The Artificial Intelligence tools (like ChatGPT4, Claude, Gemini, Grok, Meta, CoPilot, GenSpark, DeepSeek, and Perplexity) can provide much useful and nearly instant information about subjects in a concise format, especially when they have been pre-trained on a large volume of information about the subjects.
1) I wondered about shoemaking in the 19th century, since my second great-grandfather was a boot and shoe maker from 1838 to 1892 or so. How did he do it?
2) Here is my first prompt for this task: Describe shoe and boot making in the mid-19th century in America. What materials were used, what processes were used, and how were they sold?
The Grok 2 response was:
In the mid-19th century, the shoe and boot making industry in America underwent significant transformations due to technological advancements, the growth of factories, and shifts from artisanal to mass production methods. Here's an overview of the materials, processes, and sales methods:
Materials Used:
- Leather: Primarily from cowhide, but also from calfskin, horsehide, pigskin, and goat for more specialized or luxury items. Leather was still the dominant material due to its durability and availability from local tanneries.
- Sole Leather: Typically made from the hides of older cattle, which were thicker and more durable for the soles of shoes and boots.
- Lining: Often made from lighter leathers or linen, though less common in work shoes.
- Thread: Waxed linen or hemp for stitching.
- Wood: For lasts (the forms around which shoes were made) and sometimes for heels.
- Metal: For eyelets, buckles, and nails in heavier boots.
Manufacturing Processes:
- Hand-Crafting: Early in the century, shoes were predominantly handmade by cordwainers. Each shoe was made to fit, involving cutting, stitching, lasting (shaping over a last), and finishing by hand.
- Introduction of Machinery: By the 1840s and 1850s, innovations like the rolling machine for leather preparation, the McKay stitch machine for sewing soles to uppers, and later the Goodyear Welt machine (introduced in 1862 but used earlier in some forms) began to change the industry. These machines reduced the time and skill required for shoe production.
- Division of Labor: With the rise of factories, tasks were divided among workers, each specializing in one part of the shoe-making process, which increased efficiency but also led to a decline in the artisanal quality of handmade shoes.
Sales and Distribution:
- Custom Shops: In smaller towns or rural areas, shoes might still be custom-made in small shops where the shoemaker knew their customers' feet.
- General Stores: In towns and cities, shoes were increasingly sold in general stores. These stores would stock a variety of sizes and styles, often from local manufacturers or imported goods.
- Shoe Stores: Larger urban centers had dedicated shoe stores where a broader range of footwear could be found, including more fashionable items.
- Catalog Sales: The mid-19th century saw the beginning of mail-order catalogs, allowing people in remote areas to order shoes directly, although this would become more prevalent later in the century with companies like Sears.
- Wholesale and Retail: Manufacturers sold wholesale to retailers, who then sold to the public. Some manufacturers also opened their own retail outlets.
- Marketing: Advertising in newspapers was common, and brand names started to gain recognition. Shoes were marketed based on durability, style, and sometimes the novelty of being machine-made.
- Price and Quality: There was a broad range in quality and price. Handmade shoes were often of higher quality but more expensive. Machine-made shoes were cheaper and more uniform but sometimes less durable or comfortable.
This period was pivotal as it marked the transition from a cottage industry to one dominated by industrial methods, fundamentally altering the landscape of shoe and boot production in America.
3) My next prompt was: Please provide more detail about the handcrafting process - what pieces were made, how were they made, how were the pieces fastened together, how long did it take to make a pair of shoes?
Here's a detailed breakdown of the handcrafting process for making shoes and boots in mid-19th century America:
Pieces Made:
- Uppers: The part of the shoe that covers the foot. This was cut from a single piece of leather for simpler designs or multiple pieces for more complex styles, including quarters (back part), vamp (front part), and tongue if applicable.
- Sole: Made from thicker, tougher leather for durability. This included the insole (which goes inside the shoe) and the outer sole.
- Heel: Often a stack of leather pieces nailed or pegged together for work boots or shoes.
- Lining: Sometimes added for comfort, cut from thinner leather or fabric.
- Eyelets or Buttons: For lacing or fastening.
How Pieces Were Made:
- Cutting: Leather was measured and cut with a sharp knife or shears. Patterns were used for consistency, but fitting was often done by eye based on the customer's foot or a wooden last shaped to their foot size.
- Stitching: Uppers were stitched together using a saddle stitch, which involves two needles and a single thread, ensuring strength. This was done with waxed linen or hemp thread.
- Lasting: The shaped upper was stretched over a last (a wooden form shaped like a foot). The leather was dampened to make it more pliable, allowing it to mold to the last's shape. It was then secured with temporary tacks or nails.
Attaching the Sole:
- Welt: For higher-quality shoes, a welt (a strip of leather) was attached around the edge of the upper, and the sole was then stitched to this welt.
