Makers of Many Things

s to feel springy and not board-like. You want the upper leather to keep the cold air from coming in; and also porous enough to let the perspiration out. Your feet are not exactly like those o

ho wears shoes, the whole earth is covered with leather"; and although many different materials have been tried in shoemaking, leather is the only one that

for many years with the bark from which tannin is made; but it has been found that the bark of several other kinds of trees, such as larch, chestnut, spruce, pine, and hemlock, will tan as well as that of oak. Tannin is now prepared in the forest and brought to the tanners, who put their tanneries where they please, usually near some large city. The hides are first soaked in water, and every particle of flesh is

In the United States there are many factories which do nothing but cut soles, or rather stamp them out with dies, a hundred or more in a minute. These soles and also the less heavy inner soles go through machines that make all parts of them of a uniform thickness. The traveling shoemaker always hammered his sole leather to make it we

for the box toe and the counters to support the quarters over the heel; there are linings, and many other necessary "findings," forty-four parts in all in an ordinary shoe. Much experimenting and more thinking have gone into every one of these forty-four parts; and much remembering that shoes have harder wear than a

arch of the shoe, metal shanks to the buttons, and eyelets. Not many years ago, eyelets soon wore brassy, and then the shoe looked old and cheap. They are now enameled, or the top of them is made of celluloid in a color to match the shoe. The tags on lacings

tating how the shoe is to be made up and when it is to be finished. These records are preserved, and if a customer writes, "Send me 100 p

nited Shoe

R PULLING-O

f experiment to perfect. It shapes the forepa

g on, the linings, trimmings, soles, and other parts are also being prepared, and all these many pieces now meet in the "stitching-room." At the first glance, it does not seem as if the right ones could ever come together, even though they are marked, and sometimes it does happen that a 4a vamp, for instance, is put with 5a quarters, and nobody knows the difference until the experienced eye of the foreman notices that something is wrong with the shoe. The uppers of the shoe are now stitched up, and after a careful inspection, they are sent on to the "lasting-room." The "last" of the earlier times was roughly whittled out, and it was t

he edge of the uppers, pull it smoothly and evenly into place, and drive a tack far enough in to keep it from slipping. Now comes the welting. A welt is a narrow strip of leather which is sewed to the lower edge of the upper all the way around the shoe except at the heel. This brings the upper, the lip of the inner sole, and the welt together. The inside of the shoe is now smooth and even, but around the outside of the sole is the ridge made by the welt and the sewing, and within the ridge a depressio

west lift. Another lift is forced upon these; and that is why the heel of a new shoe shows no signs of nails. The heel is trimmed, and then come the final sandpapering and blackening. The bottom of a new shoe has a peculiar soft, velvety appearance and feeling; and this is produced by

sewed together wrong side out and then turned. In shoemaking, as in all other business, if a manufacturer is to succeed, he must see that there is no waste. He has of course no use for a careless cutter, who would perhaps waste large pieces of leather; but even the tiniest