USA > Massachusetts > Barnstable County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 49
USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 49
USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 49
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To speak in round figures, Massachusetts employs an average number of 80,000 shoe workers, representing approximately half the number in the country-at-large. There are 10,000 more employed in the industries closely allied with shoemaking, stock and findings. Both men and women are employed in the factories and it is one of the best-paid industries for wage earners in the country.
There are seven towns in Plymouth County in which there are shoe factories and the total number of factories is fifty-six, according to a re- cent trade directory. Half this number are located in Brockton and it is a city of large factories. Some time ago there were thirty-two factor- ies in Brockton making the complete shoe product and, in addition, forty-three factories producing shoe and leather findings and cut stock. . In the factories making the complete product about twenty-seven per cent are women. In the factories devoted to findings and stock a larger percentage of women are employed, nearer thirty-six per cent.
Brockton holds chief place in Massachusetts in the production of shoe factory tools and supplies. Bridgewater, Rockland, Whitman, Hanover, Middleboro and Abington in Plymouth County, and Avon, Braintree,
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Easton, Holbrook, Randolph, Stoughton and Weymouth in Norfolk or Bristol counties are connected with Brockton and with one another by railroads or trolley lines, bus lines and good roads, over which well-paid employees drive their own cars to and from work; and well laden motor trucks take the products to market. A large part of the local industrial energy in the towns mentioned is devoted to shoe manufacturing and allied industries.
Brockton Fair Style Show-The best opportunity to get a real im- pression of the shoe industry in Plymouth County and surrounding towns is afforded at the Shoe Style Show given annually at the Brock- ton Fair. For three successive years a model shoe factory was operated in the Educational Building on the fair grounds, with the cooperation of the United Shoe Machinery Company, which equipped the factory with the last word in shoe-making machinery. All the processes were shown in operation and much better than they could have seen in any other factory, as every machine was placed in position with the thought in mind of having the process observed by the many thousands of people who daily passed through the aisles.
The entire main floor of the Educational Building is each year devoted to exhibiting the footwear and findings and the faultless apparel which consistently deserves to be worn with such creditable creations ; and to an exhibit of men's and women's shoes in action, worn by models who show them in the process of walking, if they are walking shoes; in dancing if they are dancing shoes. The Brockton Fair furnishes the best graphic expression of the shoe industry in America and that distinctive feature has an international reputation.
Women in Shoe Industry-The Shoe Style Show forces upon the at- tention of thousands of people every day and evening during the week of the fair, the prominent part played by women in the shoe industry in this vicinity. An investigation was made in 1911-12 by the Women's Educational and Industrial Union of Boston "to obtain first-hand knowl- edge with regard to certain aspects of an occupation long held to be ex- ceptionally desirable for wage earning women." The conditions have not been changed materially since the report was published in 1915 as a bulletin of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. The report stated that "the work of women has been so long an important factor in the evolution of shoe-making that the industry has special interest in con- nection with inquiries as to the advantages a long-established factory trade offers to women at the present time. ... More women work at shoe- making in Massachusetts than at any other factory trade except the tex- tile industries." To set forth this phase of shoe-making some quotations from the bulletin referred to will be presented.
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"When in 1846 Elias Howe of Boston invented the sewing machine, he doubt- less had in mind relief for the busy housewife, but some years later his invention was utilized in the shoemaking shops for the stitching of uppers. The various processes of shoemaking were now for the first time gathered under one roof, and the 'factory' system as applied to this particular manufacture was complete. The heavy machines worked by foot, sometimes by horse power, could be managed only by men. This fact for a time threw women out of the industry, since the work on uppers, for more than a century largely turned over to them, was now done in the factory by men."
"Among women long accustomed to depend upon this work as a means of sup- plementing personal or family income the distress was acute, and was emphasized on the platform and in the pulpit of the time as among the social disasters conse- quent on the introduction of machinery into manufacture. 'Hannah at the window binding shoes' was as shamefully underpaid as was her sister stitching shirts, but Hannah without shoes to bind was not paid at all. With the gradual perfection of the single-process system in the factories, through the progressive inventions dividing and simplifying each step in the building of a shoe, women slowly regained a place in the trade. By the year 1860, the stitching machines were universally at- tached to power belts driven by water or steam, and, as they no longer required great strength in manipulation, could be worked by girls or women, who would take lower wages than men."
