Sidney Wilmot Winslow - Organizer and First President of the United Shoe Machinery Co.

August 24, 2020 Charles Williams

Organizer and First President of United Shoe Machinery Company

Sidney W. Winslow, president of the United Shoe Machinery Company, died on the evening of Monday, June 18, 1917, at his former home on Cabot Street, in Beverly, Massachusetts, in his 63rd year. His death, the announcement of which came with a shock of sad surprise, was due to heart failure, following a slight attack of ptomaine poisoning, which had kept him to his rooms in Boston only a few days. On Saturday he was taken to the house in Beverly, now occupied by his son, Sidney W. Winslow, Jr. and there the end came peacefully.

For nearly a year, Mr. Winslow had suffered from nervous exhaustion, due partly to an attack of grip, but more to his ceaseless attention to the cares and responsibilities of business, and last Winter he passed much of the time in the South in an unsuccessful endeavor to regain his health.

Sidney Wilmot Winslow, organizer and president of the United Shoe Machinery Company since its formation in 1899, occupied the position of one of the great leaders in the industrial world the natural course of things. His father was a shoe manufacturer and inventor of shoe machinery, and the boy when in his teens was familiar with the tools of St. Crispin. Then for fourteen years he worked in his father’s factory, becoming familiar with every one of the early shoe-making machines. As a young man he recognized, as did his father, the tremendous future possibilities of machinery in the shoe manufacturing industry, and before he was thirty years old had a controlling interest in the manufacture of one of the earliest machines used in shoe-making. Thus from inheritance and the associations of his youth Sidney W. Winslow possessed the foundation a commanding success. He saw the future, grasped the present, mastered his subject, and in 1899 with rare business ability organized the company which by efficiency and services done so much for the shoe manufacturing industry and the wearers of shoes.

Ancestry and Early Activities

The son of Freeman and Lucy H. (Rogers) Winslow, Sidney Wilmot Winslow was born in Brewster, Massachusetts, on September 20, 1854, being a descendant on his mother’s side from Thomas Rogers, a passenger on the Mayflower, and on his father’s side from Kenelm Winslow, an early settler on Cape Cod. During his boyhood his father moved to Salem, Massachusetts, where he attended the grammar and high schools, later going to work in his father’s shoe shop. This was half a century ago, when shoe machinery was in its infancy. The McKay sewing machine, which sewed the soles of shoes to the uppers - a machine which marked the beginning of the supplanting of hand labor by machinery - had only recently been introduced into shoe factories. From time to time other machines were developed and young Winslow, who rose to be foreman of the stitching room in his father’s factory, became thoroughly impressed with the growing importance of shoe machinery.

In 1883 he secured a controlling interest in the Naumkeag buffing machine, invented by his father. Later, he took hold of the hand lasting machine, the invention of Jan Ernest Matzeliger, a native Dutch Guiana living in Lynn. The idea that machinery could ever do the work of hand lasters had always been ridiculed, but Matzeliger solved the problem and the principle of his machine has remained during all its subsequent development. Mr. Winslow saw the value and the possibilities of of this invention at the start, and in the 1890s made a commercial and financial success of it.

The USMC Catalog page.- The Matseliger Machine - One of several versions.

Organization of the United Shoe Machinery Company

Inventive genius applied itself vigorously to shoe machinery during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, until its close there were many machines adapted to the various operations in making shoes and often several adapted the same operation. A new company had sprung into existence with each new machine, and many of them had a struggle to live. This multiplicity of separate companies made it difficult for shoe manufacturers. By degrees, however, the smaller concerns went out of business and in 1899 the manufacture of shoe machinery was largely concentrated in three companies, the Consolidated & McKay Lasting Machinery Company, the Goodyear Shoe Machinery Company, and the McKay Shoe Machinery Company, each of which respectively made and leased machines adapted to a particular class of operations, and not competing with one another.

Factory of the Goodyear Shoe Machinery Company

Still impressed with the importance shoe machinery as an industrial factor and more and more with the economic waste both labor, capital and the public caused by a multiplicity of companies making shoe machines, Mr. Winslow took the initiative in improving the situation, and the three companies just mentioned were consolidated in 1899 under the name of the United Shoe Machinery Company. Mr. Winslow was chosen president the company, a position which he filled until his death.

Mr. Winslow was also president of the United Shoe Machinery Corporation, of the United Shoe Machinery of Maine, president and director the Beverly Gas and Electric Company, treasurer and director of the Naumkeag Buffing Machine Company, director of the Newburyport Gas and Electric Company, the First National Bank of Boston, the United Smelting, Refining and Mining Company, and Island Creek Coal Company and a director in many other companies.

