Through the Mists of Time...

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Re: Through the Mists of Time...

#26 Post by das »

Pablo,

Oh don't get formal on me here.

1) "10,000 years..."--yes, there are shoes, sandals and other footwear surviving, dating back that far that can be studied, and which reveal the "rich" history of their making [technology].

Shoemaking/bootmaking: I read what Marc added [thanks], but my initial point was that the cowboy boot, as it exists today, barely pre-dates the 19-teens. Later you mention the following details: "1. Welts, a thousand years old?"--there are Roman examples from Mainz, 1st AD, with something like a welt, however the welted construction we all know and love seems to have spread out from Germany in the 1400s, but Marc can flesh that out if I'm being too general; "Pegged shanks w/arch support ... 1000 years?"--the use of pegs is spotty, but Roman examples are known, as well as Medieval [late] references to shoes repaired with pegs; shanks, per se, don't come in before heels do, but there are Roman sandals with added stiffeners in the same place; "Heel over 1 1/2 and stacked .. 1000 years?"--not until c.1600 in any numbers--first ones in stacked leather are in Poland ["polony heels"]--June Swann just gave a paper including these in Krakow, September '03 for Costume Society; "Sided boot .. 1000 years?"--do you mean side-seamed? There may be earlier ones in the East [Marc], but the earliest one [side-seamed pull-on boot] I've recorded in Europe is from Prague, c.1550, then there are European examples from 1600s on.

The point I was trying to make was, that the quintessential cowboy boot [say from the "Golden Age", post Tom Mix]--as we've discussed privately--incorporated many more traceable German and eastern/central European influences than English ones to my eye. It's just a different branch on the family bush is all, but it's an old bush.

"2.That bootmaking( riding boots in England for instance) is the sole possession of the makers there and does not belong to Cow boy boot makers. That seems to be the inference." I'm not sure I follow you here. Sorry. "Bootmaking", the broader subject, goes way back, much further than the advent of cowboy boots. The English have been making boots for a lot longer than Texas, I guess was my inference. Why restrict the term "bootmaker" to mean cowboy bootmakers only, which seems to be your inference?

"3.Cow Boy boots are quirky novelty. Prove it."--In the eyes of a European bootmaker, yes, the American cowboy boot might seem a "quirky novelty". I recall seeing them labeled as such in various European museums. In all events they are a "foreign" novelty [to them], or regional dress--the USA is not the center of their universe--and not too many people wear them there.

As I said earlier today, I'm not intending to denigrate anybody's boot, but face it, Texas was not colonized by German-speakers [from all over central Europe] until what, 1850? Isn't that roughly where/when the Texas bootmaking tradition that evolved into the cowboy-style boot began? You're doing a lot of valuable research into this, I would have thought you'd agree.
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Re: Through the Mists of Time...

#27 Post by gcunning »

I'm running a little late on this post but have not been able to read posts for a while.
The Ivory soap thing Tex told me about: he said something like, that adding a little Ivory to any of the water will keep it from souring. It works.
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Re: Through the Mists of Time...

#28 Post by gcunning »

Al
Please do not read in that this is any kind of attack. I just want to follow. I have just had to sit down and read a lot. I have reread and am still missing something. I know the below statement is what I have been told by others. I just don't understand what you’re getting at below, as well as, the other statements about cowboy boot making, in the big picture, being in its infancy.
-----------------------------------------------
- As I said earlier today, I'm not intending to denigrate anybody's boot, but face it; Texas was not colonized by German-speakers [from all over central Europe] until what, 1850? Isn't that roughly where/when the Texas bootmaking tradition that evolved into the cowboy-style boot began?-
pablo

Re: Through the Mists of Time...

#29 Post by pablo »

Al,
Tom Mix bought boots from an Irishman( Tx immigrant) who had apprenticed to an Englishman (who owned a shop in Ohio) possibly as early as the 1890's . Once Mix left cow boying he purchased from many makers.

The dated features on the boot seem to come together by 1500-1600 and that's what needs to be established for the hcc record . The 10,000 year
dating is a bit much. Yes I do agree with much else.