"In the forty years succeeding the beginning of the Civil War, in 1861, the gain in numbers of women shoe workers was rapid .... In 1870, twenty per cent of the shoe workers in Massachusetts were women and girls; in 1900 this had grown to nearly thirty-two per cent .... In 1905 married women, including in that term widows and divorced and deserted wives, formed 26.4 per cent of the total female shoe workers of Massachusetts."
"Brockton is among the cities of Massachusetts showing large increase in popu- lation. In 1910 its people numbered 56,878, an increase of nearly thirty per cent in ten years. The original American element was, in accordance with the condi- tion in Eastern Massachusetts cities twenty-five years ago, modified mainly by the Irish. But if at present a factory superintendent in Brockton is questioned as to the nationality of his working force, he is apt to reply, 'We have everything but a Chinaman.' "
"The statement is scarcely an exaggeration. About thirty years ago French- Canadians began to arrive, shortly followed by Swedes. More recent additions are the southern European and semi-Oriental people, with some from Central Europe, and the inevitable Russian and Polish Jews. English and Scotch from Canada and the British Provinces are less numerous than in Lynn. A few Portuguese are found, with faces almost as dark as those of the Negroes from families who settled in Plymouth County before the Civil War. Colored women work in many shoe factories .... The Swedes, at first largely employed in shoe findings shops, have made their way up to the regular factories, where in all the skilled processes they are valued workers ..
"The shoe factory draws the immigrant to Brockton, and if he is not inef- ficient, it keeps him; industrial reasons seldom drive the steady worker from this centre ..... Employees in shoe factories own ninety per cent of the houses in Brockton. Children to make these houses complete are frequently wanting .... The homes of Brockton shoe workers are many and, on the whole, show good stand- ards of comfort .... Brockton offers many advantages to the sheltered, home-loving woman, but few to her sister forced to an isolated life."
It must be remembered that these statements were published in 1915 and many
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agencies have since sprung up to make the lot of the working woman whose home is elsewhere much more suitable.
"The question of equal rewards for equal work for men and women has already been settled in the shoe factories by the method of piece payment. When men and women are doing the same work they are paid at the same rate. But it is only in exceptional cases that they are doing the same work. It has been clearly pointed out by social economists that men and women, even when working under the same factory roof, are usually not competitors in a true sense. Women get lower pay than men for various reasons, but mainly because they are doing a work of a lower grade. In the shoe industry the general rule is carried out, but it has conspicuous exceptions. Women's work is mainly in the stitching and packing rooms. It requires as much manual dexterity as that of the men, but less physical strength, and on the whole less mental ability. Therefore the whole scale of wages for women is lower than that for men."
"In their ability and intelligence, in their relatively high earnings, in the permanence of their relation to the communities of which they form a part, in the uniformity of their social ideals and training, the Massachusetts shoe worker is the best that the twentieth century has produced of her type."
Early Sewing Machines For Shoemaking-The manufacture of boots, shoes and leather were recognized industries before 1650. Within ten years after the settlement of Boston, shoes became an article of export from that port. Shoemaking was carried on in this country two hundred years before Elias Howe of Cambridge invented the sewing machine. It was a very imperfect machine and several others had a hand in improv- ing it. Elias Howe brought out the machine in 1846 but it did not have an automatic feed until three years later and that contribution was the work of John Batchelder of Boston. A rotary shuttle for making the lock- stitch was invented by Blodgett and Lerow the same year.
Messrs. Grover and Baker, two Boston inventors, put a sewing ma- chine on the market in 1851 which soon became the leading sewing ma- chine. There were five establishments for the manufacture of sewing machines in Massachusetts in 1855 and in that year 3,385 machines were produced, but the machine controlled by Grover and Baker stood at the head in 1858. This machine embodied a new principle. It made a double loop-stitch by means of a circular rotary needle, and without the employ- ment of a shuttle. The Singer sewing machine, invented by I. M. Singer in 1850, was first manufactured on Harvard Place in Boston, but was la- ter transferred to New York.