That Mr. Winslow should become a business and financial leader was inevitable. His life-long knowledge of shoemaking and shoe machinery, his constructive vision, his genius for organization, his great capacity for work, could lead to no other result. Success and supremacy come to such men because it is earned and because their qualities are those which must make for leadership of men and of industry.

The Result of Constructive Leadership

Prior to 1850 practically every shoemaking process was a hand process. With the advent of shoe machinery the methods of centuries rapidly changed. Today a machine performs each of the early process with greater accuracy rapidity, and economy. In no other industry has the introduction of machinery been more complete or more revolutionary. During the last twenty years the growth of the boot and shoe industry has been phenomenal, due to standardization co-operation, the greatest change from former conditions being regard to shoe machinery.

Today (1917) manufacturers, large or small, can obtain machinery on equitable terms, with special privilege to none. Machinery is the only item in the cost of a shoe which is not higher than when the United Shoe Machinery Company was formed in 1899. Through its wonderful products and far-reaching expert service, the United Shoe Machinery Company lowers the cost of manufacture, simplifies the problems and facilitates the business every shoe manufacturer and retailer, and helps to bring the best shoes within the reach of the people - with the public the ultimate gainer.

The Winslow Mausoleum in Beverly, Massachusetts.

Social and Personal

Mr. Winslow was a member of the Commercial, Algonquin, and Boston Chess clubs. His recreations were chess, tennis, and golf - and he played as he worked, with all the energy and force he possessed. And it was characteristic of him that he believed there is still room at the top for young men who are diligent, wide-awake, and alert to seize opportunities.

In 1877 Mr. Winslow married Georgiana, daughter of George Buxton of Peabody, Massachusetts, and had four children; Sidney W. Winslow, Jr., Mrs. Lucy Hill, Mrs. Mabel W. Foster, and Edward H. Winslow. He was a resident of Orleans, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod, and lived during the Winter at 10 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston.

Above text is from a Remembrance published in the USMC Newsletter, The Three Partners, shortly after M. Winslow’s passing. Images are from the Editor

Who was L. C. Bliss?

November 4, 2019 Charles Williams

Leonard Carpenter Bliss, was born in Rehoboth, MA, on July 10, 1834. Mr. Bliss’s father was a well-to-do farmer in Rehoboth. His mother’s earlier family was involved in an iron forging business in the area.

When Mr. Bliss was ten years old, his family moved from Rehoboth to Wrentham, MA., where they lived until he was about sixteen and where he completed his schooling. During this period there happened an incident that Mr. Bliss described as “ shaping the course of my future life”. At the suggestion of his school teacher he took charge of a general store and post office in Walpole, MA, for a short time, which was the beginning of his business career. He next took a position in Calvin Turner’s general store in Sharon, MA. Oliver Ames of Boston, one of his customers, observing his work ethic, offered him a position as clerk in the store of of the Oliver Ames Shovel Manufactory in North Easton, MA, which he accepted and soon became manager of the business at the age of nineteen. After ten years of service, he purchased a large grocery business, including flour and grain, in North Bridgewater, which later became Brockton, MA, receiving a $2,000 loan from Mr. Ames. Here he built up a very extensive business and acquired a good reputation as a large merchandiser. After several years he sold his business, to enter the retail dry goods and shoe business in Foxboro, MA, and later opened a store at Edgartown on Martha’s Vineyard. In 1880 he sold these enterprises and purchased a small shoe manufacturing plant in Brockton, MA, operating under the name of L. C. Bliss & Co., where he began making high grade men’s shoes, selling directly to the retail trade.

In September, 1883, Mr. Bliss’s son, Elmer J. Bliss, formed, in Boston, the firm of Bliss & Cross, under the name of the Regal Shoe Company, and opened a chain of retail stores in several large cities. In 1884 this firm was consolidated with L. C. Bliss & Co. and did business under the name of L. C. Bliss & Company, moving it’s plant from Brockton to Whitman, MA. In 1903 the business was incorporated under the name of the Regal Shoe Company with L.C. Bliss as President.

Thus, Mr. Bliss lived to find himself the senior officer of vast and flourishing company, the Regal Shoe Co., with a chain of stores established from the Atlantic to the Pacific and in Europe and four large manufacturing plants.

Regal Shoe factory in Whitman, MA. Additional factories in Milford, MA and Canada.

Brockton Shoe Manufacturers - 1893

October 2, 2019 Charles Williams

1893 picture of the Brockton, MA shoe manufacturers. Many had multiple factories in operation.

