

Re: Civil War Shoemaking

#34 Post by tmattimore »

I checked a few books but could find nothing definative on what the 1st USCV were issued but it was most likely the model 1892 shoe and leggings. For pictures and specs see "Boots and Shoes of the Frontier Soldier" by Sidney Brinckerhoff pub by the Arizona Historical Society, monograph # 7.
Tom Mattimore
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Re: Civil War Shoemaking

#35 Post by paul »

Thanks Tom. I'll do that. I imagine I can find it in the reference section, huh? Where else do you think I might look?
PK
tmattimore

Re: Civil War Shoemaking

#36 Post by tmattimore »

try abebooks.com should be a few there
Tmattimore
natasha

Re: Civil War Shoemaking

#37 Post by natasha »

TO Paul Krause
If you're ever in Las vegas, NM, try the Rough Rider Museum. Las vegas was the site of the reunions for years and years. Natasha
natasha

Re: Civil War Shoemaking

#38 Post by natasha »

Message mostly for Tom Mattimore in regards to zinc nails in 19th c. shoes. Guess what? The site down the road form LA 4968, LA 160 also had zinc nails in a shoe. They appeared to have been used mostly to build a stacked heel. The preliminary results of the analysis of the nails is back. There is almost no elemental zinc left, but what's left of the nails apppears to be oxidation products of zinc. We're having a fancy analysis done by LANL but results are not back yet. They fit the freebies in catch as catch can. Natasha
tmattimore

Re: Civil War Shoemaking

#39 Post by tmattimore »

Natasha
well I'll be a suck egg mule. If you can get the raw data from LANL I have a friend in Albq. who is a double doc in chem and C.E. just retired from Sandia he can help with interperting into american. If you can give us a rough location on the sites I am assuming they are santa fe trail sites. Would love to see photos of even the remnants.
Tom
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Re: Civil War Shoemaking

#40 Post by gcunning »

Tom
THANK YOU!
My wife is a city gal (I am too now)
She thinks I made up the words
"suck egg mule"
I am vindicated!!!!
Gary
tmattimore

Re: Civil War Shoemaking

#41 Post by tmattimore »

Aw shucks gary that makes me feel like a pig in a hog waller.
Tom
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Re: Civil War Shoemaking

#42 Post by walrus »

Did I hear someone say Waller?
LOL
Larry Waller
tmattimore

Re: Civil War Shoemaking

#43 Post by tmattimore »

A question on a couple of different shoes. First (mostly for D.A.) Is there any provenance to a rev war period lace up boot called a" high-low " I have been approached to make a few of these but they look more like an 1820"s or later work boot. Second does anyone know when the elastic gusset "congress" boot came about? Thanks
Tmattimore
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Re: Civil War Shoemaking

#44 Post by das »

Tom,

If you want details on the "high-lows", contact me off-list. The pattern with no back-seam, like the first ones I reproduced, 10" high, brown grain leather uppers, is from a surviving c.1773 pair in a private collection in Sussex, UK. Other examples have been found in the US and Germany, solidly c.1720-1790s, for men and women. [After 1800 they're just "Jefferson" bootees and brogans]. They're in contemporary art-history sources, at least c.1603-1820s, US and UK, as well as VA, and PA records 1720s-1770s. See the OED for "high lows" too. After I was satisfied with enough documentation, frankly, I moved on to other stuff, so there's probably a lot more yet to dig out on them.

Since I originally re-introduced them to the reinactor community in 1979, it's been great fun watching the controversy they've stirred up Image

The reason the ones you're seeing now might not look correct, is that they are "loose" repros, of knock-offs, of repros that I made for a guy we probably both know, back around 1983. I guess I oughta be flattered that boots I made 20 years ago are re-selling third- and fourth-hand for way more than I ever charged, but that's life.

