USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Professional and industrial history of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, Volume III > Part 35
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Hon. J. H. Walker, of Worcester, is one of the prominent men in the trade. He is the son and grandson of a shoe manufacturer. His firm, J. H. & G. M. Walker, was for many years one of the largest in the State. During the war Mr. Walker paid the highest income tax of any manufacturer in Massachusetts. He invented the sole cutter bear. ing his name, and the "saddle seam " boot. In 1865 he invested capital in tanning in Chicago. The firm there was Walker, Oakley & Co. Mr. Walker is serving his second term in Congress.
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WHOLESALE SHOE TRADE.
The census of 1890 gives the following report of Worcester:
SHOE AND LEATHER MANUFACTURES OF WORCESTER, 1890.
Boots and
Belting and Hose -- Leather.
Shoes- Factory Product.
Establishments
3
22
CAPITAL EMPLOYED-Aggregate
$500,563
$2,042,743
Hired Property-Total
60,0 00
325,130
Piant-Total
14,665
309,801
Land
65,700
Buildings
96,759
Machinery, tools and implements
14,665
147,342
Live Assets-Total
425.898
1,407,812
Raw materials
79,523
252,425
Stock in process and finished product.
140,814
275,682
Cash, bills and accounts receivable, and all sundries not elsewhere re- ported.
205,561
879,705
WAGES PAID-Aggregate.
54,393
927,084
Average number of hands employed during the year.
79
1,975
Males above 16 years
77
71I
Females above 15 years
2
250
Children .-
26
Pieceworkers.
988
MATERIALS USED-Aggregate cost.
$649,372
$2,125,358
Principal materials.
642,990
2,052,226
Fuel_
925
9,539
All other materials
5,457
63,593
MISCELLANEOUS EXPENSES-Aggregate
23,342
200,962
Rent.
3,900
19,5c 8
Power and heat.
600
4,200
Taxes
2,661
11,389
Insurance
3,339
11,418
Repairs, ordinary, of buildings and machinery
876
7,293
Interest on cash used in the business
6,966
37,19I
All sundries not elsewhere reported
5,000
109,963
GOODS MANUFACTURED-Aggregate value
757,633
3,503,877
Principal product_
757,633
3,417,568
All other products, including receipts from custom work and repairing __
86,309
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SUFFOLK COUNTY.
CHAPTER VI.
Labor Disturbances-Rubber Manufacture-Mortuary of a Decade --- Trade Methods -List of Shoe Machinery .- Conclusion.
IN 1878 there were in Massachusetts 159 strikes and lock-outs in the shoe trade; 118 of them originated in demands for higher or protest against lower wages. Almost all of them failed of the object aimed at, though they were sustained by contributions from the organizations. From 1860 to 1848 there was an increase of 24 14% per cent. in wages. The cost of living never has been as low as it is now. In Lynn wages were advanced fifty-six per cent., in other shoe towns from ten to twenty per cent.
Fashion has dictated that shoes worn now shall be made of light ma- terial, consequently rubbers are worn in the wet and cold seasons. The greatest rubber shoe works in this country, or in the world for that matter, are at Malden. They are owned by the Boston Rubber Shoe Company. These produce about 45,000 pairs daily in more than a thousand styles. In Rhode Island that of the Woonsocket Rubber Com- pany is about as extensive. The trade amounts to $10,000,000 to $25,- 000,000 a year. Charles Goodyear discovered the secret of vulcaniza -. tion. This rendered it impervious to heat or cold and made its use possible in shoes or clothing. Mr. Goodyear spent many years in ex- perimenting fruitlessly. At last he gained the knowledge he was in search of accidentally. He was standing in his shop in Woburn, in 1839, explaining his views to a couple of friends, and holding rubber and sulphur mixed in his hands. The mass dropped on a red hot stove and on being recovered it was found that it had not melted or been burned in the least. The inference was plain. Intense heat was the thing he required. Mr. Goodyear obtained the great council medal at the London exhibition in 1851, and the cross of the legion of honor at Paris in 1855. He died in 1860.