United Shoe Machinery Company of Canada

July 13, 2019 Charles Williams

The United Company of Canada occupies Up-to-date structure

In 1900 the Canadian United Shoe Machinery Company occupied the top story of a small building in the downtown district of Montreal. Fifteen years later it occupies the most up-to-date and finest plant of its kind in Canada, with branch offices in Montreal City, Toronto, Quebec and Berlin, employing, in all, almost five hundred persons, including traveling agents in the Eastern and Western Provinces.

The Berlin News Record, in a recent issue, refers to the establishment of this new branch at Berlin as follows:

“The company has leased the building formerly occupied by the Bricker Livery, near the corner of King and Gaukel streets. It was induced to locate in Berlin chiefly through the efforts of George and Oscar Rumpel, aided by the shoe manufacturers.

“Berlin is becoming known as a large shoe center and is well situated for shoe manufacturing plants.”

The head office and factory are situated in Maisonneuve, one of the largest suburbs of Montreal, only a short distance from the center of the city. A wide open country surrounds the buildings with large fields and and plenty of beautiful shade trees.

The buildings are all fireproof construction, and as can be seen from the picture above, the greater per cent of wall space is windows, giving all the daylight possible and plenty of fresh air. The main building is 280 feet long and 60 feet wide, four stories high and contains the general offices, machine shop, Parts Department and Shipping Department, also a dining room with a setting capacity of one hundred. In the rear of the main building are the tack factory, die factory, blacksmith shops and boiler room.

There is a splendid athletic association amongst the employees and fine athletic fields at one side of the factory, as well as a tennis court and quoit pitch. Baseball and football are the most popular sports and the association is represented in the leading amateur leagues of both of these sports. Shower-baths and dressing rooms are provided in the main building.

The women employees of the Company have not been forgotten: two large recreation rooms have been provided for their use at one end of the offices; one as a reading and rest room, having a piano, library table, couches and lounging chairs, the otnerbeing used as a lunch room, having an electric stove and several small lunch tables.

Above article from a 1915 edition of “The Three Partners”, a company publication of United Shoe Machinery Co.

Bank of Cut Tack machines at United Shoe Canada

Harrison Shoe Company

July 12, 2019 Charles Williams

Veteran Shoemaker

July 7, 2019 Charles Williams

Sixty-Five Years in One Factory

Frank Sherman of Middleboro, Massachusetts can show a record for continuous service in one shoe factory which we believe it would be hard to duplicate, having worked for Leornard & Barrows factory in Middleboro and is today, in spite of the fact that he is just past his eighty-first birthday, standing up to the bench, doing his work and holding his own against men who are much younger.

Mr. Sherman went to work as a boy for George Leonard, receiving for his services $.33 a day. He worked for him for two years. He then went to Leonard & Barrows in 1850, beginning in the Cutting Room, working on men’s heavy split shoes. He was for a time Assistant Foreman, then was given full charge of the room, and held the position of Foreman of the Cutting Room for 55 years. At the close of his 55 years of service, he resigned, and went into business for himself, but in a short time returned to the factory, and has since been a cutter. During all this time, he has never lost a day on account of sickness.

He has been married 60 years, and has two daughters and one son, the son, Mr. Frank Sherman, having been a cutter for 39 years, and being employed at the present time by the W. L. Douglas Shoe Company in the Montello section of Brockton, MA. He has lived in the same house for 44 years. and has always been interested in church, social and town affairs. He and his wife have been members of the Methodist Church for 50 years.

Information is from “The Three Partners”, an early publication of United Shoe Machine Company. 1915

The Matzeliger Lasting Machine

January 12, 2019 Charles Williams

United States Postage Stamp honoring Jan Earnst Matzeliger and his invention of the lasting machine.

During the latter half of the 1800’s the shoe industry started on the path of mechanization, with upper sewing, sole attaching by stitching, pegging or metallic fastening and heeling all brought to at least a crude degree of development, further along this path. There remained, however, the immensely important problem of mechanizing lasting, the process which gives to shoes the major part of their visible shape. This was, perhaps, the most difficult problem of all because of the infinite variation of complex shapes and materials involved. Earliest efforts at mechanical lasting appear in English patents of 1844 followed by American patents in 1859 and 1860. In 1864the American Lasting Machine Company was organized to market the invention Williams Wells of Danvers, Massachusetts who had previously invented a pegging machine. In 1872 Colonel McKay, James W. Brooks and Charles W. Glidden formed the McKay Lasting Machine Association and bought the American company’s patents. They spent $120,000, an immense sum in those days, trying to evolve a good lasting machine from the patents and their own ideas.

