Through the Mists of Time...

[das]

Terry,

Funny you should mention that... Before the summer's out you ought to be able to buy 'The Art of the Shoemaker' in full English translation, annotated by 6 subsequent 18thc. editors, as well as insights by yours truly. Keep your eyes right here on the Forum.

[I have no financial interests in this publication--no royalties, no remuneration]

[marcell]

Jenny,

I now personally Kalman Berta - maybe you heard his name from VASS' book - he is the last maker in the book. His whole family is last maker since many generation. His great grandfather made this style of lasts. And there are some sign in the folklore as well. And a picture from the old french book, what Terry posted - can you tell me about the soles, which one is right and which one is left?

6970.jpg

So I think even we tried and didn't work, it existed, it was real. Rich people kept servants with the same foot size, who wore the boot to make it comfortable. Maybe this part was missing from that experiment..

[large_shoemaker_at_large]

to D. A. and all
Do I assume rights and lefts were around for a while before straight lasts in the 1500's ? I can understand the reduction of last inventory but this must have been associated with a move to more mass produced shoemakeing given the time?

From what I glean the shoes may have been made on a straight last but constructed with a left and right in mind and allowed for molding to get a better fit.

When I grew up in the Prairies in south Sask the prominate foot wear was the cowboy boot, When you bought them you would soak them, yes some times with a bit of pee them wear them for a couple days apply saddle soap and that's what made a "good fittin' boot.

Regards
Brendan

[amuckart]

Hi Brendan,

There are a lot of very asymetrical left and right sole fragments from the middle ages and into the early 1500s. Whether or not they were universally lasted is an open question though, but some of them were.

If you can find a copy of Olaf Goubitz's "Stepping Through Time" there are a lot of pictures in there.

[das]

Marcell,

The picture you posted is out of Garsault's 1767 book I mentioned above. The sole has no left/right shaping yet because the shoe has not been worn at all

Brendan,

Yes. All the surving Medieval and even Roman lasts I've studied were crooked left and right. I only recall a very few shoes (Coptic?) pre-1600 that were not crooked.

The biggest impulse for reducing the number of lasts needed was the introduction of the heel, which exponentially increased the lasts. And yes, there are plenty of 17th and 18thc shoes with left and right cut uppers, as well as ones made or modified to only buckle on way (not switchable).

[marcell]

Actually I didn't say that we invented left - right lats in the XX: century only. But I can really say as a fact, that in Hungary 100-120 ago, they made "one-leg" boots. It is not a question - we have some in museums. Used ones. (and I mentioned Kalman Berta lastmaker also...)

[das]

Marcell,

My apologies if I seemed to suggest that. The "tired old saw", or "hoary chestnut" if you like, (both slang for popular myths that won't go away) is that left and right shoes (boots, lasts, whichever) were first "invented" in the early to mid 1800s--when the fact is, that before 1600 you'd be hard pressed to find anything except left and rights (lasts or shoes). I do not argue that you have non-left-right cut boots from 100 years ago. The last "straight" footwear I've recorded in N. America was around 1920. The important point here is, just because it was made on "straight" lasts, didn't mean it was worn on both feet, or swapped from foot to foot, nor that this was the shoemakers' intention. It was just a less expensive way to manufacture--one last for both, or even one pattern for both.

During the height of the "straight" last (not shaped left or right), c.1600-1800, most of the surviving shoes and boots (in Europe as well) show distinct wear on only one foot--not both. And many, in the days of buckle-straps for shoe-buckles, have these straps cut off short on one side, setting them up as right, or left, not either/or.

[marcell]

No problem. Anyway I should have post a boot-picture of it. I will try to search and do.

We absolutely agree - I also think that before that time, people was clever enough to recognize - they have two different leg, and used different lasts for them. Even shoes from Roman age are like this.

[das]

Marcell,

I always love to see any pictures of antique boots, anytime. Thanks.

You're absolutely right, and even when the fad for "straight" lasts started in Western Europe around 1600, the old worn-out shoes from that time, and on through the 1700s as well, show that they turned as left and right through wear as if they'd been made that way. By the mid-1700s shoemaking writers started to discuss the non-anatomical nature of "straight" lasts/footwear--they mostly decried it as dumb. I've never found it, and being written in Latin I couldn't read it if I did, but there was a work by a fellow named Borelli, title 'De Moto Animalium...' (something like that), which supposedly discussed the pernicious health effects on the human body of silly things like "straight" shoes, stays (corsets), etc. Garsault (above) writes a small chapter on this as well, citing one (just one) hunter and sportsman who had his shoes made left and right on lasts from plaster casts of his feet, which he thought looked weird because of their crooked shape, so he felt they were not likely to catch on. Garsault also tells us that *some* people (i.e., not everyone) swapped their shoes daily "to preserve their symmetrical shape" (IOW for looks), but "this practice soon wears them out, and pinches the toes especially when the shoes are new, and are re-shaped daily with the foot as the last." Subsequent 18thc. editors to Garsault (German and Swiss) seemed to argue the same point, based on appearances alone--nothing to do with durability, frugality, or extending their wear. By 1780-81, the good Dutch doctor Petr Camper wrote, blowing the lid off this, and recommending lefts and right (again). He got his wish, and by the 1790s, right and left, crooked, lasts are coming back into fashion in Europe, and even being popularized as far away as Pennsylvania and Ohio, USA by c.1800.

