Historic techniques and materials

[neuraleanus]

Mike, What time period are you interested in? Most of what I know concerns the 1st to 3rd centuries AD.

The statuary evidence mostly shows men wearing boots, caligae or calcei, while the women wear sandals, soleae. Footwear was also segregated according to social class. At the low-end you have the poor wearing carbatinae, shoes made from a single piece of thick leather, soldiers wearing ankle height boots, either caligae, with open straps that lace together, or calcei, closed boots sewn either along the side or directly above the toes, and patricians wearing differing kinds of calcei, the type of which depends upon their social subclass. For example, a knight's boot differed in both form and color from that of a senator's boot. Unfortunately we know little about how patrician boots were made as none have survived.

[amuckart]

Hi Mike,

If you're after Academic Treatise, your best bet is to start with the works of Carol Van-driel Murray who is probably the most prolific expert on Roman footwear publishing today.

As Lee has said, what we think of as Roman Sandals probably weren't. The Calligae and Calcae (boots and shoes) were very strappy with a lot of cutouts in the leather, but they were still technically boots and shoes rather than Sandals.

If you don't have a copy of Stepping Through Time yet, I'd get one and start with Carol Van-Driel Murray's section in there.

Good Luck!

[neuraleanus]

Roman soleae, aka Villa of the Mysteries, Pompeii:

10563.jpg

These are made from three layers of leather, laced together, as was done during the 1st century.

[neuraleanus]

The pattern for the middle layer:

10565.jpg

[neuraleanus]

References for roman footwear:

Books:
1. Stepping through time, Stichting Promotie Archeologie, 2001.
2. Romische Lederfunde aus Mainz, Jutta Gopfrich, Deutsches Ledermuseum, 1991.
3. Bar Hill: A roman fort and its finds, Anne Robertson, et. al., British Archeological Reports, 1975.
4. Romeins lederwerk uit Valkenberg, W. Groenman-van Waateringe, 1967.
5. The world of roman costume, Judith Lynn Sebesta, Larissa Bonfante, The university of Wisconsin Press, 2001.

Web Sites:
Caligae:
How to make caligae
2nd/3rd C Calcei:
How to make calcei

I also have a 1st century calcei page in the works, coming sometime next year. First I need to finish the lasts.

Lee

[neuraleanus]

Mainz variant Caligae:

10574.jpg

The hobnails:

10575.jpg

[neuraleanus]

Valkenburg variant caligae:

10577.jpg

[neuraleanus]

1st Century Calcei (Mainz and Egypt):

10579.jpg

These are my first attempt at making a closed boot, I intend on making another pair correcting the many mistakes that I made, like better reinforcement of the heel. The new pair is going to have uppers made from cow leather, not goat skin as the romans apparently frequently did, as I have had problems with the goat leather ripping. The romans made these boots with the flesh side out. The color is a guess.

[skeeter]

Many thanks, Lee and Alasdair, for those very helpful posts. That's exactly what I was looking for, both the images and the lists of academic works. That gives me a lot to chew on.

[skeeter]

Lee, those two websites are terrific. Thanks.

[collageman]

Hello from San Francisco. I just joined the Colloquy. I am researching my family history, in particular one thread in which there were at least 3 generations of shoemakers. (Much of our family is craft-oriented in our skillset.) My 4 times grandpa was born in Germany circa 1774 but moved to Skien Norway in 1805. He was a shoemaker as was his son (a master shoemaker and one-time chair of the Skien Guild), and at least 2 of of his grandsons. One of the grandsons came to the US in 1856. He lived in NYC and Rochester until 1859 then moved to a mining area of California in 1860, where he had his own shop until his death in 1878. He advertised in local newspapers regularly touting the quality and style of his work. I am interested in knowing more about things like: what equipment would he have had (he paid taxes on it along with property), would he have purchased his equipment in NY and hauled it to CA, and where might I find images of what he would have likely made? It seems the HCC has some interesting books which may answer some of my questions. Any advice ideas and pointers would be appreciated! Thank you.

[paul]

Welcome Steven,

What part of SF are you from? We were in San Mateo for 10 yrs, and all the rest of CA as well before that. We're in AZ now.

How very cool. I'm looking forward to what might come from your querries.

We never hear of boot shops in the West from that period, and I join with you in anticipation of what you might learn here.

Did you inherit anything besides the skill set?

Best regards,
Paul

[collageman]

Hi Paul - I live in the Civic Center area - three blocks north of City Hall. Lived here 20 years. Grew up in the Chicago burbs, however.