Your stance on your legacy thru the British connection doesn't ring with the "richest" sound.
After all, didn't the English inherit the last. Inherit the side seamed ( side welted) boot from the continent. Inherit the heel. Inherit the toe box..etc.. Well then, your focus on the english traditions it seems to me not much different than the cow boy boot makers esteem for their(our) immediate predecessors only expressed in a more robust( some think crudder ) fashion.You like the " proper" expressions of tradition. Western boot makers have been indoctrinated in the culture with the tendency to disassociate with " foreign" anything.The bragging about we're the best is made with a hidden awareness that many
"others" brought the knowledge here.. its just that no one has ever provided an accurate history
on which the " grand story can be told " according to a bragging chest-pounding westerner.

Quirky novelty in a museum??? Do you take the wording of a curator as apt description for Cow Boy boots that have a rich history of over 500 years ? Oh, how crude.
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Re: Through the Mists of Time...

#30 Post by marc »

Al, Pablo,
While I haven't gotten to physically see the original, the Zanjin Salt Mine boot (Iran, c.200) -appears- from the photo that it might be side seamed.

As I know you are aware, the unturned modern "welted" construction emerged in the late 1400s. Before that the construction was generally turned, and had what were -called- welts for quite some time before that. The most significant difference between the two placements of the strips of leather is that in the earlier form the welt went between the upper and the sole, in the later form the welt is sewn outside the upper. The earlier version actually appears to go back to Egypt (Al, take a look at Montembault's typology "d" - THAT one, which has some interesting similarities to "welted construction" dates to the 18th dynasty).

We don't know if the English "inherited" the last or not, since we really haven't locked down the actual origin of the last (remember what I said about "spotty"?). Although it is likely that everyone inherited it from whoever DID invent it.

Pablo, when the topic of "rich history" was brought up, I don't think it was specifically regarding the western boot, it was with regards to footwear in general.

Marc
fletch

Re: Through the Mists of Time...

#31 Post by fletch »

pablo,

I think I remember a post from you sometime ago that G. K. Lange learned to make boots at Justin's in Nocona, correct me if my memory fails me.

By the way, are you writing a book on the history of bootmakers? If so I hope to see it soon.
pablo

Re: Through the Mists of Time...

#32 Post by pablo »

Mr. Carlson,
Are you saying welts were not inherited by the English of the 1100's ? Other wise, that can only mean they invented the welt.
Did they invent or not the pegged shank.. the heel..the side seamed boot?

Will you grant that more examples of lasts exist
elsewheere than have been discovered on the British isles? If they invented the last, what accounts for more elsewhere if that is the case?

As for "rich history", I hope to be building a case for the paucity of invention in the basic elements of the shoe/boot on British shores.If that is true then the British are just like the
US.. stylists.
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Re: Through the Mists of Time...

#33 Post by das »

Gary,

Thanks for asking for further clarification. I can't tell what folks read into/out of my blurts unless they ask.

Provisionally [a good qualifier] my impression is that the distinctive boot we know as the cowboy boot today--not just the eastern mfg./export wellington--evolved mainly after the popularization of the cowboy icon in Hollywood [in the Tim Mix period, 19-teens and later]. Before that the boots worn out west were not too dissimilar from what was worn back east, and as Tom pointed out, many were mass-produced back east anyhoo--I found a nice 1850[?] catalogue from Philadelphia with the scalloped top-line on a wellington, a la cowboy.

I'll defer to most anybody on Texas history, but after the Alamo and during the middle 1800s, they is no[?] distinctive regional boot out there, just basic wellingtons, etc. By the 1850s many German promoters were trying to establish a "colony", for want of a better term, in Texas, and the first bootmakers of any unique type in the region were German-speakers [from all over central Europe]. And curiously many of the "proto-cowboy" boots I've seen c.1890s-1910s, seem to evidence a lot of these eastern/central European details, i.e.: side-seamed [4-piece or 2-piece Wellingtons] narrow box or dome-toes, higher tapered heels, scalloped fancy top-lines, exaggerated narrow waists ["shanks"], finger-holes for pulling-on, and wild embroidery on the "legs" [in German(!) "shafts"]. In fact I was working on a paper once titled, 'Western Boots: An Eastern Tradition', showing spooky parallels between central and eastern European folk dress and traditional boot forms, and the stereo-typical "cowboy" boot of c.1900.