Thing I found strange in all of this, before c.1600 lasts/footwear are crooked left and right (even into the 1610s and 20s). But, by the middle of the 1700s even learned men seem to have forgotten this, and thought that the concept of L&R lasts/shoes was a "new" idea based on either nature, or on Classical and Neo-Classical influences--not a return to old way of doing things from 100 to 150 years before. How short their memories seemed to be.

Hey Emmett,

Hain't this last-talk gotten long enough to get moved over into another last-related thread? Just curious.

[das]

Thanks chief!

[neuraleanus]

Salvete sutores

Let me introduce myself, my interest is in roman footwear. I got into this from the desire to have an accurate pair of caligae to wear during reenacting events. I have no prior experience with shoe making. I has taken me a few years to get up to speed, the following link shows what I've done so far:

http://www.geocities.com/legio_tricesima_cohors_tres/campusMartis/MakingCaligae/ MakingAuthenticCaligae.html

All of the caligae pictured there are constructed in the same fashion, with an edge seam on the back and the soles are both stitched using a tunnel stitch and nailed. These are the same kind of stitches that the romans would of used.

I have not yet attempted the construction of lasted footwear, but I have been studying the work of others an I may attempt that in the near future to make a pair of calcei. The carving of a pair of lasts seems to be the most difficult part.

[relferink]

Lee,

Welcome to the Cripsin Colloquy

7314.gif

Thank you for sharing that link to your website, very educational. I just learned more about roman sandals than in all my years growing up in the city known to the romans as Ulpia Noviomagus Batavorum.

Rob

[marc]

Lee,

I think you will find that the "nailed" on soles is something that was decided long ago by scholars who didn't understand that it was the sewing that was the important part. The nails are for traction, but not to hold the shoe together (although they certainly help).

Good luck.

Marc Carlson

[neuraleanus]

Salve Marc

Yes, there seems to be much misunderstanding concerning roman nailed footwear. Originally I had simply glued the soles on with nailing and from the experience of reenacting I discovered that this mode of fabrication to be inadequate. Shoes shouldn't start to come apart after just a few events. More research confirmed that the romans did indeed stitch their soles.

[j_johansen]

All,
I wasn't quite sure where to post this and hopefully it doesn't cross any lines in talking about (gasp) Money!
My questions are:
#1: What was the price of a pair of boots/shoes(bespoke?) before the industrial revolution/mass production (late 1800's?)?
#2: Did a consumer in that time period have any other choices for buying footwear?
#3: Does anyone know the average income of a consumer in that same era? Is it then possible to arrive at a figure/percentage for the cost per yearly income of hand-made footwear in a pre-industrial society?
Thanks, J.

[tmattimore]

I would reccomend "The Organization of the boot and shoe industry in Massachusetts before 1875" by Blanche Evans Hazard, Harvard University 1921
By the late 1800's mass production of footwear had been around for 40 years. During "The late unplesantness of 1861 to 1865" the federal govt. purchased some 12 million pairs of shoes and boots, more then they did during ww2. Average price $1.25

By the late 1830's ready to wear was available thru the south with factory outlet stores in most of the major cities The principal ones being Savannah, St. Louis, New orleans. With many dry goods stores filling in for the more rural areas.

Wages could run from $8 to $10 a month for a farm hand to as much as $20 for a skilled laborer depending on the area and time period.

[das]

J.,

Sure, I guess we can talk about pricing as long as it's ancient history.

#1. Mass-production of shoes (by hand) has been around for 2,000 years +, and therefore so have ready-made, even imported ("cheap"] shoes. Prices varied wildly region to region, century to century. Bespoke made-to-measure footwear was usually (not always) the better stuff and higher-priced.

#2. Consumers have always had choices: new, second-hand, made-to-measure, or cheap imports. Those in large urban centers, of course, had more choices than those in remote rural villages. What time period before the late 1800s do you mean? Things were better in the Roman Empire, but much worse in the European "Dark Ages". In Medieval-Georgian Britain, shoes seemed roughly to be around a week's wages for working-folks. In 1700s Virginia, maybe a day's wages. What makes this part so hard to figure out is, there's no way to calculate an average annual income in the USA from 2004, much less in "X" country, in "Y" century.