Elisha S. Converse is rounding out half a century of experience in the rubber business. The Edgeworth Rubber Company built a factory in Malden in 1850. In 1853 it merged in the Malden Manufacturing Company. They were chartered by the Legislature with $200,000
359
WHOLESALE SHOE TRADE.
capital. Among the first directors were John Bertram, an importer of hides, rubber. etc., of Salem; T. C. Wales, one of the first to sell rub- bers, and later the inventor and patentee of the Arctic overshoe; Na- thaniel Hayward, who with Charles Goodyear was a discoverer of vul- canization, and E. C. Converse, a shoe and leather dealer of Boston. Mr. Converse was made treasurer and still holds the office. Mr. Con- verse was born in Needham, January 28, 1820. In 1844 he went in busi- ness as a clerk for his elder brother's firm, known at that time as Field & Converse. He soon began for himself, having Benjamin Poland as a partner. The firm of Poland & Converse did business on North Market street up to 1853, when they dissolved. Mr. Converse on tak- ing hold of the affairs of the Malden company proceeded to reorganize it, and in 1855 the Boston Rubber Shoe Company was chartered; capi- tal $375,000, increased in 1860 to $500,000. Their product was 260,000 pairs in 1852, 1,800,000 pairs in 1874, and now they make, in the season, more than 40,000 pairs daily. The company has two factories, one at Malden and the other at Middlesex Fells. On November 29, 1875, a fire burned all their buildings; they were rebuilt and opened the next year. The Boston fire of 1842 destroyed their store. Mr. Converse is one of the most charitable citizens of Malden. He has presented the town with a library, a church, a park, and has built up an industry in which more than three thousand persons find employment. The Woonsocket Rub- ber Company has factories in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Their main selling agency is in Boston, but they have stores also in New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Chicago. They produce 30, 000 pairs of rubber boots and shoes daily. Joseph Banigan, president of this company, began the rubber business at Jamaica Plain more than forty years ago. They have a house at Para and import their own stock. Mr. Banigan at a cost to himself of $250,000 built and endowed a build- ing at Providence, R. I., for the Little Sisters of the Poor.
The value of product of rubber shoes and manufactures of rubber for each decade since the commencement of the business is as follows :
CLASSIFICATION.
1855
1865
1875
1885
Number of establishments
5
16
33
41
Capital invested
$438,000
$1,032,484 $1,277,747
$4,655,988 $10,893,079
Value of stock used
$2,816,709
$7,873,240
Persons employed
462
1,062
2,195
6,469
Wages paid.
$406,554
$2,285,165
Motive power (horse power)
1,570
4,265
Value of goods made
$968,000 $1,808,936
$6,508,096|$12,638, 741
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SUFFOLK COUNTY.
The business portion of Haverhill was destroyed by fire February 12, 1882. Most of the shoe factories were burned. One year from that day the manufacturers met at a banquet to celebrate the rebuilding of of the town.
November 26, 1889, a great fire occurred in Lynn; sixty per cent. of the shoe factories were burned, and many millions of dollars' worth of shoes and leather destroyed. The loss on buildings alone footed tip $1,009,460; that in merchandise was much greater. The total insu- rance was $3,604,835. More than 7,000 persons were thrown out of employment.
A fire broke out in the Exchange Building, 69 to 81 Bedford street, Boston, November 28, 1889, badly damaging several buildings and burning stocks of shoes and leather. The loss was $4,500,000; insti- rance, $3,737.525. The fireproof material, of which the building of the Shoe and Leather Association directly opposite was composed, stopped the conflagration.
