Mrs. Abigail Bromfield Rogers.
[Here] is a pair of beautiful brocade wedding shoes. The heels are not high. Another pair was made of the silken stuff of the beautiful sacque worn by Mrs. Carroll. These have high heels running down to a very small heel-base. In the works of Hogarth we may find many examples of women’s shoes. In all the old shoes I have seen, made about the time of the American Revolution, the maker’s name is within and this legend, “Rips mended free.” Many heels were much higher and smaller than any given in this book.
Mrs. Carroll’s Slippers.
It is astonishing to read the advocacy and eulogy given by sensible gentlemen to these extreme heels. Watson, the writer of the Annals of Philadelphia, extolled their virtues—that they threw the weight of the wearer on the ball of the foot and spread it out for a good support. He deplores the flat feet of 1830.
In 1790 heels disappeared; sandal-shapes were the mode. The quarters were made low, and instead of a buckle was a tiny bow or a pleated ribbon edging. In 1791 “the exact size” of the shoe of the Duchess of York was published—a fashionable fad which our modern sensation hunters have not bethought themselves of. It was 5 3/4 inches in length; the breadth of sole, 1 3/4 inches. It was a colored print, and shows that the lady’s shoe was of green silk spotted with gold stars, and bound with scarlet silk. The sole is thicker at the back, forming a slight uplift which was not strictly a heel. Of course, this was a tiny foot, but we do not know the height of the duchess.
I have seen the remains of a charming pair of court shoes worn in France by a pretty Boston girl. These had been embroidered with paste jewels, “diamonds”; while to my surprise the back seam of both shoes was outlined with paste emeralds. I find that this was the mode of the court of Marie Antoinette. The queen and her ladies wore these in real jewels, and in affectation wore no jewels elsewhere.
In Mrs. Gaskell’s My Lady Ludlow we are told that my lady would not sanction the mode of the beginning of the century which “made all the fine ladies take to making shoes.” Mrs. Blundell, in one of her novels, sets her heroine (about 1805) at shoe-making. The shoes of that day were very thin of material, very simple of shape, were heelless, and in many cases closely approached a sandal. A pair worn by my great-aunt at that date is shown on this page. American women certainly had tiny feet. This aunt was above the average height, but her shoes are no larger than the number known to-day as “Ones”—a size about large enough for a girl ten years old.