#3. Again, "before the late 1800s" spans way too many centuries of shoe-history to be considered one the "same era". A lot depends on the country or region you're looking at too. The best answer I can offer you is, footwear came in a variety of qualities and prices, and people ranged from poor to rich, and made whatever choices they could based on that. You're probably safe assuming most people spent anywhere from one day's to one week's wages for a pair of good shoes. People today spend far beyond their means (in the USA anyway), and economics conspires to keep prices for certain goods artificially low to keep the middle-class feeling prosperous; meaning we probably have more low-end cheap shoes today than were available 100 years ago.

[das]

Tom,

Hazard is certainly a good source, but must be used with some caution because she fell into the old trap that all US shoemaking "started" or grew (elsewhere) only in or following the New England model. War-time (inflated) and Army contract prices must likewise be used with caution, as they are often not representative of what footwear prices (price ranges) were in the civilian, peace-time markets.

Ready-mades were available all up and down the eastern seaboard from the 1600s onward, in cities and towns, and even backcountry merchant's "stores" set up along the fall-line of rivers. Don't forget Putney, whose last standing factory in Richmond, VA, is now used at the DMV building on Broad Street--they went into business in 1812, long before the 1830s

[tmattimore]

Yes good ole Blanche is a start. Actually, I can't recall where I read it, The first items ever exported from the U.S. were knock off mocisains which made a big hit in England. Any truth to that? I belive it may have been before the pilgrims.
Tom

[jesselee]

DA,
Apologies for 'me' correcting me if I am wrong about time and placement. This does relate, but across the pond.
A British chap, old guy in the repair industry years ago told me that in the 'flea markets', ie. used clothes also flea ridden, that derelict shoes that came in were often refinished and re-soled to be sold off as 'new'. Perhaps I romanticize the old Dickensian ways, but I can see it happening. And of that time, which you, DA are recognized, could that not have happened here also, and to wit after establishing that market, when shoemakers had extra time and scraps on their hands, make shoes of a size that fit those scraps? For they who were in need and eager to purchase.

We must discuss the 'scrapping' of heels now

Cheers, and the 2 cents from,
JesseLee

[das]

Tom,

Actually the first exports from the English colonies--Virginia being the first--were supposedly wooden shingles. The investors in London were hoping for gold and pearls, and pretty soon they got tobacco (big bucks), but it all started with shingles. Go figure.

Bear in mind: Virginia #1=1607, Massachusetts #2=1620--a lot can and did happen in the 13 years between them.

[das]

Jesse,

No apologies...I'm just excited there's some educational/history-talk on the Forum ol' bean.

One of the most over-looked and un-factored-in segments of the big footwear-history picture was indeed second-hand shoes. This is precisely why the Cordwainers have contended with cobblers since at least the 13th c.--cobblers cut into our market by dealing in old shoes. Today we think of cobblers as the place where we take our beloved shoes to have them repaired for us and keys cut, but it was not always so. The cobblers' trade in Medieval England included the remanufacturing of old discarded or salvaged shoes, and selling them for cheap. The problems came to a head when the Cordwainers in London scotched this competition by merging the cobblers into their guild in order to control them. Subsequently cobblers were forbidden to buy new leather--they had to use 100% salvaged leather.

Keep the economy of scale, or rather the scale of such an economy in mind too--king Henry III was easily able to purchase (to give away free to the poor) in London, Winchester, and seven other towns up to 345 pairs of shoes at a time (in 1229!). In 1268, he bought 150 pairs the "next day". In all he bought ready-made 16,000 pairs over 43 years. These shoes were priced at: 4 1/2 pence, 5 pence, and 6 pence per pair, probably reflecting three common sizes, or your "small" "medium" and "large". Were they new or second-hand shoes???? And thinking back to J.'s post on prices/costs, how do you figure an average income for Medieval England????

This control of leather and other factors gave rise to a brand of cobblers, known as "translators"--the former probably repaired moreso for customers, whereas the latter dealt strictly in the remanufacture and resale of old shoes. And don't think "translating" was a homely little occupation either. In 1559 through 1594, Queen Elizabeth It's organ repairman, tried a little(!) side business. He applied for a license to export out of England four-million, eight-hundred-thousand old shoes in one(!) year, and he renewed and was granted subsequent licenses in later years. The impost rates (export tariffs) from England clearly indicate two rates--one very low for exporting second-hand/old shoes, and a stiffer one for new shoes (keep the best stuff at home=export the junk). So, logically, if you wanted to get into the shoe export business in 16thc. (and later) England, "translated" shoes were a very good place to start.