Interestingly, I've found a few articles over the years that claim some kind of hoary lineage for cowboy boots stretching back to the 16th c. Spanish "Conquistadors", but sadly little fact to support it. It's kind of like the Scottish clan tartans, invented/marketed by the Victorian weaving mills, and touted as something "ancient". Not a few fist-fights have ensued from someone calling into question the genuine antiquity of somebody else's "clan" tartan, which was all largely a myth from the 1800s *sigh*.

Cowboy bootmaking is hardly in its "infancy". What I meant was, in considering the whole time-line of our historical bootmaking traditions, cowboy boots don't even pop onto the radar screen until c.1900, and largely confined in their popularity to the western US. Compare that with the English "jockey" or "top" boots, the antecedents of the modern English riding boot, soon copied/adopted by most European countries. They're on the radar screen from c.1720 right up to today, and have set the standard all over most of the world. Cowboy boots, though appreciated globally of course for their artistry and unique flavor, are still "quaint" American folk stuff.
pablo

Re: Through the Mists of Time...

#34 Post by pablo »

Mr. Fletcher,
All this info is eventually to become folio-ed. Your guess is as good as mine on how soon. Just this week I met with yet another significant "find" and that adds weeks.

Gus Kurt Lange did indeed work at the Justin factory in Nocona in 1905-09.
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Re: Through the Mists of Time...

#35 Post by das »

Pablo,

I'm not certain how tongue-in-cheek you're writing is, or how serious. So if I blunder by taking you too lightly, or too seriously I'm sure you'll tell me.

==============
"The dated features on the boot seem to come together by 1500-1600 and that's what needs to be established for the hcc record . The 10,000 year
dating is a bit much. Yes I do agree with much else."
==============

As we've discussed privately before, yes, most of the dateable features on the c.1900-20 "classic" cowboy boot can be traced to boots from the 1500s, and certainly the 1600s--the ones from central Europe and the Slavic east, not England. Is this what we're agreeing on? That's fine by me for "the record", HCC or otherwise. The 10,000 year record of archaeological footwear is apples and oranges. I never claimed cowboy boots, or English boots go back that far--there were no English then, and certainly no cowboys.

I claim[ed] no British primary connection for the cowboy boot at all, except perhaps that the wellington-cut is an anglicized version of the Slavic two-piece crimped front boots [sans the wrinkles]. When the whole-front side-seamed boot made it to western Europe in numbers, in the late 1700s. The side seams were cut straight, and the back of the leg was blocked to shape too. The English, I believe, developed the side-draft, cut-out reduction, by the 1840s, which has been an integral element in the cowboy boot. My thinking is, there is an eastern/central European connection to Texas late 1800s, whence come these details--not an English connection. But as I posted a minute ago--as pertains to cowboy boots--they are relatively late-comers on the scene, and regional in their appeal. You certainly can't claim that cowboy boots are/have been as widely spread or influential as English riding boots have been since the 1720s, when they [cowboy boots] didn't even exist until the late 1800s.

============
"Quirky novelty in a museum??? Do you take the wording of a curator as apt description for Cow Boy boots that have a rich history of over 500 years ? Oh, how crude."
============

How could American cowboy boots have a 500 year history? We haven't even had heels that long, much less cowboys, or a country. Perhaps you meant to say many of the same features of the Slavic boots, revived/borrowed by the western US bootmakers c.1900, have been influential for 500 years; but then we'd be bragging about Slavic bootmaking--not Texas bootmaking. I'm afraid, in the main, cowboy boots in Europe *are* quirky novelties, like Levis and baseball caps--not that they're not gobbled-up, they're just foreign and exotic to them. And don't get me started on curators' captions Image

Look, I'm not trying to get up your nose with this, just let's keep it all in perspective. Wasn't it you who had a long list of early Texas immigrants from the Slavic states/principalities in Germany who were Texas bootmakers?
pablo

Re: Through the Mists of Time...

#36 Post by pablo »

Al,Gary,
Two piece tall top boots were being made on US shores by 1811 and probably years before.
New Orleans had a thriving shoe/boot from its infancy as did Galveston where 25 plus makers were listed in 1860.
Since there were no cow boys before the "drives"
there coincidentally were no cow boy boots.. no demand in other words.Its a product of its time - the heroic time that eclipses the "quaint" tag from Mr. Saguto's refined touch. So, just like the English boots in Saguto's tradition, cow boy boots are copied across the globe, including England, my,my,my.
pablo.
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Re: Through the Mists of Time...

