7 minute read
Shoe Stories
Above: A trade card for the Wales Goodyear Company from Naugatuck, Connecticut.
by NORA ELLEN CARLESON, Associate Curator of Collections
To walk a mile in someone else’s shoes.
I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes.
Waiting for the other shoe to drop.
If the shoe fits.
How many times have you heard these phrases? Have you ever wondered why the English language has so many shoe-related idioms? Whether you give them much thought or none at all, in the United States, shoes are central to our daily activities. They are both personal and universal. They shape to our feet as we wear them, becoming an extension of our bodies. Many of us appreciate the beauty and pleasure of a good shoe. Shoes protect us, help us perform everything from walking a dog to breaking an Olympic record, and provide clues about our jobs, tastes, hobbies, and styles.
At Historic New England, we collect and share stories of New Englanders’ lives through places, documents, photographs, and objects. Often, the items that comprise our collection reveal unexpected stories. With more than five hundred pairs of shoes in our collection, Historic New England has a lot of shoe stories to share.
Cobbling Together a New Country
When Winthrop Gray decided to follow in the footsteps of his father and brothers and become a shoemaker in the Massachusetts Colony, it is unlikely he imagined his work would be in a museum nearly 250 years later. A pair of Gray’s stunning shoes provide a window into a story with a surprising twist. Gray was part of the growing shoemaking industry in the colonies which, by the 1760s, rivaled producers in England and France in terms of quality of material and craftsmanship. The label affixed to the sole of one of Gray’s shoes signals the level of professionalization of the Massachusetts shoe industry in the eighteenth century and places Gray’s shop in Boston on the eve of war.
Created at some point between 1765 and 1775, these shoes might be one of the last pairs the talented shoemaker made. In 1775, Gray shuttered his shop to join the Continental Army, never to return. But that is not where his story ends. Unlike many of his peers tragically lost to war, Gray never returned to shoemaking seemingly because he didn’t want to. After a public falling out with Paul Revere and coming into an inheritance, Gray left the army and lived out his remaining days as a tavern owner – a surprising twist on the familiar tale of a heroic artisan turned American revolutionary.
The DIY “Dupe”
Many of us can relate to wanting something we cannot afford. Sometimes we save up to purchase our heart’s desire. Other times we make do, retrofitting something we already have or making our own. People in the past also turned to what we now call DIY to achieve style on a budget. A pair of ladies’ winter boots from the late nineteenth century tells us a story of someone who wanted a pair of stylish winter overshoes but did not have the means to purchase such a luxury.
The maker likely hoped these boots would be a proxy for the popular, lush carriage boots made of velvet, silk ribbons, and fur over a hard rubber overshoe – which also are represented in Historic New England’s collection. To make the boots, the crafty DIY-er took some Wale Goodyear Shoe Company bottoms, also known as “rubbers,” hand knitted a top, added some ribbon closures, and secured the top to the rubber with glue. While the final product didn’t quite replicate the desired carriage boot, to modern eyes the rubber-bottomed boot with a light brown upper resembles the L.L. Bean duck boot or the “Bean boot.” And though the Bean boot is now quintessentially New England, Historic New England’s DIY carriage boot “dupe” was made at least twenty years before Leon Leonwood Bean got his feet wet while hunting in Maine and created his namesake boot.
Shoes Fit for a Flapper
Picture it: the roaring twenties. A tuxedoed band plays the latest jazz hit. Young couples take to the dance floor and kick up their feet. Women are bedecked head to toe in sparkle and shine to catch the lights as they move their bodies to the beat. One woman wears a loosefitting, knee-length flapper dress - showing off not just her legs but a beautiful pair of cream floral brocade heels with metallic thread and rhinestone buckles. As the newest dance craze, the Charleston, begins to play, the young woman doesn’t fear losing her shoes because she is wearing the fashionable and secure “t-strap” style of the day.
Even though shoes help us navigate the world, we may not think about how shoe styles change to reflect new ways our bodies may move. In the 1920s, as women were liberated from their corsets, long gowns, and the slow motions of the waltz, they began to show off their legs and new dance moves. The evening slippers and heels of decades past were now accidents waiting to happen. Without a strap to secure a shoe to a woman’s foot, popular dance moves might cause her shoes to fly off her feet. Shoes needed to fit the times and the “t-strap” was invented. Shoes like these in Historic New England’s collection help us tell stories about women finding liberation by moving their bodies in new ways and the fashion industry responding with new designs.
Beguiling Bronze Booties
Once a decorative staple in many American homes, the bronzed baby shoe has become an item of curiosity, fading fast from our collective memory. Personal belongings like a 1940s bronzed baby shoe help us tell the stories of New Englanders through the family heirlooms with which they decorated their homes.
Humans have known how to bronze objects for more than five thousand years, but bronzing baby shoes didn’t become popular in the United States until the 1930s. Violet Shinbach’s Ohio-based American Bronzing Company was not the first to bronze baby shoes, but it deserves credit for successfully marketing them as the ultimate keepsake. Some sources claim that by the 1970s, Shinbach’s company was bronzing upward of 2,000 shoes a day – more than 500,000 shoes a year. By the 1990s, with the onset of the digital age and a wider variety of childhood mementos, fewer and fewer baby shoes were bronzed. The American Bronzing Company closed its doors in 2018. Preserved in our collection as a piece of cultural history and not just as a family keepsake, the bronzed bootie prompts us to consider how everyday items become cherished possessions.
