No doubt when the shoemaker was not employed by client's orders, he created shoes for speculative sale. With standardized shoe measurements well established and the ease of production for shoemakers of straight soles, it became profitable for shoemakers to pre-make quantities of footwear. However, sturdy leather footwear, like riding boots, continued to be made to order with left and right foot definition for fit and comfort. Many surviving examples of lightweight leather and textile footwear from this period show evidence of wear on the uppers where the widths of feet have splayed the upper onto the ground where the sole was insufficiently narrow. This practice of making shoes with straight soles would remain for the next two hundred years, gradually falling from favor throughout the nineteenth century and only finally disappearing in the 1880s. Lasts are required to obtain the correct slope of the sole to accommodate the lift of the heel and as it is too expensive to have a huge inventory of lasts representing the various heel heights as well as for each foot, so most footwear would now be made without left or right definition. ![]() Heels began to be added to footwear beginning in the 1590s. The shoulder stick was displaced in the nineteenth century with the use of heated irons, which did the same job but more quickly. The shoulder stick, made of wood, burnished the welt and edge of the sole after the shoe was sewn, trimmed, and waxed. The closing awl has a curved blade and is used for joining the sole to the upper. A stitching awl has a straight blade and is used for making holes through multiple layers of leather. The shapes of awl blades vary according to their intended use. Shoes are traditionally not sewn with a needle, but rather holes are created using awls through which a waxed linen thread is inserted with a pig's bristle. Once soaked, leather is hammered to flatten the fibrous tissues creating a surface that is more resilient to wear and dampness. A hammer is rarely used to set the tacks into the last but rather is used for peening the leather. Most dogs have serrated teeth that help to pull the upper taut and often have a hammer's peen on the other side to set the tacks so that the welted shoe can then be sewn. Lasting pincers or dogs are used for pulling the top of the shoe, or upper, tight around the last so that it may be secured with tacks to the underside. Mass entry of workers into the shoe factories of the nineteenth century that straight knives and scissors were preferred by the less-skilled labor force, resulting in the extinction of the moon knife. Standardized measurements helped ensure a good fit for length in shoes, and pre-made footwear may have already been in production by the late 1700s. This diagram from the Dictionary of Sciences (1770) depicts the shoemaking technology and tools of the day. ![]() Straight knives were also used but it was only with theĪn eighteenth-century shoemaker's shop. Used by most workers in leather until the nineteenth century, the skill to use it to its full advantage was acquired during apprenticeship. The round, or moon knife is an early tool that can be seen as far back as ancient Egypt. The last is frequently made up of at least two pieces, so that it can be more easily removed from the finished shoe.Īfter measuring the foot and translating those calculations onto a pattern, cutting out, or clicking, the leather is the first step in constructing a pair of shoes. The last is made to the same shape and size as the client's foot, or a standard last is adjusted adding built-up layers of leather to attain the same measurements. The word last comes from the old English word for foot and is the wooden form used as a mold for making the shoe. The first and most important step in making a shoe is to measure the foot accurately, translating these measurements to a corresponding wooden last. The tools to achieve this construction consisted of a knife, last, dogs, hammer, awl, and shoulder stick. And for hand shoemakers, changes in this tradition have been minimal. ![]() From this development until the intro duction of machinery in the mid-nineteenth century there is very little change in the tools or methods used for shoemaking. In the late sixteenth century, welted shoe construction became standard whereby the upper was sewn to a welt with a second row of stitches made through the welt into the outer sole.
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