Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 18.djvu/143

* SHOES. Ill SHOES. I The clog or patten is a shoe with a wooden sole and leather upper, which is fastened to the sole with nails. In the United States the art of shoemaking was one of the tirst to be establislied, for we are told that Thomas Beard, with liides, both upper and bottom, came in the Jlavliower, on its third voyage. Jlassachusetts has continued to lead in the industry thus early established within her borders. For two centuries the shoemaker was often an itinerant workman, who, journeying from one farmer's family to another, tarried in each of the houselioUls long enough to convert the farmer's supply of home-tanned leather into .i stock of shoes sufticient to meet the needs of the family till his next annual visit. His last was roughly whittled out of a piece of wood to suit the largest boot in the family, and then pared down for successive sizes. The American shoemaker sat on a low bench, one end of which was divided up into compart- ments where his knives, awls, hannners, and rasps were kept and there was also room for his pots of paste and of blacking, his 'shoulder- sticks' for 'setting the edges' of heel and sole, and 'rub sticks' for finishing the bottom; his tacks, pegs, nails, thread, and wax, buttons, and linings. Close by he kept a dish called a 'higgin' in which was plaeeil the water to wet the soles; a pair of clamps to hold the uppers supported between his knees, while he seamed or bound them, and also the strap which, pass- ing under his foot, held the sole upon the last and both on his knee while he stitched on the welt or sewed the upper to it. Until the beginning of the nineteenth century all shoes were made by sewing them together by hand, but they were cut and put together in much the same manner as now, except that the operations have been shortened and also multi- plied by the introduction of machinery. In or- der, therefore, that the uses of the various ma- chines may better be understood, the general process of making a shoe will be explained. A shoe consists of two parts: the sole, which is made of very heavy leather, and the upper, which is made of lighter leather, or of cloth. The up- per, in turn, consists of various parts, according to the pattern by which it is cut, but in general the upper front part is the vamp, while the back is called the quarters. The upper may be sewed on to the sole on the wrong side and turned, or on the right side, usually by means of a welt. Tile first method was formerly employed for all the lighter, finer grades of slioes, but is now chielly confined to slippers. Shoes made in this way are called turns. A ircll is a narrow strip of leather, sewed on to the lower edge of the upper, with the seam inside, and then turned and sewed fiat on to the outer edge of the sole. It is now the almost universal "method for sewing shoes together. The lust is a wooden form, mod- eled after the general shape of the human foot, on M-hich the parts are placed in putting to- gether the upper and sole, and finishing the shoe. Last-making was at one time a part of the shoe- maker's trade, but is now a separate industry. In making a shoe, whether by hand or machine, the leather must be solidified by hammering or rolling: it must be skired. that is trimmed down to a uniform thickness, and all imperfections cut away; the parts must be cut out and the differ- ent portions composing the upper sewed together. Tlic sole consists of two portions: the insole of soft and the outer sole of heavier leather. Tlic insole, rendered pliant by soaking in water, is first tacked to the last. Next its outer edge a, channel, called a feather, is dug about ^^ inch deep, along which holes for the stitches ai'e pierced obliquely through the leather into the channel. The top is next lasted, an operation requiring great skill. The welt is tlicn placed around the sole as far as the heel, and then the upper welt and insole are sewed together in one seam. The bottom is then leveled up by filling in the depressed portion formed by the welt with tarred jiajier or other material. The outer sole, which has first been soaked and then thor- oughly hammered on the lapstone, is now tem- porarily tacked to the insole. A narrow chan- nel is then cut around the edge, through which the sole is securely stitched to the welt. The heel, built of .several layers, or lifts, is now nailed to the sole, and the shoe is ready for the final processes of trimming, polishing, etc. Three other methods are employed for fastening the soles to the uppers: pegging, nailing or riveting, and screwing. Probably the first piece of machinery that was applied to shoemaking was a combined lasting and sole-nailing machine, invented in England by il. J. Brunei, in 1810. In America the first invention which materially changed the methods of the shoemaker was the use of wooden pegs for fastening the soles and uppers together. With their adoption the development of the modern shoe factory began. At first only a .small por- tion of the work was done in the general fac- tory, the rest being performed in private homes, or in shops, as before, but with this great differ- ence, that the shoes were to be sold at whole- sale, 'ready-made,' and not according to the orders of individual customers. Shoemaking was divided into three parts: 'cutting,' 'binding,' and 'bottoming.' The cutting was done at the central factory; then the up])ers were sent out to one set of workmen, often wonien and chil- dren, to be sewed in their homes; last of all the bottoms and uppers were sent out to local shoe- makers, who. in their little 8X10 shops, formed what was known as a 'team' of workmen, wlio put the parts together, one man doing the lasting, another the pegging, and a third the trimming. About 1850 the rolling machine was intro- duced, by which the sole leather is tJioroughly compressed in a minute, a process which had re- quired an hour's time of laborious pounding with hammer and lap-stone. A little later the Howe sewing machine was adapted to the sewing of the leather uppers. About tte same time horse- power, and soon after steam-power, was applied to the running of shoe-making machinery, and with the adoption of the latter the various branches of shoe-makin" were gathered together under one roof. In 18M) the McKay sewing ma- chine, for sewing the uppers and soles together, was introduced, and at once revolutionized the business. See Sewing Machine. An improvement upon this was the Goodyear welt machine, introduced about 1877, by means of which the uppers and soles are secured by means of a welt, as previously described. In 1881 tlio invention of the Reese button-hole machine still