In 1876 George Copeland patented and exhibited at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia the first practical lasting machine, a bed type. Working with F. Ballon, Erastus Woodward and Matthias Brock further patents followed into 1881.

Meanwhile the McKay group in a further effort to evolve a practical laster had absorbed a machine invented by Henry G. Thompson of Hartford, CT, on which $100,000 had been spent since 1873, and formed the McKay and Thompson Lasting Machine Association. Litigation over patents between the McKay and Copeland groups began promptly, lasted four years, cost more than $300,000 and neither group was making money. McKay won and still seeking the best possible machine combined to form McKay and Copeland Lasting Machine Association in 1881 resulting in a bed lasting machine, practical, but limited for use on heavy work. The royalty was set at 1/2 cent per pair for shoes and 3/4 of a cent for pegged boots.

About this time, one Jan Earnst Matzeliger, a man worthy to be remembered along with Howe and Blake, was working at sewing shoes on a McKay stitcher at the Harney Brothers shoe factory in Lynn, Massachusetts. Matzeliger could only speak broken English and although there were many inventors and expert machinists with ample financial backing trying to produce a really good lasting machine at the time, it was Matzeliger working alone who made the breakthrough.

This was the famous “nigger-head” lasting machine as it was referred to in the trade at that time. Why this unfortunate name was fastened on the Hand Method Lasting Machines uncertain. Rival stories, that have come down over the years, allege that the black machine head mounted on an upright column looked like a negro and that negros were often assigned to the hard messy work of lasting; finally that the name was a derision of Matzeliger’s swarthy complexion and foreign origin.

The whole Matzeliger story is interesting, not only by itself, but because it was this great invention as principle of the Hand Method Lasting Machine has never changed during the course of it’s production life.

Jan Matziliger was the son of a well educated Hollander who was sent out to Dutch Guiana in South America to oversee important government works. There he married a native Indian women and their son, Jan Earnst, was born in Paramaribo in 1852. The boy at the age of ten began training in a government machine shop under his father’s supervision as a machinist. Jan showed a remarkable ability to repair complex machinery and often did so when accompanying his father to a factory.His apprenticeship finished, at age 19 he he decided to look for opportunities and explore the other parts of the world. He worked aboard an East Indian merchant ship for a couple of years visiting several countries. Landing in Pennsylvania he decided to stay in the United States for awhile, eventually finding his way to one of the shoemaking centers, Lynn, Massachusetts at the age of 25.

Though earning his living stitching shoes on a McKay Stitching machine, Matzeliger was more interested in machinery than in shoes. He thought of making a turn shoe sewing machine, but he heard the hand laster in the shop boast that whatever else might be done by machine, nothing could ever be invented to replace the hand laster. This was stimulus enough for Matzeliger. The lonely bachelor, already in delicate health, rented a room over the West End Mission and spent his evenings mocking up is ideas out of cigar boxwood, nails and other odds and ends a model of a lasting machine which was to duplicate the actual operations of the hand laster by means of pincers and tacking mechanisms which progressively tensioned the shoe upper over the last on to the insole and tacked it there. This was in 1880. The crude model and its maker were much ridiculed, but there was one offer of $50 for the idea, and Matziliger was tempted.

Luckily he declined and set about making a second model out of some castings and old machine parts which he bought out of his earnings; patiently working alone forging, filing and fitting the various parts. This was a real machine and looked better . He was even offered $1500 for the device which pleated the upper around the toe. On the verge of accepting this offer, he concluded that if it was worth that much to someone else, it should be worth more to him.

A patent was issued to him in 1883, but only after the Patent Office had sent a man to Lynn to study and try to understand the incredibly intricate motions in the machine and their useful purpose. A third and still better machine was patented in 1884.

As a successful lasting machine local manufacturers were interested and formed in 1884 the Union Lasting Machine company, which became the Hand Method Power Lasting Machine Company in 1885 and the Consolidated Hand Method Lasting Machine Company in 1887. Sidney W. Winslow bought stock and hired experts to assist Matzeliger. It was this Consolidated Hand Method Lasting Machine Company that commanded the highest per share price of the constituent companies forming the United Shoe Machine Company.

Matzeliger went on working as he was able, on improvements until his death in 1889 from tuberculosis at the age of 39. His good works lived long after hm; not only have thousands of his excellent lasting machines operated for many decades through out the world, but in 1904 the North Congregational Church of Lynn, ceremonially burned its portage, discharged by the sale of United Shoe stock acquired in exchange for Consolidated Hand Method stock bequeathed to them by Matzeliger.