#37 Post by das »

Marc,

Thanks for the clarifications--I've still got guys with chainsaws and wood-chippers grinding away outside. Makes it hard to think.

Is the Zanjin boot a pull-on? On second though wasn't the high status gal with the big head-dress in the Steppes burial wearing pull-ons? The ones with the wild embroidered soles?

==========
"and had what were-called- welts for quite some time before that."
==========

Okay, jog my memory. Did the Medieval people call those added strips in turnshoes "welts", or is that just what the calceaological community has dubbed them?

=========
"(Al, take a look at Montembault's typology "d" - THAT one, which has some interesting similarities to "welted construction" dates to the 18th dynasty).
==========

*Mutter*, *grumble*, not that Coptic junk, but 18th dynasty...


Can you share with us that chart you published some time back on lasts--who had them and when?

And yes, I meant the "rich history" of 10,000 years of footwear in general. I couldn't have been referring to western US or its boots--the US hasn't been a going concern for that long Image
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Re: Through the Mists of Time...

#38 Post by das »

Pablo,

So what are you trying to say? You seem to be all over the place.

Yeah, cowboy boots are copied all over the globe these days, so are Levis... and the point there is?

I've even seen a fair attempt at cowboy boots made by John Lobb, London.

I'm afraid you've lost me now.
pablo

Re: Through the Mists of Time...

#39 Post by pablo »

Al,
The 500 year history is in terms of the various features used in the cow boy boot to effect the final product. Ofcourse the cow boy boot did not exist 500 years ago. Those individually invented aspects, the heel, toe box, etc. were all discovered then included in the cow boy boot in the 1800's and that's what is referred to as the history of the cow boy boot.It took them all to create the boot. Isn't that how history is expressed in VA. ?
Yes, there have been waves of immigrants which
participated in bootmaking out west, but they were
actually slaves to the demand that drove the style.Fashion is fickle and eventually the tastes of the masses meshed with the talents of
the bootmakers who had finally understood westerner's likes in about the 1910's.
pablo
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Re: Through the Mists of Time...

#40 Post by marc »

Pablo,
Are you saying welts were not inherited by the English of the 1100's ? Other wise, that can only mean they invented the welt.

I'm afraid I have no idea what you are talking about here - I don't recall saying anything one way or the other about the english "inventing" welts.

Al,
Is the Zanjin boot a pull-on? On second though wasn't the high status gal with the big head-dress in the Steppes burial wearing pull-ons? The ones with the wild embroidered soles?

The Zanjin is a pull on, yes. As for the lady you are referring to, I have not seen any footwear from the Steppes burials (i.e. I haven't seen anything on them, not that they weren't there). I have seen some of them from the Taklimakan desert, which are really interesting

{Okay, jog my memory. Did the Medieval people call those added strips in turnshoes "welts", or is that just what the calceaological community has dubbed them?}

The calceaological community has dubbed them "rands" Image According to the OED and the MED the term welt (deriving from an OE term for the sinew part of the thigh) was being used for what is called in Latin, the Intercucium/Intercutius (or loosely "between the skin&#34Image before 1425.
*Mutter*, *grumble*, not that Coptic junk, but 18th dynasty...


Yup. -REALLY- old Image
Can you share with us that chart you published some time back on lasts--who had them and when?


It's currently under revision for an article I'm working on, but basically if we are looking at wooden lasts we have some Coptic/Egyptian lasts that range from about the 1st-6th century. The Romans were using a wooden last in Rotweill, Germany as late as 400. There is a wooden last in the British Museum from Khadalik from the 7th-8th century. One from Oberflacht about 7th century, one crom Co. Antrim in Ireland from the 8th century, several from Hedeby 8th/9th century, Novgorod, 9th century, another from Oberflacht 7th or 10th century, Wolin 10th century, Dublin -probably 10th century, York 10th century, Bryggen 13th century, again Novgorod 14th century, a number of them from the west settlement of Greenland mid-14th century, Stockholm mid-14th century, and so on...

According to the OED, the earliest reference using that word in English currently known is from about 1000 in AElfric's Glossary.