In Colonial days a family usually raised the cattle and tanned the hides in preparation for making the shoes for the family and, when the cattle were not raised on the farm, a calf-skin would be purchased, a "side of upper" and a side of sole leather, in readiness for some travel- ing shoemaker who would come along and live with the family until the year's supply of footwear had been made.
Sometimes women were traveling shoemakers. Such was Hannah Reed whose home was in Middleboro. She was noted for her energy and
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strength and Thomas Weston tells in his "History of the Town of Mid- dleboro" how two clerks in a store saw her coming and one bet the other that he would not dare to kiss her. As the woman was making some purchases from one of the clerks the other kissed her. "The indignant shoemaker turned, seized him by the collar and seat of his trousers, dragged him to the door, and pitched him out. He won his bet, but never tried that trick again." Mr. Weston also relates concerning Hannah Reed : "She frequently walked to Boston and back the next day, to pur -. chase leather, etc., for her work. She made 'good substantial shoes, well fitting to the feet'."
The "Shoe City," Plymouth County's Own-While many Plymouth County towns have from the earliest days and still are engaged promi- nently in shoe manufacturing, Brockton is known all over the world as "The Shoe City," and shoemaking constitutes the dominating industry of that lively municipality. A few years ago Brockton observed its cen- tennial anniversary and Rev. Warren P. Landers, a native of that city, prepared a memorial volume, briefly sketching the history of the city and its days as the town of North Bridgewater. In that part of the book devoted to the shoe industry the story was so well told that numerous quotations appear in this volume, and the author wishes to acknowledge helping himself to numerous paragraphs, in some cases with no other changes than leaving out some facts which appear elsewhere, avoiding repetition ; or changing the tense or grammatical construction when re- quired to make the borrowed sentences fit the context.
Rev. Mr. Landers reminds us that the "deed by which Massasoit trans- ferred the Duxbury plantation, out of which territory have been carved the towns of Bridgewater, and East-and West-and Brockton, was given for numerous articles, totaling in value about $30. Included were four moose-skins which Myles Standish, one of the signers, may have brought back from his adventures in the wilds, and which would be used for protection of feet as well as for clothing. We have then a start- ing point in 1649, a reference to that which makes Brockton outrank all other cities, the footwear of the original inhabitants, as well as that of the colonists.
"The Log of the 'Mayflower' (Bradford's 'History') tells us that in 1628 the Plymouth settlers sent Isaac Allerton to England on an important mission, including the purchase of supplies. He thereby probably became first importer of shoes and leather. But before that day (1623), accord- ing to Seth Bryant of Ashmont ('Shoe and Leather Trade of a Hun- dred Years,' 1891), Experience Mitchell, a passenger in the 'Ann,' reached Plymouth. Later he moved to Duxbury, and as one of the ear- liest settlers in the Plantation came to (East) Bridgewater at a place lo- cally called Joppa. There he established a tannery in 1650. His son, En-
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sign-later Colonel-Edward, and after him Cushing Mitchell, carried on the business for sixty years. So we may account for the fact that when North Bridgewater was incorporated as a town in 1821, it was already the center of a leather-working people."
Shoemaking Ride of Micah Faxon-Boot and shoe manufacturing has been a distinctive business with the people of Brockton from its earliest days. The first veritable manufacturer was Micah Faxon who came to Brockton from Randolph in 1811, and commenced manufacturing shoes for the wholesale trade. His first work was done in a house on Crescent Street, which was known as the "Matthew Packard House." It was af- terwards torn down. Mr. Faxon replaced it with a house which was built for his occupancy, with suitable provision made to carry on his business in a more convenient manner. Mr. Faxon did the cutting, but at that time there was no one to bind the vamps and put the shoes to- gether. They were sent to Randolph to be completed.
"The first lot of shoes manufactured by Mr. Faxon for the wholesale trade consisted of one hundred pairs of fine calf spring-heel shoes. He bound them upon the back of his horse and rode astride the animal through the streets of Boston to a firm on Long Wharf. The firm was among the first to send goods to the South, and Mr. Faxon's shoes were included in the shipload of goods which was sent for the patronage of the rich planters. Somewhat later Mr. Faxon purchased a carriage in which he carried his shoes to Boston to market, and returned with suf- ficient material to get out his next lot. Soon after it became apparent that Mr. Faxon's business was a successful one, Messrs. Silas Packard and Colonel Edward Southworth became engaged in the same line of business in connection with their store, which stood where the Whipple- Freeman block now stands.