Good as it was, the Hand Method Machined not get on the market without trouble. The hand lasters in Lynn resented it, fearing for their livelihood. In those days such resentment frequently expressed itself in direct action, sometimes with violence. The lasters had a formidable organization; they considered themselves the aristocracy of the shoe factory. There was a series of pitched balls; sometimes manufacturers were driven out of Lynn and some out of business. In the end the hand lasters learned to run the machines (which really made their work easier and more productive) and peace was restored.

Rare Lasting Pincer with a hopper for feeding tacks.

December 12, 2018 Charles Williams

United Fast Color Eyelet Company

August 31, 2018 Charles Williams

Advertisement for the United Fast Color Eyelet Co. owned by United Shoe Machine Company. Diamond Brand Fast Color eyelets were made out of brass, nickel plated and then the flange was covered with a specially formulated plastic that provide a durable colored finish.

The flange of the eyelet exhibited 2 small, raised diamond trademarks to confirm the eyelet was the quality standard.

USMC No. 5 Lasting Machine

July 26, 2018 Charles Williams

USMC No. 5 Lasting Machine -

Description from a 1914 USMC Machinery Catalog - This is a floor machine used in the lasting of Goodyear Welt shoes and, embodying all the latest ideas which have been applied to "bed" machines, is easily the most efficient machine of this type yet produced. It is a "bed" machine, as the illustration shows, the shoe being placed on a spindle and held firmly in place while the toe and heel are being lasted. The machine is so constructed that both right and left shoes may be lasted with the same wipers, the tail block of the machine being movable so that regardless the shape or swing of the last, the wipers always conform to the last. By means of the movable arrangement, the heel band can always be set in the proper position, and thus a good heel seat is insured.

A loose Tacker, which is filled automatically from a tack hopper, accompanies each machine. Either foot or factory power can be used in the operation of the machine; when the latter is used requires approximately 0.10 H.P.

The machine weighed 900 Lbs. when installed.

Shoemaking in Colonial Times

April 30, 2018 Charles Williams

Part 2 of 12

Soon after the colonies were settled and manufacturing industries were established in the various towns, the authorities began to enact laws for the purpose of regulating industry. The Puritans tried to make the laws of Moses the laws of the land.

In 1630 the General Court of Massachusetts Bay colony tried to regulate wages by enacting the following law:

"It is ordered that no master carpenter, mason, joiner or bricklayer shall take love 16 pence a day for their work, if they have meat and drink, and the second sort not above 12 pence a day, under pain of 10 shillings fine, both to giver and receiver."

This early attempt establish a maximum wage did not continue in force long, for the Court soon authorized the fixing of "wages as men shall reasonably agree." Later a similar maximum wage law provided that workmen who accepted more than the maximum wage should be liable to a fine, but exempted the employers who paid more than the maximum wage from punishment. This act was according to the spirit of the times, when it was common belief that the position and the rights of the employer were superior to those of the employee.

The Massachusetts General Court enacted other laws to regulate wages. It permitted constables to discriminate between skilled and unskilled laborers, and to apprehend and punish idlers. It furthermore authorized constables to summon mechanics from their benches during harvest time and make them work in the fields harvesting the crops.

In 1651, the Massachusetts General Court authorized shoemakers of Boston to form an organization. It granted this organization broad powers for the control of the shoe industry, but it forbade schemes to increase prices, and it reserved to the courts the right to settle disputes over wages or conditions of employment.

Later, the General Court provided that a butcher should not tan leather and that a tanner should not make shoes and that a shoemaker should not make leather.

The court also provided that tanners who made poor leather should be fined, and forbad the use of "insufficiently tanned leather" in boots and shoes. These were some of the early shoe and leather laws. The court also enacted laws forbidding "persons of mean estate" to wear great boots, or other expensive kinds of footwear. These laws, like the old sumptuary laws of Europe, were intended to prevent extravagance in apparel.

Edited text from "A Short History of American Shoemaking" by Fred Gannon (1912)

A Short History of American Shoemaking #1

April 30, 2018 Charles Williams

Beginnings of American Shoemaking

Part 1 of 12

Boots and shoes tell much of the story of people. Savages of warm climates go barefooted. The soles of their feet become hard as leather. Nomads wear sandals of bark trees, woven grass or rawhide. Egyptians had sandals of papyrus and leather. Greeks had shoes for battle of iron and brass. Romans, in days of gorgeous luxury, decked their boots with fine skins, gold and jewels. Prehistoric people of Britain wore boots of rawhide. Knights of battles of the Middle Ages encased their feet and legs in metal. Dandies of luxurious courts of England and France wore elaborate footwear. Dandies of the English court even turned up the toes of their shoes so much that they were fastened by gold chains to the knees and the dandies of the French court wore heels so high that they walked as if on stilts. Puritans in England wore stout shoes with square toes, and they were sometimes called "Square Toes".