I have quite a trail on my CA ancestor, whose name was John Hesler. He first lived in Hornitos, then had a shop right on the main street of Mariposa 1861-1873, then in Merced 1873-1878. I see there is a place to perhaps post photos - if so I may post one or two of his ads.

As I researched I became more aware of the "boot and shoe shop" signs that appeared in various Westerns and TV shows. They were there for a reason - they actually existed during those times!

Steve

[das]

Steven,

Welcome. Seems you have a lot more to go on with your bootmaking ancestor than most just starting genealogical research. There are some (not a lot) of older photos of shoe and boot shop interiors to go by, plus as you will find numerous tool, machinery, and supply catalogues from the mid-late 1800s too. What machines he may have had is a good question. Much depends on his level of production--was he working with only a few "hands", or did he have a larger "crew" making lots and lots of footwear? Machinery was expensive to buy in the early days before the lease system that landed United Shoe Machinery Corp. in anti-trust trouble.

[collageman]

Hello - sorry for the delay in responding, and thanks for the help. Hesler paid his taxes and according to records from 1863 he paid tax on his property worth $125, improvements valued at $300 (the store bldg), some chickens, "machinery" valued at $150 and stock (shoes and leather, probably?) valued at $50. In 1873 his machinery was valued at $300. At one time he had a partner - who may have been more of a business partner than craftsman. Other than that I have the impression he was mostly a one man show, but busy. By the time he died his oldest son was only 15 so likely of little help in the shop. I am going to Mariposa this Sunday for a few days to do more research so I may learn more. If possible I will attach one of his ads to this message. Steve

[das]

Nasser,

Archaeologists are on the whole a pretty un-biased bunch of very inquisitive folks, very "PC" these days, and in many cases not even natives of the lands they excavate; so if a summer dig in Spain by a hoard of grad students from Texas A&M (for example) hit a cache of Medieval shoes from Moorish Spain that had welts, we'd hear about it

Even turnshoes have a "holdfast", so that feature is not evidence for welted construction, but linguistics are an essential study.

"Young"? The 10+ thousand y.o. braided grass shoes from Fort Rock cave in OR? The 10+ thousand y.o. similar ones from the MO/AZ finds? "Otzi" the Iceman up in the Alps at 4-5,000 y.o.? There's plenty of the "old" stuff out there too. The history and development of "modern" Western footwear is merely one branch of the family tree that can be traced, albeit through several twists and turns, right back to the 1st c. Romans in the main.

A neat book I recommend on early Egyptian footwear : 'Catalogue Des Chaussures De L'Antique Egyptienne', by Veronique Montembault, 263 pages. Louvre Museum, Paris, 2000. ISBN 2-7118-3900-1 Lots of construction diagrams, stitch-downs, turnshoes (and weird variants), but no "welted".

On the "earliest" shoes: "Prehistoric Sandals from Northeastern Arizona" #62, by Gilpin, Deegan, and Morris, U. of AZ Press, Tucson, 1998. 152 pages.

Getting a bit dated as we've learned more, but still well worth a read on early constructions and the transitions Roman-Medieval and post are:

"Transactions 12--Museum Assistants' Group (1973)", Phillip S. Doughty, ed., Ulster Museum, Belfast, 1975.

"Recent Research in Archaeological Footwear" Technical Paper #8. Taylor, Swann, Thomas, editors. London, 1985. ISSN 0950-9208

There's plenty more reading on all this, but we move quickly into dry scholarly papers published in obscure proceedings from conferences, and in foreign languages.

If you can cope with the German:

"Archaolisches zur Geschichte des Schuhes aller Zeiten", by Robert Forrer, Schonenwerd, 1942 is a classic if you can find a copy.

[dearbone]

Al,

I have a great respect for the work of archaeologists,i spent days at the British museum looking at old finds and dead bodies.is a 10+thousand y.o shoe from OR really western? Thanks for the book references,will keep them on hand until there is time to read.

Regards
Nasser

[das]

Nasser,

Glad you liked the BM. You will find the books interesting. I'm sure the Bata Shoe Museum (local for you) has these and more in their library--just call them and pop by to browse.

Well, technically the OR shoes are just "paleo". But the peoples who settled there migrated from further West (Asia), as they headed East. The Europeans called Asia the "East", being from west of Asia, so I guess we N, Am. types can call Asia "the mysterious west"?

[bbane]

I'm an historical archaeologist currently analyzing footwear from a central Nevada mining site dating 1860s to 1930s/1940s. Have a boot half sole, probably a repair sole, with what appears to be zinc/lead square nails, 1/2" long by 3/32" thick, wedge-shaped end, slight flare on head. Think these are same as what Herskovitz shows and describes for a half sole recovered from a trash dump at Ft. Bowie AZ in Ft.Bowie Material Culture, 1978: Fig 66d, p 125 and description p. 127. These are definitely not the typical brass nails or brass wire screw nails I've been seeing on most of our specimens. Can anyone help me out with dates on these or a reference that dates them?

Also looking for terminal or end dates for the brass wire screw nails (machine applied)I see on many of the boots. When did widespread manufacturing using these screw nails wind down or go out of mass production? Are these still used today?

Trying to educate myself about 19th and early 20th century shoe/boot manufacturing; the Colloquy is a great source of information for me!

[das]

Barbara,

In a nut shell (others please chime in) zinc cut nails across the toes of pegged soles start in the later 1860s because the pegging machines could not go across the end of the toe, just along the sides/edges. Later the same zinc cut-nails were added to soles, no matter how they were attached, to reinforce the leather--the British called this "quilting" and kept using this method (w/ iron rather than zinc) until the 1950s. Iron cut-nails of the same type were used to "rivet" (nail) on soles of heavy boots since c.1814--but not zinc, I digress.

Repairers were never bound by any rules to repair a shoe or boot by the same method used to make it new, and many "vernacular" aberrations creep into repair work, especially in remote areas. Zinc and iron cut-nails were still being sold in the 1970s, but mostly for adding around leather heels to slow the wear.

The "TPQ" for "Standard Brass Screwed" construction might be somewhere in the 1950s or '60s, after it's introduction in c.1870(?). Tebbut and Hall Brothers in Northamptonshire, UK were still making brass screwed boots into the early 1990s, and I think Saunders (same area) still makes military service dress shoes and boots brass screwed. In the USA I'd look through the Sears and Roebuck catalogues to see when brass screwed starts to go away here. I'm thinking probably the '30s.

Be sure you're looking at "brass screwed" not brass nailed. "Screws" will have no discernable head, and threads. Nails, the heads may have worn off, but they will have clinched-over wire points on the insole, and maybe corrugated sides (not spiral thread). The "screw" wire fed off a spool of threaded brass wire, the machine drove the wire, cut it to length, and knocked in down tight in one operation--pretty neat.

[das]

See: http://books.google.com/books?id=ajsEAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA993&lpg=PA993&dq=standard+scr ew+machine+boots&source=bl&ots=rg_RD-hedC&sig=0QtHkb_MazFAR_BPOJVrLqmsmSY&hl=en& ei=duZOTL2sKoGBlAed8qT0CA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CA8Q6AEwAA #v=onepage&q=standard%20screw%20machine%20boots&f=false

[das]

And this: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:kpXorRjOkZ4J:encyclopedia.j rank.org/SHA_SIV/SHOE_a_word_appearing_in_the_Te.html+standard+brass+screw+machi ne+boot+making&cd=9&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

[das]

R. M. Williams still makes brass screwed boots: http://www.rmwilliams.com.au/home.asp?pageid=30A4383191C26B9B&departmentproductt ypegroupid=9C8322E9C7C024FB

[jesselee]

Barbara
Essentially the 'brass screw nails' were the precurser to the 'auto-soler'. The brass nails being thicker than auto-soler wire. I believe the machine was invented just before the Civil War, and was used like Al says at least to the 30's. I have an autosoler which I will convert for brass screw nails, and am orking on a method to turn the brass wire into the proper screw. The examples I have are very steep pitched and almost 1/16th of an inch taken from CW period elastic sided boots. Hope this helps.

Cheers,
JesseLee

[das]

Jesse,

Lemme know if you have any luck. I investigated converting my Auto Soler to feed brass "standard screw wire" and in the end it was a no-go--the operating principles are much the same, but the wire size and other things are quite different it turned out. Besides, even regular Auto Soler parts are getting scarce down here. I hate putting any iron or steel nails or screws in footwear. Brass is kindlier to the leather.

The Encyclopedia Britannica link I posted gives the genisis of the machine. If you've got a brass screwed boot before the introduction of the Standard Brass Screwed machine I'd be mighty interested in knowing more

You sure it isn't a corrugated brass "rivet" sole nail?

BTW, loved the M-1851 and Drover's boot you posted in Gallery--crazy week here with friends' wedding so no time to comment.