The "spring-sided" boot [not true elastic, but tiny brass wire springs woven into a cotton webbing] was patented in 1836/7, by Joseph Sparks Hall. I think you need vulcanized rubber to get modern-type rubber elastic, and that's not until post Charles Goodyear's discovery in 1839. Congress gaiters in the US? That's a reasearch project. Just a guess, seems they're everywhere by the mid-late 1850s, but I'm just going off the top of my head on that one.
tmattimore

Re: Civil War Shoemaking

#45 Post by tmattimore »

D.A.
Thanks for the info. The pair I was shown was hecho en mexico which is I suppose a compliment to see your work taken overseas, if albiet a not very profitable one. As to the congress boots I am contemplating these in a veg tanned 1 piece front and was wondering how old they were. Thanks again Tom
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Re: Civil War Shoemaking

#46 Post by das »

Tom,

No comment on the "great high-low" rip-off, much less the off-shore production *ahem*.

The earliest "Congress" gaiters I've seen have a whole vamp shaped more or less like a closed-tab "Oxford" shoe, but a two piece leg, seamed up the back, and up the center front. Good luck.
pablo

Re: Civil War Shoemaking

#47 Post by pablo »

Tom,
Have seen a complaint about the gore( elastic insert for congress shoe/boot)in 1860 that decries weakness of the style and suggests an all leather gaiter instead.
Given elastic history, as Al wrote, that congress must date from the 1850's.
There was also a creole congress gaiter described as full vamp( not seamed up the center)with gore as usual, also contemporary to above date.
Tmattimore

Re: Civil War Shoemaking

#48 Post by Tmattimore »

Thanks again I have found an original with a purported 1870's date with a one piece front and two piece rear. as usual the elastic that is left has totally broken down and is as soft as butter. The rear has a back strap that might have served as a pull but it is torn off. The sole is mckay sewn(so post 62) with a pegged half sole repair. The shape of the last is consistent with the era shallow squarish toe and the sole at the instep is under cut quite a bit. So I thought I would ask. Any Idea where to find drawings or photos of others would be appreciated. Tom
pablo

Re: Civil War Shoemaking

#49 Post by pablo »

Tom,
Located the following in research file piles of unindexed data:

1840 Pat. No. 1841 John H. DuPont & Theo. Hyatt
Gaiter shoe with elastic gum gores ., NYC
elastic is muslin coated india rubber in a
method inventors call shirring
The term Congress is not used
1860 Henry H. Holmes uses the term Congress gaiter and defines them as boots or gaiters with elastic gores of " shirred cloth".
das
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Re: Civil War Shoemaking

#50 Post by das »

Pablo,

Great details. Thanks.

Let me ask you this, am I reading you right "elastic" in c.1841 is muslin coated India Rubber, that is not vulcanized? When do we get vulcanized rubber "bands" in the elastic gore then?

What's the full 1860 Henry Holmes "Congress" citation? A book? A catalogue? A patent? What?

Tom,

If you can find it [John D. Rockefeller Library at Colonial Williamsburg & Library of Congress have it], 'The Boot & Shoemakers' Assistant', by Anon., two volumes [one full-size fold-out patterns] published by Groombridge in London, 1853, has a number of patterns for these and other boots of the time, plus lay-out instructions, geometric method. 'Sampson's System of Boot Cutting', James H. Sampson, [Worcester, Mass., 1854], also has patterns/diagrams, but is tiny format.

I've made spring-side boots to B&SA 1853 pattern, and they look ultra "Victorian". You want to at least line the quarters, so the cut edges of the elastic gores are sandwiched in between layers, otherwise they'll fray, curl, and screw-up. Some good cotton thread and a tightly adjusted 29-class Singer is a great thing to have for sewing in elastic gores, in fact this application is touted in the early advertising for these.

Hint 1: leave the lining whole, that is don't cut the openings for the gores inside until later. This keeps the elastic side gores "closed" during lasting, making. etc., like lacing the tabs shut on a shoe upper for lasting, so you don't spread them open in the process.

Hint 2: when buying elastic, the best I ever found was black on one side, and a pale dusty-purplish-brown on the other, and thick. If you ever find this make of elastic, let me know who manufactures it. I can't find it anymore.

Hint 3: for nice tapes for the front and rear pull-on loops, try Wooded Hamlet's web-site.

Post us a picture once you have 'em done.
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