"Others took up the business and found market for their goods in vari- ous directions. The firm confined its efforts principally to getting out sailors' pumps, which were shipped to New Bedford and sold to the whalemen. Small shoe shops sprang up throughout this section, and nearly all the towns in Southeastern Massachusetts had a sprinkling of dooryard shoe shops, in which from one to nine or ten men were em- ployed." Shoes were handsewed, then pegged and nailed. Machines were introduced in 1846. Early trade was largely controlled by the village shoemaker in his annual or semi-annual visits to "shoe" the entire fam- ily. His "kit" was not so different in 1880 from that of the first Chris- tian era or even earlier. Out of the Revolutionary War came Thomas French of Randolph, a personality figuring in the beginnings of local in- dustry. A tanner and currier, he settled on the Blue Hill Turnpike. Mr. French employed others who had learned the shoe trade in camp or fort.
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"Micah Faxon, who carried to Boston on horseback his first hundred pairs of fine calf-skin, spring-heeled shoes, sold them to Monroe & Nash, Long Wharf, for the southern trade. Quick successors and competitors were Silas Packard and Colonel Edward Southworth in a store that stood at the corner of Main and Court streets. In 1820, William French engaged in shoe manufacture. Others early in the business were Zopher Field and Charles Southworth; John May and Sidney Howard; Zenas Brett, Benjamin Kingman, Nathan Jones, and Charles & Azra Keith at The Plains (Campello). Markets were nearby, owing to lack of trans- portation facilities. "The Keiths, the Packards, and the Leaches" have built up the City of Brockton-wrote Seth Bryant, who on his own voucher knew all the shoe dealers since 1800, at least through a period of seventy-one years. According to that authority, more shoes were made in the Second Congressional District than in any other in the United States.
"Brockton is not the home of small plants." (Isaac H. Bailey, article C, Volume 1, "New England States," William T. Davis, Editor.) Yet in the beginning this was not true. Little shops in many yards suggested a winter trade to fill the time and supplement the fish and farm of sum- mer. "Among early manufacturers in the larger shops were those named Keith, Howard, Packard, Reynolds, Copeland and Kingman, all well known in the trade to the present day. It is said that in 1855 the boot and shoe interests of Massachusetts were the largest of any in the State, and the backbone of the industry was in this section. There were 176 boot, shoe and leather dealers in Boston in that year, forty-three hide and leather dealers, and fifty-one leather dealers.
"Many of the Brockton manufacturers now have stores of their own in the principal cities of the country, for the sale of their goods. Excel- lent facilities for the disposition of goods are provided by the corps of traveling salesmen who go from Brockton to all parts of the country and even the other side of the ocean.
"The year 1855 has been already mentioned in regard to boot and shoe manufacture. In that year the number of boots manufactured was 66,956 pairs. The number of shoes was 694,740 pairs. The value of these boots and shoes was $724,847. There were 692 males employed in their manufacture and 484 females. In 1865 there had been a great increase in the number of manufacturers, and new machinery for making shoes had been introduced. The number of boots manufactured that year was 103,066 pairs. The number of shoes was 1,009,700 pairs. The number of males employed was 1,059 and the number of females 208. The total value of the goods was $1,466,900. From these figures it is seen that there was an increase in that decade of the manufacture of boots and shoes to the value of $742,153, or more than double the value of the goods manufactured in 1855.
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"The firm of Messrs. A. & A. B. Keith was the first in the country to adopt machinery for nearly every part of boot and shoe manufacture. The firm had a large factory at Campello and another at Raynham. It manufactured goods in large quantities for the southern market, and had a store on Pearl Street in Boston."
