Best Foot Forward: The Shoe Industry in Massachusetts

Inventors

Until America’s Colonial era, shoes were largely homemade. A typical shoe was composed of a “sole,” the layer between foot and ground, and an “upper,” the material that extends across the top of the foot. Early shoemakers could build a shoe at home through a process of pounding and preparing leather then cutting material for the upper to fit one’s foot shape. They would bore holes in both the upper and the sole to peg or sew them together, and then affix an insole and outer sole.
The Massachusetts shoe industry benefitted from the arrival of skilled craftsmen from Europe. One such reputed shoemaker was John Adam Dagyr, who immigrated to Lynn, Massachusetts from Wales in 1750 and found his business “producing shoes equal to the best made in England.” Across the state, other trained shoemakers and their apprentices were beginning to rival and exceed the quality of imported shoes with their custom footwear.
The Revolutionary War necessitated the mass-production of shoes for the Continental Army, as well as an increase in leather tanning from domestic livestock. The efficient “Central Shop System” arose at the turn of the eighteenth  century, with separate stages of shoemaking—cutting, fitting, lasting, and bottoming—happening at different craftsmen’s own shops or homes before the shoe’s components were combined. Years later, technological advancements in the mid-nineteenth century and the need for more shoes with the advent of the Civil War pulled the shoemaking industry into the era of mechanization.

Lye Shoe Shop, Essex St. Interior previously on Mall St

Early Shoemaking

Technological Advancements

Workers' Lives

Selling Shoes

War Changes an Industry

Boston Public Library

Digital Commonwealth

With the onset of industrialization and the machinery that came with it, Massachusetts' cities grew exponentially in urban development and population. One prevalent example is Haverhill, Massachusetts, and the striking expansion that resulted from its industrialization in the 1850s. 
Haverhill had few settlements along its sinuous river in the 1830s. By the mid 1870s, broad avenues and streets began forming an urban grid that expanded throughout the town. Its growth continued through the turn of the twentieth century; the town, with its burgeoning industrial center, became known as “Queen Slipper City,” and produced a tenth of the nation’s shoes by the end of 1913 (an industry that dominates the advertisements on the quickly-changing maps of Haverhill itself).

Industrialization

Introduction

Why Massachusetts?