- Peg or Nail Construction: For less expensive or work shoes, the sole might be directly nailed or pegged to the shoe. Wooden pegs or iron nails were used, and later, the pegs or nails were set and the ends cut off or hammered flat.
- Heel Building: For shoes with heels, these were built up layer by layer with pieces of leather, then shaped, trimmed, and secured with nails or pegs.
- Finishing: This involved sanding, polishing, and sometimes dyeing or blackening the leather. Edges might be burnished, and the inside could be cleaned or lined.
How Pieces Were Fastened Together:
- Hand Stitching: For attaching uppers and linings, or sometimes for attaching soles in high-quality shoes.
- Pegs or Nails: For securing soles and heels in more utilitarian footwear.
- Adhesives: Although not as common as today, some adhesives were used, but mainly for temporary holding while sewing or nailing.
Time to Make a Pair of Shoes:
Custom Pair: Making a pair of custom shoes by hand could take anywhere from several hours to a couple of days, depending on the complexity of the design, the fit required, and the skill of the shoemaker.
- Preparation and Cutting: 1-2 hours
- Stitching the Upper: 1-2 hours
- Lasting: 1-2 hours
- Attaching Sole and Heel: 2-3 hours
- Finishing: 1-2 hours
This could easily add up to 6-12 hours or more for a single pair, especially if the maker was working alone or if the shoe required special techniques or fittings.
This labor-intensive process meant that shoes were significant investments for most people, explaining why repair and resoling were common practices rather than buying new shoes frequently. The shift to machinery would significantly reduce this time, but at the cost of some of the personalized fit and quality that handcrafting offered.
4) My third prompt was: Explain leather preparation.
Leather preparation in the mid-19th century was a multi-step process aimed at transforming raw animal hide into a durable, pliable material suitable for shoe-making. Here's a detailed explanation of the process:
1. Curing (Preservation)
Immediate Preservation: Upon slaughter, hides were often salted to prevent putrefaction. This initial step was crucial to preserve the hide until it could be processed further.
2. Soaking
Rehydration: The salted or dried hides were soaked in water for several days to rehydrate them, remove the salt, and begin loosening dirt, blood, and flesh residues.
3. Liming
Hair Removal: Hides were then placed in a lime pit or vat. Lime (calcium hydroxide) was used to loosen the hair and epidermis. This process could last from days to weeks, depending on the strength of the lime solution and how hair was to be removed (by scraping or washing off).
4. Fleshing
Removing Flesh: After liming, the hides were fleshed, meaning the remaining flesh, fat, and other unwanted tissues were scraped off. This was done manually with a fleshing knife or later with mechanical fleshing machines if available.
5. Deliming and Bating
Neutralizing: Deliming involved neutralizing the alkalinity from the liming process, often with ammonium salts or weak acids.
Bating: Following deliming, bating was done using enzymes from animal organs (like pigeon or dog dung in earlier times or pancreatic enzymes in later methods) to soften the leather and remove any remaining hair roots or interlaced fibers.
6. Pickling
Acid Bath: Hides intended for tanning with vegetable or chrome methods were sometimes pickled in an acid solution (usually sulfuric acid) to further prepare them for tanning by lowering the pH.
7. Tanning
Vegetable Tanning: This was the predominant method in the 19th century. Hides were soaked in a solution or series of solutions containing tannins from bark (like oak, hemlock, or chestnut), which converted the hide into leather by cross-linking the collagen fibers, making it durable and resistant to decay.
Process: Could take weeks to months, with hides moved through progressively stronger tannin solutions.
Chrome Tanning: Though chrome tanning was developed in the late 19th century, some early forms or experiments might have been around. Chrome tanning uses chromium salts for a quicker process (days rather than weeks or months) and results in softer, more water-resistant leather.
8. Drying
Drying Out: After tanning, leather was dried. It could be hung, stretched on frames, or laid out. The method used would affect the leather's final texture and flexibility.
9. Finishing
Buffing and Coloring: The leather might then be buffed to smooth the surface, dyed for color, and sometimes treated with fats or oils to enhance suppleness.
Splitting: Thick hides were often split into layers; the top grain was used for higher-quality shoes, while the split could be used for soles or other purposes.
10. Final Conditioning
Oiling: Leather was often treated with oils or waxes to condition it, improving its feel, durability, and appearance.
This process was labor-intensive and time-consuming, often involving several distinct professions or stages within a tannery. The quality of the leather was highly dependent on the skillfulness of the tanner, the quality of the raw materials, and the meticulousness of each step in the process. By the mid-19th century, some mechanization had begun to enter tanneries, but much of the work remained artisanal.
5) The Grok 2 response to the prompts was interesting and probably were accurate. Shoemaking was not an easy process! David Auble was probably a master at all but the leather working part of the process.
I asked the same questions of ChatGPT4 and Gemini and received essentially the same responses.
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