Within fifteen years the following prominent members of the shoe trade have died. Some were residents of towns in the vicinity, but all did business at one period in Boston :
Cheever Newhall, April 8, 1878, aged ninety. He began business in 1802, and from 1822 to 1826 had as partner, Joseph Eveleth, afterwards high sheriff of Suffolk county. He was a charter member of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, 1840, a founder and first presi- dent of the Agricultural Club. Ebenezer Vose, February, 1872, in wholesale shoe business 1810, retired 1850. A. C. Mayhew, Milford, Sep- tember, 1880. He served several terms in both branches of the Legis- lature and was a member of the council of Governor Banks in 1859. Charles D. Bigelow, May, 1883. He commenced manufacturing in Framingham in 1843; went to New York 1851; was the first to make pegged brogans there; first to use pegging machines, 1852; first to employ prison labor, contracts for which he held at Providence, Sing Sing, N. Y., Brooklyn, N. Y., and Trenton, N. J. In 1855 he intro- duced the system of division of labor in shoe factories; 1866 built the Bay State Shoe Factory at Worcester. His son, Charles E. Bigelow, succeeded him as president of the Bay State Shoe and Leather Co. Alexander Strong, June, 1881; manufactured in Randolph from 1840 to 1868. He retired 1868, succeeded by E. A. Strong & Burt, now George H. Burt & Co. Jasper S. Nelson died October, 1884; manu- factured at Grafton from 1844 to the time of his decease. Aaron Claf-
durge W. Jay
WHOLESALE SHOE TRADE. 361
lin, January 2, 1890, aged eighty-three years. He had a store in New York, and before and during the war had jobbing houses in ten cities. Horace B. Claflin, the great New York dry goods merchant, was his brother. George Hussey Chase, Lynn, a shoe manufacturer from 1848 to 1860; then postmaster eight years, and collector of the port for a similar period. He was a cousin of John G. Whittier, the poet, who was himself a shoemaker in early life.
Lewis W. Nute went to Boston in 1841, and from humble beginnings accumulated a large fortune. He built a fine building and presented it, with a library, to Milton, N. H., his native town.
In August, 1881, the first exposition of the New England Manufac- turers' and Mechanics' Institute Fair opened at their building on Hunt- ington avenue. The structure covers 300,000 square feet. There was a large exhibit of shoe machinery, and an entire shoe factory shown in operation. At the exhibition of 1882, Edison's electric light and power display was very interesting. Shoe machinery was run by electric motor.
The law to regulate trade-marks was passed March, 1881. Many shoes are now trade-marked and price-marked. Fee for trade-mark, $25.
The bankrupt law was repealed 1880.
One of the difficulties which shoe venders are subject to is the prac- tice of "dating ahead." . The manufacturers take orders for shoes, and deliver them, say in January and February. They date the bill four months from April 1. Or they take orders and deliver the shoes in June, dating the bills October 1, so at least eight months must elapse between the time of parting with the goods and realizing the proceeds. The New England Shoe and Leather Association in 1891 recommended the following basis of a system on which shoes should be sold:
First: That the date of bills shall be that of the date of the shipment of goods.
Second: That settlement of bills shall be made by notes or cash within thirty days, or within other reasonable time, subsequent to the date of bills.'
Third: That the maximum time given be such that one season's bills shall not overlap the bills of the succeeding season.
The propensity to repudiate contracts and to demand reclamation for goods on the pretext that they are not of the prescribed quality, is more prevalent than it ought to be. It is a subject of deprecatory re-
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362
SUFFOLK COUNTY
mark at every convention of the trade. About ten years ago some manufacturers in Massachusetts, who had previously sold only to jobbers, began to sell to the retail trade. It was claimed that they secured both the manufacturer's and jobber's compensation by so doing. However this may be, the profits were soon cut down by com- petition, and it was found that to distribute shoes over a wide extent of country, the services of jobbers were indispensable.
The following table of shipments of shoes from Boston shows the growth of the industry in thirty years:
1860
682,165 cases.
1880
2,265,360 cases.
