Comments on: Shoemakers and Shoemaking

By: Colin Young

Colin Young — Sun, 01 Aug 2021 20:42:35 +0000

Hi,
My great granduncle Peter Milligan was recorded as a shoemaker at Scranton from 1875 until 1886, latterly at Susquehanna House and finally at the Parker House. I know he applied for naturalization whilst in Stewart Township in 1896 but I cannot find him after that date. Born in Scotland in 1849, he came to the US about 1873 and I believe he enlisted in the 13th infantry company of the PNG (Pennsylvania National Guard) in 1879. I just wondered if you had any records of him which might help me fill some gaps in my family history research?
Regards,
Colin Young

By: Harry Kyriakodis

Harry Kyriakodis — Wed, 14 Dec 2016 22:55:19 +0000

Until the early 1800s, shoes were for both left and right feet; they were called “straights”. A Philadelphia shoemaker named William Young in 1822 made the first shoes in the New World designed for right and left feet. The idea may have been around from ancient times, but straights were the fashion for centuries in Europe. Young used a newly-invented duplicating lathe to create left and right shoe forms, thus allowing left and right shoes to be mass produced. The idea didn’t catch on in America until the 1850s; the uninitiated sent the shoes back, complaining they were crooked.

By: Bob Skiba

Bob Skiba — Tue, 13 Dec 2016 13:37:19 +0000

The word “journeyman” can be a bit deceptive. An important part of this story is that shoemaker/cordwainer was one of the professions open to women in Philadelphia. There were at least two female shoemakers living on Elfreth’s Alley in the early to mid nineteenth, one of them being Martha Ziegler in 1855. Even after shoemaking became industrialized, men would often do the more physically demanding work of making the soles and heels while women would do the fine stitching necessary on the uppers, sometimes taking their work home at night. One other interesting fact is that up until the 1820s, when the asymmetrical lathe was invented that could easily produce right and left lasts, most pairs of shoes were made identical and then broken in to the wearer’s feet.