Steam power became introduced in several of the factories about this time, and from its advent, there was a great increase in the production of boots and shoes. Previously shoes were "given out" 100 pairs at a time to "fit and make" and were kept thirty days to two months. Fitting the upper to the last, with lapstone and hammer, pounding the wet sole, fastening with nails, pegging sole and inner sole together-constituted the major processes. In 1837, North Bridgewater produced 79,000 pairs of boots and 22,300 pairs of shoes and employed 1,125 "hands." Then began the enlargement which today shows thirty thousand workers in sixty factories.
George W. Bryant and Daniel S. Howard (1848-1888) were pioneers, as were Charles R. Ford, Martin L. Keith, Enos H. Reynolds, and others. In the early '60's, Peleg S. Leach engaged in business in a shop on the site of the present Police Station and later had large factories on Cres- cent and West Elm streets. In 1865, 103,066 pairs of boots and over a million pairs of shoes were made. The increase over 1837 was of course due in a large measure to the sewing machine. Readiness to adopt new methods and machinery seems to have characterized the town. A. & A. B. Keith were prominent in this respect, as were the Thayers, Samuel Herrod and George Stevens.
"World's Greatest Shoemaker" Starts in Business-"In 1870, William L. Douglas came from Plymouth and for some years was foreman for Porter and Southworth. With a capital of $875 he opened a factory for himself in 1876. Preston B. Keith had started five years before and M. A. Packard began manufacturing in 1877. The late George E. Keith commenced his notable career in 1868 in company with William S. Southworth and in 1870 opened a shop on his own behalf. Daniel W. Field entered the employ of D. S. Howard in 1876. And it should be stated, as one recognizes the general amicable relations in so large an in- dustrial center as the Brockton of today, that from the beginning of the town a very considerable group of manufacturers has either come up from the bench or has had close associations with the mechanical end of the business. The number of cases shipped from Brockton in 1876 was 142,010. In 1919, the value had become by war needs and prices, $146,- 378,500. Even in the pre-war year of 1915, it was sixty millions. Now great plants with every modern facility are taking the place of the old- fashioned home shops. Resourcefulness and versatility, as well as a rep- utation for reliable goods, have brought this marked development.
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"When William Cullen Bryant re-visited the community in which he had lived while completing his law studies, he wrote: 'The whole place resounds, rather rattles, with the machinery of shoeshops, which turn out millions of shoes, not one of which I am told is sold in the place.' The last statement would be hardly true today, though the output is even more widely distributed than fifty years ago. The city has devel- oped a great trading center. A writer on the shoe industry raises the question, 'Are we nearing the end of the growth which may safely be built on one great industry?' (Seth Bryant.)
"It has often been observed that in great shoe towns education is above the average. Schools, libraries and neighborhoods so testify. 'Peaceful and law-abiding (Bailey) they live in and for each other.' This picture-so far as it described the city, is drawn from two interesting facts : Brockton had an annual no-license record covering a period of thirty years. Further the community has learned the better way of set- tling disputes. In her industrial life, labor has been carefully studied from many angles. Each side has recognized the point of view of the other. They have seen that through conciliation and arbitration they could as well serve their own ends. This is among the high gifts of Brockton to the country."
The first manufacturers to use steam were Charles R. Ford, who manu- factured in a large building on Main Street a short distance north of the centre ; Daniel S. Howard, whose manufactory was on Montello Street; F. A. & H. B. Thayer, whose factory was on Centre Street ; Samuel Her- rod, who did a large business on North Main Street; and George Stev- ens, who was one of the Campello manufacturers on Montello Street.
During the Revolution, Massachusetts supplied a large share of the shoes worn by the patriot army. During the Rebellion it was again Massachusetts, and largely Plymouth County, which supplied the de- mand for army boots and shoes for Northern troops in the South.
Importance of Newman's Measuring Stick-Adhering to the anti- quated methods of making shoes which were centuries old when the first shoemakers landed in this county, there was little hope for improvement as long as each pair of shoes or boots were made from individual meas- ures taken, in the same way a suit of clothes is made by a tailor. No two shoemakers had the same measure and to call a shoe a certain size meant nothing until one knew who the shoemaker was. William New- man of Stamford, Connecticut, brought with him from England a meas- uring stick which he offered to the General Court and the court adopted it in 1658 as the standard, fair between buyer and seller.
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