Interestingly the British colonies in America, which were established expressly to create a huge new overseas market for dumping British goods, for the next century or two, were only a dream in 1559. And only one, "The Lost Colony" in Roanoke, NC (est. 1584) had been planted by 1594. It vanished without trace. Where would an enterprising second-hand shoe exporter be dumping four-million eight-hundred-thousand shoes a year? I have no idea. The imports records for the English port of Southampton, in the 15thc, logged an impressive 2.75 TONNES of overshoes from Genoa, Italy.

In the 1730s, Parliament was told there were 700 to 800 shoe-making firms in the City of London, but the off-the-books firms may have included 30,000 workers. In 1750s Paris, they claimed 1,820 shoe-making firms, and divided masters into "sewing masters" vs. "merchant masters". Neither nation bothered to count cobblers and translators. In the 1580s London, "The Green King of St. Martin's" employed 60 journeymen shoemakers. By 1738, one London shoemaking firm employed 162 workers, ranging in age from 8 to 70 years old.

There was nothing "Dickensian" at all about your query, you just missed the 800 lb. gorilla, which has been sitting in the room for centuries--"translating", and the sheer size and scope of the business.

Let me suggest a few general books that look at some of this:

'London Life in the Eighteenth Century'--Dorothy George (1925)
'The Inland Trade: Studies in English internal trade in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries'--T.S. Wilan (1976)
'Shops and Shopkeeping in Eighteenth-Century England' --Mui & Mui (1989)
'A Foot in the Past: Consumers, Producers, and Footwear in the Long Eighteenth Century--G. Riello (2006) (controversial...use with caution beyond the 1700s parts)
'The Unknown Mayhew'--Yeo & Thompson (1971) (covers 1840s-50s London translators and shoemakers of all stripes)

[jesselee]

D.A.

I sure missed that big monkey. Thanks for the history lesson, I was not aware of any of this. Great book list, I'll be tracking them down.
It amazes me all those facts and figures for that time period. Also amazed at how regulated they were back then!
I'm awaiting when you come out with a book on all this stuff. I am contemplating one for next Spring. Hoping for phone access soon so we can have a few real chats on the Gentle Craft.
JesseLee

[das]

Jesse,

Glad to have the chance to jot some of these things down for posterity--if the Internet counts as posterity--some seem to think it's "publishing".

Those books are good bedtime reading *SNORE*, but they do cover much of this stuff in painful detail. In fact the French complained in the 1750s that the Paris Cordonniers (cordwainers) guild was the largest of all their trade guilds, and the most over-burdened with regulations as well as officers. The London Cordwainers were the mack-daddy leather-trade guild there, and had the power of search and seizure: they could confiscate any tanner's, currier's, saddle/harnessmaker's, etc., as well as cobbler's or fellow shoemaker's leather and stock if it was sub-standard material or workmanship, (or if they had a grudge?). They were supposed to sell the confiscated stuff and give the money to the poor BTW, not go have a big party. Imagine us walking into a shoe store today, shutting them down and confiscating all their inventory because it was crappy leather, or they were crappy shoes. But, when standards fall, today you see what we end up with. Imagine, too, that our trade was once again the largest occupation, like "management" jobs today. What if 1 out of every 5 people you met, knew, or bumped into on the streets was a cordwainer just like you, and could sit and talk bootmaking, boar bristles, or fitting the foot. Imagine how plentiful our supplies would be, how plentiful decent leathers would be, but most importantly how mainstream we'd feel, instead of hard-to-understand ("you do what for a living?" "Nobody does that anymore!"] artisan-weirdoes. The tables would turn. Instead of a Forum on-line where we congregate to openly share ideas and knowledge, it would once more return to a closed-shop mentality, where everybody would be jealously guarding all their trade-secrets and sources--the trade would be too competitive at that rate, perhaps, and I doubt we'd "like" it so much.

This history is pretty esoteric stuff. Nobody ought to feel weird for not knowing it. Studying history is like trying to take a sip of water from a fire hose. And the other problem with history is, they're making more of it all of the time, meaning there's a lot to try and keep up with. But, then again, this gives employment to the likes of people like me

Another book I forgot to mention yesterday: 'The Romance of the Shoe'--Thomas Wright (1922) (a good general over-view and history of the shoemaking trade, historically, in England--though it needs a lot more footnotes, so far all of his facts do check out fine)

[dearbone]

D.A,

Thank you kindly for sharing with us the history of the our craft,nowadays Cordwainers have to contend with shoe importers,they might as well be decedents of those "translators",the power given to Cordwainers to search and seizure of shoe stores i like very much and if it is given to me today,i will shut down 90% of them in this city and gladly pay it to the poor in my city,helping the poor was the office of my forefathers in different time and space.

regards Nasser