Through the Mists of Time...

[dw]

Rick, Al,

They might have been subsumed into the American Apparel and Footwear Association http://www.apparelandfootwear.org/

But here's an older email address and phone # for them:

Footwear Industries of America
1420 K street, NW suite 600 WASHINGTON, DC 20005
Tel: 1 202 789-1420 - Fax 1 202 789-7257
E-mail: info@fia.org


Tight Stitches
DWFII--HCC Member

[romango]

Oh yeah. In 1968, 21% of US shoes came from overseas. In 2006 98% of US shoes came from overseas, 84% of that from China.

Check it out: http://www.apparelandfootwear.org/UserFiles/File/Statistics/shoestats2006.pdf

[das]

Good going Rick, you found just the stats I was thinking of. Maybe Larry or others with closer ties to the late-great modern US shoe industry can flesh this out a bit more, but as I understand it, this all began with a few US shoe companies experimenting with having certain of their cheap casual lines made off-shore. Then another, and another... until finally they slit their own throats. It was not foreign shoes by foreign firms being exported to break into the US market per se--it was our own well-beloved US manufacturers getting greedy and committing slow suicide, or "death by a thousand cuts".

The last time there was an imbalance of domestic/foreign (British) shoes like this was not since the early 1600s, when "Americans" numbered in the hundreds (thousands?), we were British colonies, and mercantilism/colonialism was the economic "rule". IOW, a case could be made that no sovereign independent nation has ever demonstrated historically that it can survive with an imbalance such as this. Maybe we'll prove it works? Maybe, but there is little or no historical precedent propping it up.

With the "firedoors" and "water-tight hatches" of sovereign borders/nations, currencies, etc., all being whirled into one big bowl of global spaghetti so to say, it will be interesting to see how fast economic "fires" or "water flooding the ship" races through the whole world un-checked. Of course fire-doors and water-tight hatches" are cumbersome and awkward to "keep closed", but they do confine fires and water and keep them from spreading. Like the current "credit crisis" that's racing unchecked around the globe, which is not so much a credit crisis as much as it's a "payment crisis", and these greedy folks who were doing their little happy-dance when it came to making all those shaky loans and then out-sourcing all the well-paying jobs for the people owing the loans, are the very ones scratching their heads today wondering "Gee, what went wrong?".

As I've said before, history is our "decision tree"--it's handy stuff to know. Or, why (philosophically) must a decent common pair of shoes cost less than an average day's to a week's wages, like they have for centuries in the well-shod counties? Think about that long and hard

[romango]

Credit goes to DW for locating the stats.

Another revealing factoid:

2005 women's shoes imports: 879,901
men's imports: 255,551

The gals like their shoes!

[marcell]

wow.. Our trade is MUCH older what we thought...

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19726405.100-ancient-bones-suggest-cavemen -wore-boots.html

[dw]

Marcell,

Our history wonk--Al Saguto--should really address this but he's probably off trying to make a living today...or in the wilds of lower Patagonia trying to decipher an ancient codex that will allow him entrance to the treasure cave.

That said...as it was explained to me...people have been wearing shoes and boots for a long, long time. But the actual Trade--where a dedicated maker...not just some old woman chewing rawhide and stitching together some foot bags for her mate...makes footwear for a third party in exchange for goods, is less ancient. Of course, the newspaper article doesn't make a distinction one way or the other, but it's that professional, dedicated, aspect that is the true origin of the Trade.

Or so it was told to me...


Tight Stitches
DWFII--HCC Member

[tmattimore]

D.A. I just got enough free time to answer your post on the demise of the U.S. shoe industry. I think it is a little more complicated then you stated. Prior to 1955 (U.S. V USMC) USM was a world monopoly on the the shoe industry. They held most of the patents on shoe machinery, processes and technology. There entire bussines model was based on the U.S. tax code. At the time it could take up to 19 years to depreciate a littleway stitcher etc.

