Name/Title
StereographEntry/Object ID
2023.055.3.0425Description
A black and white stereograph. Image is of the interior of a shoe factory, a mand has his back to the camera as he fits an unfinished shoe on a machine. Above the image "94" is printed, below the image "V56584 - Shoes in Making: Stitching the Sole, Rochester N. Y." is printed, to the left of the image "Keystone View Company Copyrighted, Underwood & Underwood Manufacturers MADE IN U.S.A. Publishers" is printed, to the right of the image "Meadville, Pa., New York, N. Y., Portland, Oregon, London, Eng., Sydney, Aus." is printed. On the reverse the following is printed:
V23284
SHOES IN THE MAKING ROCHESTER, N. Y.
Lat. 43 (Degrees) N.; Long. 78 (Degrees) W.
We are told that on the Mayflower's third voyage Thomas Baird came to Massachusetts with hides, both uppers and bottoms. Fr a couple of centuries the shoemaker was an itinerant workman who made the farmer's home tanned leather into shoes for the family. Now shoes are made almost entirely by machinery. The transformation of the raw material into the fnished shoe invovles over a hundred different steps.
In the first room the sole leather is trimmed and pared to a uniform thickness by means of a skiving amchine. Then it is run through a roling maching to be solidifid, after which the soles are cut. The heels, uppers and linings are also often cut by machinery, although the best work is still done by hand with a knife. The shoes are then sent to the stitching room, where the machiens are run by power. In the boottoming room the uppers are lasted and soled and then heeled. Then they are sent to the fifth room for th final operations of trimming and polishing.
The first piece of machinery for shoemaking was invented in England in 1810. It was a combined lasting and sole-nailing machine. In 1850 the rolling machine was introduced, and a little later the Howe sewing machine was used to sew the uppers. in 1860 the MacKay sewing machine for sewing the uppers and soles together was intoduced. Now there are about two hundred different machines employed in a single factory.
Shoes are usually made in twenty-six different lengths. They are in two series, with numbers runing from one to thirteen, with half-sizes between most of the numbers.
Copyright by The Keystone Veiw CompanyCollection
Photograph Collection