Early settlers to this country brought over supplies of strong, serviceable footwear of good bark tanned leather. Each man of John Endicott's company, which settled in Salem in 1628, was one of the best equipped colonial companies with four pair of boots. The new country was rough and even the stoutest shoes quickly wore out on the rocks of its paths and the stone and stubble of its fields. New supplies were had from England on the second arriving ship. Naturally colonists in need of footwear adopted moccasins of the Indians, made of buckskin leather. These proved serviceable, especially to hunters and travelers on foot. But the total supply footwear in the new and growing country soon proved insufficient to the needs of the people and they demanded that shoemakers come from Europe and make shoes for them.

The first shoemakers to arrive appear to have been Thomas Beard, a shoemaker of St. Martin's, London, and Isaac Rickman, who was sent over by the New England Company to the settlement of Salem, May 28, 1629. In a letter from the company's headquarters in London to Governor John Endicott at the Salem settlement, the following instructions concerning them were written:

"Thomas Beard, a shoemaker, and Isaac Rickman, being both recomended to us by Mr. Symon Whetcombe, to receive their diet and houseroom at the charge of the company, we have agreed they shall be with you, the Governor, or placed elsewhere, as you shall think good, and receive from you or by your appointment, their diet and lodging, for which they are to pay, each of them at the rate of 10 pounds a year. And we desire to receive a certificate under the hand of whomsoever they shall be so dieted and lodged with, how long a time they have remained with them, in case they shall otherwise dispose of themselves before the year be expired, or at least-wise the end of each year, to the end we may here receive payment according to said agreement. The said Thomas Beard has in the ship, Mayflower, divers hides, both for sole and upper leather, which he intends to make into boots and shoes in the new country. We pray you let Mr. Pierce, the master of said ship, view the said leather and estimate what tonnage the same may import, that so the said Beard may either pay unto you there, after the rate of four pounds a ton, for freight of the same, the like for his diet, if there be occasion to use any of his commodities or otherwise, upon your advice, we may receive if of Mr. Whetcombe, who has promised to see the same discharged.

"We desire also the same Thomas Beard may have some fifty acres of land allotted to him as one that transports himself at his own charge. But as well for him as all others that shall have land allotted to them in that kind and are no adventurers in common sort, which is to support of fortifications, as also for the mystery and divers other affairs we hold it fit that these kind of men, as also such as shall, come to inherit lands by their service should, by way of acknowledgement to such from whom they receive their lands, become liable to the performance of some service certain days in the year, and by that service they and their posterity after them hold and inherit these lands, which will be a good means to enjoy their lands from being held in captive and to support the plantations in general and particular."

Beard, the first American shoemaker, prospered in the colonies. He settled in Salem and plied his trade there for 14 years or more. He was made a freeman on May 10,1643. soon afterwards he moved to Portsmouth, NH., where he purchased an estate and made his home. Rickman probably returned to England after a short experience in this country. Of him the colonial records say nothing.

Other shoemakers followed Beard to the colonies. In 1638, Philip Kertland, was granted 10 acres of land in Lynn, Massachusetts to begin shoe manufacturing. Lynn was to become one of the foremost shoe manufacturing cities of the country.

Henry Elwell, another colonial shoemaker, came to this country on the ship Hercules in 1634. He settled in Scituate, Massachusetts and was admitted to the church in 1636. He enlisted in the colonial army for the Pequot War. His house was burned by the Indians.

The little town of Reading granted its first shoemaker "rights and wood and herbage" meaning that he could gather, free of charge, from the town lands such wood as he wished for fuel and such herbs as he wished for medicines. The town of Ipswich admitted within its limits a shoemaker in 1654 and another in 1663. Other towns were also admitting shoemakers as people were in need of footwear and shoemakers were welcomed men among them. Yet, no matter how much a shoemaker was desired he had to receive permission from the town to establish his home or shop within it's limits. The colonists wished to keep out undesirable persons.

It is difficult for us today to understand the circumstances under which the first shoemakers established their industry in this country. The colonies were thinly scattered along the Atlantic coast. The great ocean lay between them and their supply base in the home country. It was a far distance to send to England for leather, shoes, tools and other commodities.