If you were an enterprising young outfit you could telex USM and tell them that you wished to make 1200 pair a day of welted work boots. About 2 weeks later trucks would arrive at your plant and USM mechanics would unload, set up the machines and train your operators. You could also turn your patterns over to them and your cuttings dies would arrive with the equipment.

This was done on a lease payment which under the tax code would allow you to deduct the expense as you paid for it with no long term depreciation or major capital investment involved. If a machine broke down a USM road man would fix it within 24 hours or it would be replaced. When the machine wore out they would send a new one.

After the break up of USM by the courts the bean counters took over the shoe industry along with most of the other manufacturing in the states. Within five years of the breakup Brown shoe co which had been the major instigator of the original suit was manufacturing overseas. In the 1970s when the multi composition injected soles came along the capital investment required was huge. An 8 station injection mold machine with a full set of molds in your size range could run $30,000 (1970 real dollars) to meet the demand you might need 4 or 5 machines. The bean counters decided that if they went overseas and subcontacted it all out they could save money and give the executives nice fat bounuses which are tax deductable.

IF USM had still been around it might have saved some of the industry but probably not all of it. For those who don't know the main citation in the breifs filed by the U.S. against Microsoft was U.S. V USMC 1955 Think of the long term consequences of that in an election year
Tom

[large_shoemaker_at_large]

Hi Tom
Very interesting. I noticed on and old Landis line finisher the Sign read "Landis Shoe Machinery LTD. " them wrapped around the out side "Own your own". I asked one of the old fellows what that meant. He replied "before you could only lease" at the time I didn't understand? Since watching a t.v. documentary on Howard Hughs, he would only lease a drill bit. AHHHH. made since. Do you know when Landis started operation? Were they geared for the repair market only?

In Canada we had import quotas till the mid seventies once done away with, the Canadaian footwear industry also took a dive. But still a few firms are still around, good quality and niche
markets.
Thanks for the info
Brendan

[tmattimore]

The "own your own" label came about after the 1916 anti-trust suit that prevented USM from blocking any leasor from purchasing machines from competitors. My 1901 outsole stitcher does not have it.

Landis/American were always geared to the saddle,harness, tack and shoe repair trades. I belive Landis started in the 1870's with the boat tailed shuttle harness machine, the Landis #1.

Ft Sill OK has their original machine purchased, if I recall corectly, in 1881. It is the oldest Landis machine I know of.

[large_shoemaker_at_large]

Hi Tom
Thanks for the info. You are a wealth of knowledge!
Do you know of a web site where I can find the age of my old Landis sole stitcher? or is it built into the serial #.

Anti trust suits in 1916 ? My I had no Idea that the shoe machine history was so hot. Didn't they have ww 1 to contend with? or did the supply of footwear for the troops add to the mix.
Regards
Brendan In the frozen North

[das]

Tom,

Thanks for the low-down on USMC/anti-trust history, etc. I guess this all begs more questions.

Anybody have any thoughts on BUSMC (British United Shoe Machinery Corp.), and how they operated? Was it different in continental Europe?

If it weren't for USMC et al leasing/servicing the many and expensive machines necessary (lease fees based purely on the count of units stitched--hence those little counter boxes on the older iron beasties.)--which supposedly put small manufacturers onto an equal(?) footing with larger ones, with all that tech-support--which is not at all like firms today leasing IBM computers, instead of having to purchase them--how "bad" was this really?

Capitalizing a huge 1920s shoe factory's machinery requirements would have killed the trade off right there, if the machinery wasn't available for lease, no?

As the 1920s (until the crash of '29) saw the height in the number of US shoe manufacturers, and pairs produced per annum, what's the correlation to the USMC suit? If one created a graph to plot the correlation between the USMC rise, then fall to the anti-trust thing, and the growth and decline in US footwear production, I'm not thinking we'd see a parallel? Tell me more, maybe I'm not getting it.

I know folks running ancient USMC Goodyear welt machinery, and who still pay lease fees to "USMC", or whoever now owns their lease-holds. In fact I was in discussion about buying a firm, until we discovered that several of the essential machines were not owned (to sell to me), but still leased from USMC. And, not being interested in leasing 80 year old clapped-out machinery, for which there is no longer any tech-support, I passed it up *sigh*.

As to the shoe-repair trade (and Landis machines), I'm just speculating here, but the old boys I knew in the '70s remembered the days when, if you wanted to open a shoe repair shop, you'd have to go into hock to a local finder (grindery), who'd not only lease you all your necessary machinery, but insisted you buy all your supplies from them as well. When I started, even into the '80s, some local finders in the Washington, DC area still dealt in second-hand machinery, which they would lease to you if you couldn't afford to buy it outright. That's were I learned Singer patching machines inside and out, rebuilding and refurbishing them for one finder for extra income, as well as doing service calls to their lease machine customers to tweak and tune them up in their own shops.

My Landis stitcher (12-L, 1967 mfg.), MacKay ('60s dated), 5-in-one, etc. all have the "own your own" logo in too, which I assumed sprang from the "explosion" in US shoe repair shops after WWII, in the 1950s, which I think was the high-water-mark for them numbers-wise. So, if the Landis "own you own" thing started way, way back, how does that correlated with the graph of proliferation in shoe repair shops after owning, rather than leasing was introduced? Surely it would cost a bomb to outfit a 1950s shoe repair shop, which was why the finders held such sway leasing out old junk.

[tmattimore]

Brendan
The first 2 numbers of any Landis machine serial number is the year that it was made. The early years of the 20th century were good times for the anti trust lawyers as Teddy had given the Justice dept some muscle for the first time.
Al
My thesis is that with out USM the shoe industry might never have grown as quickly as it did. One of the most important parts of USM's business model was they paid top dollar for every patent that looked good and usualy hired the guy they bought it from to develop the machine or process with the backing of a 4000 man plant.That all started when Mckay bought Blakes patent in 1857 and them hired him to work in perfecting the machine and training the operators.

Usm also did shoe repair leasing and there is a photo of a truck mounted mobile shoe repair shop they donated to the army in WW1. Landis managed to get orders from the navy to out fit shoe repair shops on battleships and later in ww2 aircraft carriers and crusiers.
Tom

[das]

Tom,

My bad. I thought you were tracking USMC and the anti-trust thing as contributing to the decline, not the rise, of the US shoe biz.

I have a US Army manual for curved-needle stitchers, that went with a GI shoe repair trailer--a pretty complete little shop hitched to the back of a "duce and a half" it would appear. Jim Bowman, past HCC President and great lastmaker, used to make boots, too, for a time. He had a neat compact rig off one of those Navy ships: it was composed of an "A" frame with two long axles for finishing/sanding wheels, and mounted on top running off the same motor was a curved-needle. Nice set up. Wish I'd had the money when he was selling it off 20 years ago.

[tmattimore]

Actualy both. With out the elephant in the room that USM had been when the multi composition soles came around in the 60's no U.S. manufacturer wanted to touch them as the capital outly was to big. Also none of the big U.S. makers had the foresight to understand just how popular the process would become except small inovative outfits like Reebok and Nike. I am sure the bean counters told the CEO's "hell they are just fancy sneakers there is no money to be made in sneakers" HAHA.
In the tax structure we had then and now inovation will always be forced overseas for production.
Hurrah for this forum where hopefuly the knowledge if not the machinery can be passed on.
Tom

[das]

Tom,

Tell me your thoughts on the advent of wide-spread DMS/injection molding. The story I've heard for years was it was a proprietary Bata system, but like MacKay-Blake and that machine, they needed a big buyer to finance perfecting and production of the machinery. Around c.1960, with the looming US involvement in Vietnam and sub-tropical venues, Bata approached the US military with their DMS system. For a handful of (really stupid) reasons the US military was deciding to abandon the Goodyear welted, Munson last, combat boots. (1)

Basically Bata got their DMS system rolling at a commercial level in the USA merely by selling the process to the US for combat boots, and the rest as they say "is history". As for "sneakers" (Plimsols--UK), with canvas tops and rubber bottoms, Converse had been churning those out in the US since 1907-8, right? The soles seem to have been DMS or at least poured-on since the 1930s? How was Bata's DMS method different? After all, Bata got their start making the same kind of shoes.

Frank Jones, maybe you have the inside scoop here too?

(1) DoD reports specified that: Goodyear welted was bad, because the cotton thread in the dopey mil-specs rotted--a simple change to nylon thread would have fixed that; the Munson last was "too narrow" fitting, by soldiers in the Korean war, because they were fitted new over one pair of socks, but the troops ended up wearing two pairs in the cold climate--they could have issued them in wider widths to resolve that. IOW, it was a few SNAFUs on the one hand, coupled with Bata's desire to get their DMS system out there... kinda reminds me of the shenanigans surrounding the adoption of the M-16 "Matty Mattel" rifle, which, BTW, just celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2007. For those who know their military weapons, this is just about as long as the Brown Bess flintlock musket of the 18thc., and the Short Magazine Lee Enfield .303 bolt-action rifle (1903-1947) held sway in the British army!

In his basically dreadful little book 'Shoes--Pacemakers of Progress' (use with extreme caution), author Harold Quimby makes the connections between innovations in US shoe manufacture, and the cash-cow of military contracts. Beginning with the Romans, who supplied armies and colonists from home, in lands far away, with mass-produced footwear, down to Oliver Cromwell's "New Model" Army shoe contracts in the 1640s, that required contractors/manufacturers mark their shoes so they could be traced when they failed prematurely--shoe-history and military-history have been inter-twined since the beginning.

[tmattimore]

I have always suspected that Bata managed to get their early process approved with out going thru extensive testing at Natick labs. The QMD liked them because they were cheap and with Macnamara and his whiz kids in charge any thing new was better. The main problem with the munson during Korea was as you said improper fitting and the huge surplus footwear still in stock from ww2, much of which was too narrow. The QMD web site shows 9 and 9.5 C the most common made during ww2. Also the service shoe, two buckle and Paratrooper boot had never been desgined for the extreme cold of Korea. The rubber overshoe had proved of little insulating value but was still standard issue when available.

There was some but not a lot of difference between converse's flat plate steel vulcanising and the DMS except that with DMS an operator injected 4 pair at a time while Vulcaninsing limited an operator to one or two pair.

I have read Quimby and take exception to a lot of it. The golden age of inovation when most of the patents for welted shoes took place was from 1857 to about 1900. The era of Mckay, Goodyear, Metzenlinger, Rex and Whitcher occured in an time when the U.S. army purchased about 4,000 pair a year for a 20,000 man military. A large portion of this was made at Ft. Leavenworth Prison

Any one who looks at a circa 1890's button shoe or lace up Balmoral, mass produced by the millions, and compares it to the relativley crude Campaign shoes of the army can see innovation was not on the mind of the QMD.
After Cuba the army went to a balmoral style shoe and used it for about 20 years. During the Punative Expidition they realized it would not hold up in the field and reverted to a modification of the campaign shoes of the 1890's. When the big orders of 1917 came in no inovation was needed as any shoe factory changed only lasts and patterns to make them. Ditto thru the second world war.
Tom

[das]

Tom,

Great stuff! It's been a while since I read all the DoD reports on service footwear from the years immediately following WWII, Natick Labs, etc. As the "service shoe" (6" Derby boot) and double-buckle combat boot were both manufactured in 139 length/width combinations, I conclude the "problem" wasn't that the Munson last was inherently a bad fitter--which it has proved not to be--but merely that the surplus stock-piles of boots on-hand for Korea were the odd sizes and widths? And, when they came out with the 10" brown ["russet"], grain, combat boot manufactured expressly for the Korean War, they just didn't make it in the wide range of sizes and widths, and again with that "stupid" cotton thread?

The US cotton industry, and their strangle-hold on the DoD for cotton web gear, etc., is another shady story....

Had a gander at Munson's book: 'The Soldiers Foot and the Military Shoe'? The WWI "Pershing boots" were a departure, and innovation, no?

What are your thoughts on the '50s craziness: the "MIL" lasts, and narrow, regular, and wide widths, abandoning the old letters; the dabbling in geometric grading of these lasts, and the persistent use of that "stupid" cotton thread? IMO the "MIL" lasts are a dog--designed (poorly) to be just big sloppy fitters, abandoning most of the best designs of the Munson, and designed for the making of Goodyear welted boots, then pressed into service for making the DMS/Bata system boots of the '60s and beyond, for which they seem to me wholly unsuitable (Goodyear welted boots insoles and bottom fill accept a natural foot-bed in wear, where DMS insoles won't).

[tmattimore]

Actualy the 1917 is a reversion in pattern to the 1889 thru 1892 campaign shoes, eliminating the speed hooks and making the counter cover and back strap in one peice. The 89 had a one piece quarter as in the french brodequin, which changed in the 90's to a two peice quarter. The speed hooks were eliminated due to experience in the jungles and forests of Cuba and the Phillipines.

The so called mil-spec lasts were a joke that must have been done when somebodys senator had his pockets greased. The Army has basicly abandoned them and now allows manufacturers to chose their own as they also now allow G.I.s to pick their own shoe size, something Munson was against. Both Bellivle and Double H still make models on munsons.
Tom

[das]

Tom,

I don't follow you on the "1917"? The boot Munson designed to go with his new last was nothing like the late 19thc. They fast gave up the "Bal" construction of Munson's uppers which eliminated seams pressing of the sides of the foot, and went (back) to Derby cut. But, WWI ain't my forte.

From what I can see the "MIL" last is still the norm for the "recruit boot" (black w/ speed laces; the "Desert" boot and the "jungle" boot (basically the same boots with a few minor differences, and in different colors/materials. They added extra depth for the Poron inserts, but it's the same gawd-awful last. Yes, at the moment chaos reigns supreme. The active-duty Army chap across the street says they just give them chits now, and let them buy whatever sand-colored basketball boots they like from the adventure-boy (I call 'em) catalogues. Converse, Bates, Rocky, Corcoran, all the brands seem to be making (or having made off-shore *ahem*) some kind of puffy, padded crap-boots to sell to our poor GIs.

Allowing the GIs to pick their own size, however, is as fraught with danger these days as it was in Munson's day IMO--not a great idea. Having grown up wearing sneakers/track-shoes, or Timberlands, un-laced and floppin', probably accounts for the very unsoldierly shuffle seen these days--they galumph along like pregnant Yaks. But then again, today's soldier doesn't march from here to there, he rides

[tmattimore]

In the 1880's the army copied the french model shoe with a one piece quarter that butt stitched to the vamp the seam was covered with a counter cover that extended to cover the seams. They experimented with numerous ways to bottom the shoe including a thin linen covered metal thread for inseaming and rejected the goodyear process, probably as the Ft. Leavanworth prison had lots of guys with time to hand inseam. By the 1890's they used a slightly lower model with a two piece quarter a back strap and the counter cover.

6836.jpg

The shoe had speed hooks and still had hand sewn inseams.

In 1904 they adopted the marching shoe a balmoral type
|image{original 1904}
This was kept as the dress or class A shoe until the 20's. In 1908 they adopted a 10 inch lace up boot with toe cap that was almost identical to the ww2 paratrooper boot.called the feild service shoe this was dropped as too expensive to make and its being to heavy in the deserts of mexico for marching comfort. After the punative expedition the went back to the 1890's pattern and made the counter cover and back strap into one peice and put a double sole on it using the goodyear inseaming process.

image{1917}

[tmattimore]

try again

6839.jpg

[tmattimore]

6841.jpg

The 1917 was issued stateside without hobnails all shoes going overseas were hobnailed. in late 1917 a third row of stitching was added to the backstrap and a rivet was added where the vamp, quarter and counter cover meet. In early 1918 A third sole was added the first two sewn to the welt and the third attached with brass wire nails similar to an auto-soler and a heavy large toe plate added.
The USM co modified three loose nailing machines to install hobnails and provided them to the QMD for use in France to install new or replace hobnails.
I do not have a picture of the 1908 boot which is the one I belive Munson and the Service Shoe Board wanted, or of the 1885 shoe as I have never found an original.
Tom
P.S. the 1892 is my work the 1917 and 1904 are originals

(Message edited by tmattimore on February 02, 2008)

(Message edited by tmattimore on February 02, 2008)

[jhstewart]

Marcell said:They didn't made right-left boots, it was one form - change every day
to last longer.