1865
710,162 66 1885
2,717,795
1870
1,231,369
1891
1,440,073
3,417,343 " 1875
Shoes are almost always sold by sample. Manufacturers make up samples twice a year. Every season they make additional improve- ments in the styles. The samples are carried all over the country by travelers. They take orders for goods to correspond with them, and the work is all done in fulfillment of these contracts. Few goods are made up except on orders. This, of course, does not refer to jobbers' stocks.
The article mostly in vogue at present for women's outdoor wear are button boots. The material in the upper is kid or cloth; the sole, oak, union or hemlock tanned. There are fully fifty workpeople who have something to do in the production of a pair of shoes. The use of ma- chinery has cheapened them fully one half. Improvements in the art of tanning contributed to this change, and now the consumer has all the benefit, getting a better shoe for three dollars now than those were for which he paid six dollars or more twenty years ago.
In a factory where medium grade shoes are made for women's wear, the following machines are used: For preparing sole leather, stripping, rolling, splitting, sole cutting, dieing-out, rounding-up, moulding, channeling, shanking, thinning edges and skiving stiffenings; for fit- ting the uppers: machines for closing, stitching and binding, and for stamping, scalloping, punching, eyeletting, staying, rubbing down, rolling and bobbin winding. In the making room, machines are used for lasting, sole sewing, pegging, beating-out, edge setting, heeling, heel grinding and burnishing are required. The bottoms are finished with sanding and brushing machines. The trade-mark, or other device, is stamped on the sole by a monogram machine, The shoes are then
363
WHOLESALE SHOE TRADE.
buttoned or laced up by the trimmers, and laid away in a pasteboard carton ready for market. Fine shoes are made eight widths to each size, and any normally developed foot can be fitted.
A "set " of machinery for a modern shoe factory is expensive. Some manufacturers run four or five complete sets. For machine work, they are as follows, and we add approximate prices:
STOCK FITTING DEPARTMENT.
Roller $100 to 275
Feather edger $ 30
Splitter. 65 to 100
Molder
100
Dieing out. 125
Channel flap turner 40 to 60
With sometimes a Hartford or Smith
Veneer press (on cheap lines). 25
rounder 300
Counter skiver
20
McKay channeler
30
BOTTOMING ROOM.
Sole tacker 8 15
Breaster
1 $ 25
Lasting machines, royalty {c. per
Twin burnisher 850 F
pair. $100, S250 or 300
Electric finish. 50 1
Mckay sewing machine 320
Heel beader
25
Beating-out machine 300
Steam dryer 1 1 t
14
Shank buffer.
65
Buffer 65 1
Nailer (National or Mckay) Mckay royalty ¿c. per pair. 500
I Naumkeag cleaner 100 I r r 1 t
Brush shaft 15 .
Smith shaver 150
Monogram.
15
Busell trimmer. 65
Extra trimmer for spring heels 65
Union edge setter I
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150
GOODYEAR.
Full set of welt machines $675 Do. with turn channeler and molder_$125
Do. with molder for turns. 687 Turn set alone 350
Shoes made by the Goodyear system are subject to a royalty of 11c. for children's, 2c. for misses', 3c. for women's, and +c. for men's shoes.
A line of shafting, pulleys, belts, etc., $380. A good many firms hire power at about $300 a year for each line.
The Singer, Wheeler & Wilson, Union Special, and Standard Ma- chine Companies fit a room entire. There are used in the stitching room: bench, with shellacked plank top; shaft suspended from the floor and fitted for single or double bank lines.
Devices for transmitting power are fastened to the under side of the bench by different methods. The Wheeler & Wilson No. 12, and all
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364
SUFFOLK COUNTY.
Singer machines, are made with different modifications, so as to do all parts of the stitching.
STANDARD SEWING MACHINE CO.,
Cleveland, ()., with offices in many large cities, fit up with power transmitters:
Large arm single-needle leather machines, style 10.
Medium arm single-needle leather machines, style 9.
Two-needle leather machines-one thread below.
Three-needle leather machines-one thread below.
Leather trimming machines. Wheel feed leather machines.