The first settlements were adventures in industry, trade and government. They depended, for their existence, upon trade with the Indians, with whom they bartered for skins, and upon their fishing and lumbering industries, whose products were sent to Europe. Several colonies, particularly Massachusetts, made unusual experiments in government, and endeavored to regulate occupations, wages and fashions by law, as well as various matters of politics and religion. the position of the shoemaker in colonial times was quite curious.

Many early settlers, by necessity, became jacks of all trades. They hunted deer, bear, and other creatures in the woods, ate their flesh for food, and made their pelts into leather for shoes, stockings, caps, coats and other articles. Farmers raised cattle, sheep and goats, and ate their flesh for food, tanned their pelts into leather in tanning pits in their own yards, using the bark from nearby trees. Commonly, early settlers made and mended shoes for themselves and their families.

A few traveling shoemakers tramped from house to house, carrying a kit of tools and a supply of leather, where they made and mended shoes, and also related the latest news and gossip of the towns, in the homes in which they stopped. In the towns, a few shoemakers established stores, in which they sold shoes made by themselves or imported. James Everett, who came to Boston in 1634, was a leather dresser and shoemaker, also a landlord and a selectman. The inventory of his estate showed he carried a good sized stock of shoes.

Edited text from "A Short History of American Shoemaking" by Fred Gannon (1912)

The McKay Welt Shoe

April 25, 2017 Charles Williams

A variation of the McKay shoe and one that once enjoyed substantial volume is the McKay Welt shoe. The shoe progresses through the lasting operations in identical sequence to the regular McKay. Thereafter,a midsole is temporarily held to the shoe bottom by means of staples or adhesive. The last is then removed and this midsole is McKay sewn to the shoe bottom.

The same last or a similar one, called a "follower", is inserted in the shoe and an outsole placed on the midsole and temporarily held in place with staples or cement. The edges of this combination are then shaped on the rough rounding machine as in the Goodyear Welt process. Thereafter the outsole is attached permanently with the standard lockstitch seam and all subsequent operations follow the Goodyear Welt process.

The McKay Sewn Shoe

April 25, 2017 Charles Williams

Up to the time of the introduction of the machine invented by Lyman R. Blake in 1858, which afterwards became known as the McKay Sewing Machine, shoes had been made almost entirely by hand. Gordon McKay, whose name latter became associated with the shoe, purchased the patent rights from Blake and after many experiments was able to introduce this process as a practical method for making shoes.

Originally and for a long period thereafter, McKay shoes were wholly tack-lasted. The last used for this process has a metal bottom with four small openings through which tacks are temporarily driven to hold the insole in place prior to and during the lasting of the upper. These tacks are removed after the shoe is completely lasted and pounded and before the outsole is positioned.

After the insole is correctly positioned on the last, the upper and linings are pulled tightly over the last and fastened to the under surface of the insole, by means of tacks which actually penetrate the insole and are clinched permanently against the metal bottom of the last.

Such a clinch is a short turning back or stubbing of the point of the tack, afterwards visible inside the shoe only as a small speck of metal, but strong enough to make the tack a fixture for the life of the shoe.

Some manufacturers have adopted other lasting methods, particularly in women's McKay sewn shoes. Among the newer methods used are Littleway staple lasting of shank and forepart, cement toe lasting, and occasionally tack and staple shank lasting combined with cement forepart and toe lasting. Whenever tacks are not used in shank or forepart, it is unnecessary to have metal-bottomed shank and forepart to the last, as there is no metallic fastening penetrating the insole to be clinched, except at the heel seat.

After the shoe is lasted, the shank piece and the bottom or forepart filler are added. In the meantime the outsole has been prepared in the stock fitting department. This preparation consists of rounding the outsole to the proper shape, cutting the outsole channel, sole molding and turning back the channel lip.

The outsole is positioned on the shoe bottom and held temporarily in place by means of staples or cement. The shoe is now ready for sole attaching by means of the McKay sewing. Prior to sewing, however, the last is removed from the shoe.

The McKay stitch is a chainstitch and passes through the respective thicknesses of outsole, upper, lining and insole. This seam is so positioned as to lie between the clinched lasting tacks and the edge of the insole.

After McKay sewing, the outsole channel is cemented and laid back to its original position, thereby covering the stitches. The shoe is then leveled on a machine designed with a steel foot which goes inside the shoe and a forming mold on the outside of the sole. The required pressure is applied to smooth the insole and assure a comfortable interior.

Re-lasting is then sometimes done and subsequent operations in completing the shoe include heel attaching, heel shaving and breasting, heel staining and finishing for leather heels and attaching for wood heels, edge trimming, inking or staining the edges, burnishing or setting the edges and cleaning the upper. For additional comfort and appearance the insole is covered with a sock lining. After these operations are completed the shoe is given a final inspection and is then ready for packing.