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Re: Through the Mists of Time...

#41 Post by das »

Pablo,

============
" Those individually invented aspects, the heel, toe box, etc. were all discovered then included in the cow boy boot in the 1800's and that's what is referred to as the history of the cow boy boot.It took them all to create the boot. Isn't that how history is expressed in VA. ?"
============

I can't think of a good analogy at the moment, but I'd express it a bit differently. Of course these several features, individually, pre-date the "classic" cowboy boot, even pre-date cowboys, or the European colonization of the US southwest; however, if we were to draw a time-line of the boots we still know and wear today--the basic forms--cowboy boots would be plotted somewhere from up around 18890-1910. Before that the separate features we've discussed are concentrated in central and eastern Europe, or the European iterations of the Slavic-based "Hessian" boot and its fellow, the wellington boot. On the other hand the "English" [style] riding boot would be plotted somewhere back around 1700.

In Virginia most try to let history speak for itself, unlike some of our brothers up in Massachusetts, who've claimed they were "first" at "inventing" everything, or even the "first" colony, but I digress...

=============
"the bootmakers who had finally understood westerner's likes in about the 1910's."
=============

So you're saying the fully developed cowboy boot we know dates from about 1910? Fashions, styles, and regional tastes are complex, and you're in a far better position to decipher all of that as regards the western US than me. I hope you publish your research soon, it should be a gold mine for all of us.
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Re: Through the Mists of Time...

#42 Post by das »

Marc,

=========
"I have seen some of them from the Taklimakan desert, which are really interesting"
==========

Maybe that's the site I was remembering--they were buried in tombs under logs, well preserved, with horse harness [and horses?], and the stiffs had little bags of marijuana hanging off their belts?

Thanks for clarifying "rand" and "welt". I wonder...did the calceaological community person to first coin "rand" for welt do it in modern German, where "rand" is the word for "welt"?

In Aelfric's, is it "last" or "liesten"/"leisten" [sp?] from the Saxon?

Nice list you've got going on lasts BTW. It still seems a difficult case to say who borrowed the last from whom just yet, but do they seem to spread from east to west maybe?
pablo

Re: Through the Mists of Time...

#43 Post by pablo »

Mr. Carlson,
I take from your annswer about the English inventing or not, the last,the heel,the pegged shank and the side seam boot that you do not know. Is that an agreeable answer for you? Or would you choose an different answer?

In your opinion, during the 1000 years of fairly rich history of shoemaking, have discoveries
of lasts indicated England is richer or poorer than the continent?

Al,
The Hessian was not the fellow of the Wellington, it was its predecessor. The Wellington is a derivative of the Hessian. And I suspect the top boot is likewise a derivative of the continental
riding boots as well.

1910's is a good date for the item now known as the cow boy boot.The cattle culture society seems to have embraced its acceptable style and the makers were in full understanding of how to make the basic boot.
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Re: Through the Mists of Time...

#44 Post by das »

Pablo,

Not to seem contrary, but you're right and wrong on the Hessian/Wellington thing. Yes, wellingtons in England [and the US evolved] from the Slavic-inspired "Hessian" or "Hussar" boots. But, after Waterloo and the popularity of the Duke of Welligton's boot--at first worn under trousers--"Hessians" [called "Suvaroffs" or "Suwarrows" over here] were still made side by side with wellingtons into the 1880s [longer in England]; but those were worn over breeches or pantaloons, with fancy scalloped tops bound with braid and a tassel in front [see a bottle of Johnny Walker whiskey] Image

The "fashion" of stuffing your tousers into stove-pipe wellingtons, on the other hand, I think is a rural American vogue from the 1820s-30s at least. You see it a lot on the Mississippi, etc., and of course out west.

None of these boots dropped like Mana from Heaven. They're all related in some ways, filtered through various cultures. But I'm still wondering why you seem to want to deprive the English of any originality for their top boots, etc. here?

Through the 18th c. and into the 19th c., the Germans and French admitted openly that English boots [and leather] were the best, and theirs could only be improved by imitaing the English more closely. The top boot was as close as England ever came to a national boot style or icon. The continent saw the uniqueness and superiority of English boots back then, even if you don't today Image
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Re: Through the Mists of Time...