Zig-zag machines, with stop motion.
The various operations on kid or cloth uppers are performed as fol- lows:
WHEELER & WILSON CO. OUTFIT.
Skiving by Amazeen machines.
Folding by Lufkin machines.
Closing seams, No. 12, chain or lock stitch.
Making linings, No. 12, chain or lock stitch.
Fancy stitch on top facings, various designs. Staying seams by two-needle machines.
Closing on the lining by machines with seam trimmer attachment.
Top stitching, No, 12.
Buttonholes, working, finishing and barring by machines invented for the purpose. Cording buttonholes, No. 12. Vamping by No. 12 double or single needle. Sewing on buttons by machine or hand.
THE SINGER MANUFACTURING COMPANY OUTFIT.
Closing, by automatic chain stitcher
$25
Welt staying (California stay), A.C.S welt attachment and central bobbin cutting attachment I
38
Lining, by automatic chain stitcher
25
Amazeen Skiver and Lufkin folder
160
Tape stay, Singer, A. C.S., two-needle
50
Fancy stitch on linings, long and short throw .
Also new fancy stitch just introduced
1 75 .
Staying, stay stitch, two needle or I.M. two shuttle
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75
I I Closing on I.M.C.B., C.A 36 . 1 1
Top stitching, I.M.C.B. 26
Buttonholes, I. B. H., with barring attachment
120
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365
WHOLESALE SHOE TRADE.
Also I.B.H. DeC. for cloth 120
Buttonhole finishing overseaming machine 50
Buttonhole cording, I. M. central bobbin 26
Vamping I. M. two shuttle or I. F. diagonal and F. U. A. cylinder, two needle 75 After vamping come button machines, Morley or Standard 150 Toe linings, A.C.S. 25
Barring button flies, by the Philadelphia barring machine.
To fit up for 600 pairs a day three sets of machines are required and the cost, including tables, counters, shafting, etc., would be from $1,500 to $1,800. The Singer Company makes 118 different kinds of machines.
The process of making women's shoes is, in most factories, about as follows: The soles come from the sole cutters blocked in sizes; the molded counters and built heels are purchased from the makers; the innersole leather is cut in shape by dies; the outer soles are put in a tank of water, when, after being properly tempered, they are dried and then rounded by machine; the channels are cut by a channeler, which grooves the sole at the same time and allows the stitches to lie and makes a perfectly smooth surface beneath the channel lip; the outer sole is then put through a Bresnahan moulding machine so it will take the proper form for the last, and, as this presses the channel down, it goes to another machine where the channel is turned up; then the outer sole is ready for lasting. The uppers and linings are cut by hand. A cutter has said: " Until a machine is invented that has brains the cutting of shoes must be done by manual labor." This is because the patterns have to be laid on the skin in a way that shall avoid imperfections and cut to the best advantage. The several sizes are kept separate. They are then taken to the stitching room, where the operators are mostly women who work on different machines and tasks. One sews seams, others perform the different operations of gumming the linings, blind stitching, turning, making buttonholes, sewing on buttons. The special machines all do their part, and when the upper is completed, the top of the lining is covered with a "hood holder," or otherwise, to keep the lining clean, and the uppers are sent to the stock room. The stock is "assembled " -- that is, the upper, outer and inner soles, heels, counters, etc., are put together and sent to the lasting or making room. Here the process is continued either by hand, in old fashion, or by the various lasting machines; then the last is pulled out and the shoe put on the rack.
366
SUFFOLK COUNTY.
This is for the Mckay machine, by which the sole is sewed to the 11pper. By the Goodyear system, as now adopted, there is in use a machine for sewing welts, an outsole stitcher for stitching the sole to the welt, a machine for beating out the welt, and channeling machines. The shoes are bottomed without removing the lasts. They are leveled by the Acme leveler, and the last is taken out to nail on the heel by machine, and finish it. Shanks are buffed, edges trimmed, blacked and set, and bottoms cleaned by machinery. Hard finish and black is ap- plied by hand and the shanks burnished with a hot iron, uppers cleaned by machine. monogramed, and the goods are ready to be put in cartons for shipment. These are the processes that have supplanted the old shoe bench of half a century ago, and render it possible for well organ- ized factories to turn out anywhere from 1,000 to 5,000, and even 10,- 000 pairs a day.
In Eastern Massachusetts block soles are used. In sections where manufacturers cut their own soles, large beam sole cutters eut a whole . side at a time.
A factory where 1,000 pairs daily are made will require fully 3,000 pairs of lasts. Patterns are needed according to the number of styles produced.
The manufacture of dressing blackings and burnishing inks for fin- ishing shoes is quite an important adjunct to the industry. One of the earliest beginners in this line was Charles L. Hauthaway, of North Bridgewater, now Brockton. He commenced in 1852, and drove through the shoe towns supplying his trade from a wagon. He built two great factories later. His business is continued by his sons. B. F. Brown & Co. began making blacking in 1855. Mr. Brown was a prac- tical chemist. Boston manufacturers now supply Europe with these goods.
There are 4,000,000 shoe boxes used in New England yearly. They are mostly purchased ready made. The prices are for a boot case thirty-five cents; brogan, sixty pair, sixty cents; plough shoe, thirty- six pair, forty-two cents; same, twelve pair, twenty-six cents; sixty pair slipper case fifty cents. A large amount of lumber is used in their construction. Then there are pasteboard cartons in which every pair of fine shoes is packed. These cost with labels about three cents each. They are furnished free to buyers,
Competition is making it necessary to use constant effort to hold the business in New England. The rivalry is intense and comes from all
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WHOLESALE SHOE TRADE.
sections. Citizens of towns east and west are continually bidding for shoe factories. They offer exemption from taxation, loans or gifts of money and numerous other inducements to parties with a view to in- duce them to come and make shoes in their towns. Their efforts have multiplied factories so much that there is no sale for the goods and only employment a portion of the time for the hands, but Massachusetts holds her supremacy as a shoe producing State, and New England keeps equal pace in the march of progress.
Like all other staple commodities shoes are produced in great abund- ance and sold at very small profits. The manufacturer of the present day in order to succeed must be a master of his art, keen of perception, and prompt to see and seize all opportunities that come in his way. He must constantly progress. It is not enough that there should be no retrogression, he cannot stand still, however far in the advanced column he has reached. Unless he moves forward he is in danger of being passed. That there are so few that falter and fall back is the strongest evidence that can be adduced of the ability of the leaders in this vast industry.
THE HIDE AND LEATHER TRADE OF SUF- FOLK COUNTY.
BY FRANK W. NORCROSS.
OF THE "SHOE AND LEATHER REPORTER.
CHAPTER I.
Tanning among the Puritans-Ample Supply of Deer and Cattle Skins-Sumptuary Laws for Regulating Trade-Tanning in the Eighteenth Century-Personal Sketches of Old Tanners.
THE hide and leather business in Massachusetts has kept pace with that of shoes and grown with its growth. Of late years the production of heavy leather has decreased, owing to difficulty in obtaining bark, but the capital of Boston merchants has been invested in tanneries in Maine, New York and Pennsylvania. The hides are now mostly taken to the bark and the finished product brought to Boston for sale.
Light leather, morocco, kid and sheepskins are made in the vicinity of Boston and marketed here. Something like one-quarter of the hides the tanners use are imported into Boston and New York. Bos- ton merchants have a large La Plata, African and Calcutta trade, and most of the hides from these countries naturally come to this port. The upper leather hides imported are almost all of them tanned in Massa- chusetts. A history of the hide and leather business is coeval with the first settlement of this country.
The manufacture of leather and its conversion into numerous articles of elegance and utility, has attained a front rank as a branch of industry in this country. Boston has for more than a hundred years been the emporium of the trade. Tanning was one of the first occupations that
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