Blake - McKay Stitching Machine

April 23, 2017 Charles Williams

When the Civil War broke out, the government of the United States was in a dilemma as to how to provide a sufficient quantity of shoes for the armies of the North. So many shoemakers had volunteered that many of the small shoe shops, where most of the shoes were made, were now without shoemakers to make the shoes or even finish the ones in process. In Marblehead, manufacturers rode around town , waving rolls of bills, and offering double and triple wages to shoemakers who would finish their work before leaving for the war. The price of shoes more than doubled as the shortage became critical.

Congress considered the removal of the tariff on shoes, so that army shoes, as well as civilian shoes, could be imported from England. A crisis was at hand in American shoemaking. The armies of both the North and South were shod with footwear, where the outsole was attached by wooden pegs, which failed from the harsh wet Winter weather. Many went barefoot or with bandages wrapped around their feet.

It was about this time that Colonel Gordon McKay introduced a specialized sewing machine for sewing the soles of the shoe to the upper or top portion. The productivity of this machine replaced the shoemakers who had left for the front. This was also the beginning of the factory system of making shoes. The quality of the the shoes produced on the McKay machine was superior to the pegged construction. The price of shoes declined at a very substantial rate, providing consumers with lower cost footwear and much better quality.

This machine was invented by Lyman R. Blake, a shoemaker and Singer Sewing Machine Co. technician. Blake was born in South Abington, MA (now Whitman, MA) on August 24, 1835. His initial exposure to shoemaking was in his brother Samuel’s factory, working his way up to foreman of the upper fitting department. After returning to school for six months he went to work in the Gurney and Mears shoe factory and in 1857 became a partner in the shoe firm, but unfortunately the firm failed after two years.

Blake took his knowledge of sewing machines and invented a thread carrying arm to fit inside the shoe that would stitch through the insole, upper, and finally the outsole itself. The arm created by Blake was hollow and rounded at the tip so as to allow the toe of the shoe to be stitched. The arm contained a mechanism for chain stitching and waxing the thread. A patent was issued to Lyman Blake in 1858.

Realizing that further development, eventual production and marketing were beyond his means, he sold his rights to Colonel Gordon McKay for $8000 in cash and $62,000 from profits in the company.

Blake went to Staunton, VA, where he established a retail shoe store. The war started and Blake took the last northbound train that was to run from Virginia for four years, leaving his store and $50,000 when he returned to Abington.

Nearly broke, Blake rejoined McKay and began the job of improving his machine and introducing the stitcher to the British Isles. While the machine bore the name of McKay in this country, it became known as the Blake machine in Great Britain.

With the Civil War in full swing, many shoemakers had joined the the army and shoe orders from from the army were nearly impossible to fill with the limited number of shoemakers available. McKay and Blake were able to install the machine in several New England factories. By 1862, thousands of pairs of shoes were sewn on the McKay stitchers. Shoemakers at the front, who had deserted their benches before the McKay machine appeared, used to study the shoes, and wondered how in the world any sort of machine could be made to sew shoes, particularly with the thickness of leather involved.

The outlook for the machine was bright but, still finding it difficult in selling the machine outright, McKay decided to lease them. The shoe manufacturers leased the machines and paid a per pair royalty to McKay. McKay’s idea of leasing caught on and is still in use today.

The McKay machine revolutionized the shoe manufacturing industry. It drew shoemakers from the little ten-footer shops, in which shoes had been handmade for decades, into the machine based factories. The quality of shoes improved dramatically while the cost to consumers was reduced substantially.

When Lyman Blake, as inventor of the McKay machine applied for a patent extension in 1876, he testified that from July of 1862 to July of 1876, 177,665,135 pairs of shoes had been sewn on the McKay machines, at an average savings of 18 cents per pair and a total savings of almost $14 million dollars.

Shoe manufacturers also testified that the McKay machines had enabled them to develop better manufacturing methods and to improve their product. Shoemakers testified that the machine had enabled them to decrease their hours and increase their wages, which benefited their health. When shoemakers worked by hand, they bent over their lasts much of the time, cramping their lungs. Consumption, as tuberculosis was then called, was a common disease among shoemakers. But, the prevention of it came, not from the science of medicine, but from the art of invention. The McKay machine, which Blake invented, enabled shoemakers to stand while working, and to breathe normally. As a consequence, cases of tuberculosis among shoemakers greatly diminished.

Colonel McKay and the Blake machine became an important factor in the formation of the United Shoe Machinery Company in February, 1899.