#45 Post by marc »

Al,
"...from the Taklimakan desert, which are really interesting"/Maybe that's the site I was remembering...

No, from your desctiprion, you are clearly describing the Scythian burials. I knew they'd found a lot of gold and such, but had missed the footwear... Oh well, I'll have to go look at it, Darn.
I wonder...did the calceaological community person to first coin "rand" for welt do it in modern German, where "rand" is the word for "welt"?

I have no idea. As far as I can determine it first appears in -this- fashion in the Thornton/Swann glossary, although if memory serves, in an article written in the 70s Swann says that it is a medieval term for this sort of welt. Unfortunately, I have not been able to verify this in any of the materials available to me at this time. The term "Rand" seems to appear in English as a shoemaking in the late 1500s referring to a specific sort of welt attached outside the uppers.
In Aelfric's, is it "last" or "liesten"/"leisten" [sp?] from the Saxon?

I think the exact quote is " calopodium uel mustricula, laeste"
Nice list you've got going on lasts BTW. It still seems a difficult case to say who borrowed the last from whom just yet, but do they seem to spread from east to west maybe?

It's seems to me that every time I come up with a speculation on this, I wind up eventually being smacked int he face with the evidence later on (a good thing, mind you, but occasionally frustrating Image ) but off hand if I HAD to make a guess, I'd say that it does look like there is a general trend from east, and south and moving into Europe. The real problem is that lasts don't survivve very well in the ground, so we have no way to say that what's there now is a representative sample.

Pablo,
I take from your annswer about the English inventing or not, the last,the heel,the pegged shank and the side seam boot that you do not know. Is that an agreeable answer for you? Or would you choose an different answer?

I'm not sure what you are wanting me to say, but but yes, it's fair to say that we don't know who invented any of those things. I'm pretty sure that no one's made any claims (at least not here) that the English -did- invent any of those things.
In your opinion, during the 1000 years of fairly rich history of shoemaking, have discoveries of lasts indicated England is richer or poorer than the continent?

I wouldn't say that England is either richer or poorer in archaeological lasts. In archaeology you tend to get what you get. The fact is that under most circumstances, wood rots in the ground. Sometimes people have been lucky enough that they've found lasts that have survived enough to be identifiable as such, and this is a good thing.

I'm wondering if we aren't having a problem with the meaning of "rich". I can't speak for Al in this, but I'm meaning rich not to mean abundant, huge amounts, as in coins in a bank. I'm referring to the depth of the field, the vibrancy and splendor of what we do have (although I can see why people might not find piles of goopy jerky all that interesting). This problem with communication is likely mine, therefore I will just drop out. All I was trying to do was ease what looked like it might be a communication issue, not dig myself into another one. My apologies.

Marc
pablo

Re: Through the Mists of Time...

#46 Post by pablo »

Al,

According to your friend Ms. J.Swann, the Wellington was dropped like a stone from the English fashion diet possibly even before the Iron Duke's demise. Hardly a ringing endorsement
for a namesake boot wouldn't you say? But considering that Wellington seemed to like the Hessian in his war years( wears them in paintings ) and that there are not any( atleast I can't find any) portraits of him in the W boot, I understand how the English decided to pass on it.

I can likewise understand how you prefer to tout the more successful top boot. It has been long lived as you indicate. In its hey-day the French were far more into shoes. The Germanics had their Hessians. Yea, the top boot compared to the continentals was unique. But, think back to your visits to England. How many have you seen ( top boots)? I've gone many times beginning in 1960. Never saw one other than in the boot shop. I have several friends there. None of them own or wear top boots. Several of those friends do own cow boy boots.

About the superiority of boot craft in England -
re-read Devlin,O'Sullivan and Rees. Their opinions are clear on the decline in quality of bootmaking in England, the un-standardized patterns for footwear and inconsistency in the trade. And, none of them claim to be the originators of the two-piece. O'Sullivan, I belive calls the wellington a German boot. Devlin seems to make a clarion call to shape up.

The English celebrated the Iron Duke by "awarding" him a namesake boot in a national expression of praise. In the US, western culture
celebrates an era thru its unique artifacts including the cow boy boot
pablo
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Re: Through the Mists of Time...

#47 Post by pablo »

Mr.Carlson,
Thanks for you full response.

In an effort to distill into palatable bites of
information unencumbered with researcher's required specificity and explicit detail beyond which you prefer not to venture, I thought you might estimate ( unscientifically you understand ) whether, in vernacular lay terms, England has uncovered lasts that indicate any possibility that development in lasts there preceeded the last development on the continent.
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Re: Through the Mists of Time...

#48 Post by marc »

Pablo,
To repeat myself, I'm pretty sure that no one's made any claims (at least not here) that the English -did- invent any of those things.

If I may make a friendly suggestion, if it is in fact your goal to attack the English boot and shoemaking tradition, put them in their place and show them up for pretentious posers, you might want to lighten up on the innuendo, and go for more of a direct assault. Long experience has taught me that Al's just too nice a guy to catch on to most forms of innuendo, and it just gets frustrating. A clear thesis statement followed by direct comparison of known facts works MUCH better. You probably should expect some frustration in the end anyway, since, with Al at least, the English tradition typifying the mainstream of shoemaking is pretty much as strong an article of faith as any other tradition's beliefs about their importance. Personally, I maintain that all footwear traditions are equally as important as the others, but have just gotten really tired of fighting about the merits of relativism with people who just don't get it (no insult intended there, BTW - simply a fact. The fact that some people just don't get it doesn't make their position wrong... Image ).

Now, I confess that I tend to focus on the English boot and shoemaking history a bit more than on the others, but mostly this is because my research really needs a baseline to measure from, and compare to, and that was the one I picked.

Now, if your goal in this thread has not been to attack the English boot and shoemaking tradition, then I am utterly confused as to your intent, and I apologize.

Marc
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Re: Through the Mists of Time...

#49 Post by das »

Pablo,

In re the wellington dropping "like a stone" from English fashion...I think you have misread June Swann somewhere. Go have another look at Devlin on the wellington too. The English "passed on it" ?! There are a-plenty of them in museums [UK], and as late as J. Korn's version of Golding in the 1950s, the pattern's still laid out how to make. Hardly the situation you suggest. I believe the sample boot made for the "Iron Duke" is on display at John Lobbs shop.

As to top boots, you must have missed the ones on display at Northampton Museum--prize work dating back to the 1800s--plus plenty "common" ones after that. Also Clark's She Museum in Street has a few from the 1820s on. All you really need to do there is look at the art history sources, and it'll be hard to miss all top boots.

=============
"None of them own or wear top boots. Several of those friends do own cow boy boots. "
=============

But, being a riding boot in its recent/current form, why would anybody wear a top boot if not on horse-back? I'm sorry, you're getting very hard to follow in your thinking.

As to the declining stadards mentioned by Devlin & co., it's all relative. Go to England and Europe and compare them for yourself in museums. The English ones are still winners by a nose. And even if you look at the boots of c.1900 through the world wars, England's still out front setting the standard for the whole world.

It seems all you want to do here is stir up some muck. I don't have the time for that.

As to the term "rich", Marc had it right: I was "referring to the depth of the field, the vibrancy and splendor of what we do have."

As to British lasts, you've done enough research of your own on lastmaing in the late 19h c. to know well the status of British lasts, so I'm not going to "go there".

What's your agenda? Promoting Texas bootmaking over and above____[English?]? I'm sory if I sounded to you like I was under-rating your bootmaking tradition. I'll go write "cowboy boots are cool" 1,000 times on the black board... but they still ain't as old as English top boots Image
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Re: Through the Mists of Time...

#50 Post by das »

Marc,

Ah, that innuendo stuff again... now I get it. Problem is I can never tell when Pablo's being tongue-in-cheek, or stroppy?

Okay, now I get it, he IS trying to take the mickey out of the reputation of English boots--traditionally/historically. Well *phiffle*. Can't be done. Nope. There's too much evidence to the contrary, especially when the French even admit in their leading shoemaking textbooks that the English stuff is best. Or, as I said before to Pablo--go over there and study the dern'd boots, you'll see for yourself. The French "never" say nice things about the English unless there's no way to wiggle out of it Image

And yes, all bootmaking traditions are valuable treasures to learn, preserve, and know. Just some are older than others, and some have had a broader impact on the world than others. In that sense, "relative" yes, but "equal", no.
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