I'm not sure if I'm hearing what you meant to say. WHat I hear is that there was one last, used for both shoes (straight lasting) and that the shoes _on the feet_ were meant to be changed every day.

To me, this is one of the things we hear in history but which gets disproved by "experimental Archaeology. IN other words, trying it and it does not work.

Straight lasted shoes were the norm in the great majority of the 18th century; certainly while heels were in style and in use. Military orders were frequently issued that soldiers were to alternate which shoe went on which foot each day, supposedly to make the shoes last longer. Soldiers were also repeatedly told not to carry things in the back pouch of their great kilt, not to let women ride on the wagons, etc etc, the sort of order which would not be given repeatedly if if were not repeatedly ignored. I have made and worn (to shreds, [yes the weak point was where I thought it was] some straight lasted shoes. Yes they were softer than military shoes, but it was not long at all before they were so shaped to my feet that reversing them just did not work, and would give a foot a problem if a sturdier straight-lasted shoe were worn in a switch-foot way. So while there may be sources saying shoes were worn on either foot, it will take a fair bit to convince me it was actually done. I think that sometimes the concept of straight lasting, the fact that a NEW shoe could be worn on either foot gets people rather off track; much as Fortress Louisbourg has their staff saying that people wold BUY one shoe at a time. But that is another rant for another day and place. or not. Jenny in Nova Scotia

[das]

Jenny,

Sorry to just pop in here...

"Upright" (straight) lasts were introduced into Western Europe c.1580s , and displaced the previous right and left shaped lasts almost completely by c.1620 because of their economy--half as many lasts were needed to make the shoes than before when pairs were required. The change that precipitated their adoption was the heel--a new fashion in 1580--which came in various heights, each requiring different lasts. The important thing here is, the lasts were straight, not necessarily the shoes. There were asymmetrically-cut (left & right) uppers all through the 17th and 18th centuries, as well as shoes with straps cropped for buckling only on one foot. The majority of archaeological examples (4,000+ in N. America alone) only show remarkable wear on one foot. The best textbook of the age: M. de Garsault's 'L'Art du Cordonnier' (Art of the Shoemaker), Paris, 1767, decries the practice of swapping shoes from foot to foot as both painful to do, but also as wearing the shoes out faster. Petr Camper, the Dutchman, in his 'The Perfect Shoe', 1780-81, also notes left and right shaped lasts/shoes in the Netherlands at that date. And, crooked , right and left lasts (and so shoes) were reintroduced into fashionable circles as part of the Neo Classicism of the last decades of the 1700s.

The only 18thc. military reference I've seen to the swapping of soldiers' shoe was in Bennet Cuthbertson's suggestions (the edition I have here is 1776, but there were earlier ones) for a battalion of infantry--not regulations per se, just his ideas. And like you said, why suggest an idea if it was already wide-spread practice?

The over-blown myth that straight shoes were intentionally interchangeable, or intended to be swapped from foot to foot, was "busted" 30+ years ago, though it's still a fondly-held belief, and sadly still promoted by various historical sites, museums, and authors who really ought to know better by now.

Al in Virginnie

[tjburr]

Al,

One of these days I hope to be able to pull the names of books out like that.

Of course I had to see if someone had scanned it in. I did find someone who was selling the entire set of books from that collection for $25000

It is also available at http://cnum.cnam.fr/SYN/4KY58.3.html as a readable book, but it does not look downloadable. My french is only so-so and I will have to get my dictionary out and spend some time at a future date. I guess it was to much to hope for to get ascii text and use a translator. Still a quite interesting book based on what I could read.

Thanks for the ideas
Terry