Yes, and they had horrible foot problems. After wearing straight-last shoes for a while the uppers conformed somewhat to the shape of the foot. Here is a short overview but they lingered for a while after 1851: Until the 1830's, the average person wore straight last shoes- shoes that were not fitted for right and left feet. The complexities and cost of carving compound curves into the last (the form that the shoe is molded over) and then making a mirror image for the other foot limited ownership of such shoes to the very rich. Colonial shoes were stiff leather shoes, with slight heels and buckles, but advances in shoemaking and the roots of the shoe industry in the U.S. began in Massachusetts.In 1828 a foreman by the name of Blanchard at the Springfield Armory in Massachusetts developed a duplicating lathe for the manufacture of gun stocks. A Philadelphia shoemaker thought that Blanchard's new duplicating lathe was also ideal for making shoe lasts and soon discovered that, by reversing the cam which guided the cutter, a mirror image could be produced. Since a wooden last gets chewed up by tack holes in a few hundred uses, there was a constant demand for new lasts and soon all new lasts were made in left and right mirror images. By 1841 the U.S. military was using left/right shoes. By 1851 left/rights were officially specified. Jan - Hopelessly hooked on collecting antique shoes, clothing, quilts, lace, coverlets, yada, yada, yada Textile Historian & Independent Researcher CO Dora Smith wrote: > So people did all that walking and manual work in shoes that didn't fit? > > Yours, > Dora Smith > Austin, TX > tiggernut24@yahoo.com > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Vital Records Project" <VitalRecords@ma-vitalrecords.org> > To: "Marcia Payne" <etexgal@webtv.net> > Cc: <MAWORCES-L@rootsweb.com> > Sent: Monday, February 23, 2009 6:32 PM > Subject: Re: [MAWORCES] Shoe makers > > > >> Hi, Marcia. >> The leather would most likely have come from the family's own >> cattle that had been slaughtered for food. Quite a few shoes could be >> made from a single hide. >> >> At one time shoe maker's were like travelling salesmen. One >> difference is that they would stay with the family that was getting >> the shoes. They didn't have fixed sizes and each person would get >> several pairs of shoes made at one time. I don't remember when left >> and right shoes came to be, but there were no right or left shoe in >> colonial times. >> >> John & Jodi >> Massachusetts Vital Records Administrators - http://MA-VitalRecords.org >> If you find this site of value - http://MA-VitalRecords.org/Donate.html >> >> >> Quoting Marcia Payne <etexgal@webtv.net>: >> >> >>> While I've been working on this Civil War project, I noticed many >>> shoemakers. Where in the world did they get so much leather? That's >>> alot of cow hides 'eh? >>> >>> Marcia >>> >>> >>> ------------------------------- >>> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >>> MAWORCES-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without >>> the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >>> >>> >> >> >> >> ------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >> MAWORCES-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the >> quotes in the subject and the body of the message >> > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to MAWORCES-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >