Closely following the Goodyear invention came the introduction of the first machine used in connection with heeling,—a machine which compressed the heel and pricked holes for the nails; this was soon followed by a machine which automatically drove the nails, the heel having previously been put in place and held by the guides on the machine. Other improvements in heeling machines followed with considerable rapidity, and a machine came into use shortly afterwards which not only nailed the heel, but which was also provided with a hand trimmer, which the operator swung round the heel, after nailing. From these have been evolved the heeling machines in use at the present time.
One of the early uses to which the sewing machine was put was the sewing together of the pieces of soft and pliable leather which make the upper of a shoe—a simple thing, involving only a slight adjustment of the original machine. It is a far more complicated operation to sew the upper to the thick and heavy sole, and years passed by before the secret was discovered, and the McKay machine appeared. In the shoe sewed on the McKay machine, the thread ran through into the inside of the inner sole, leaving a rasping ridge on which the stocking of the wearer rubbed. The McKay shoe displaced only the coarser grades. The hand-sewed shoe remained the favorite of wealth and fashion, and was worn exclusively by those who cared for comfort and could afford the price. In sewing a shoe by hand, a thin and narrow strip of leather, called a welt, is first sewed to the insole and upper, and the heavy outsole is sewed to this welt, so that the stitches come outside and do not touch the foot, the insole being left entirely smooth. It is a delicate operation by hand, and many years elapsed before a machine was contrived by which it could be done. At last the problem was solved. The “Goodyear welting and stitching machines” appeared—so named for Charles Goodyear, who financed and perfected them, a son of the man who taught the world the use of rubber. These two machines are the nucleus of the Goodyear welt system, to which must be attributed the revolution of an industry. Although they are entirely distinct machines, they are inseparable, for neither can be used effectively without the other in making the modern Goodyear welt shoe.
Insole for Hand Sewed Shoe.
Hand Sewed Shoe.
Much of the style of a shoe depends upon the wooden last over which the upper is shaped before being attached to the sole. To find a substitute for the human hand in fitting the shoe to the last and pulling the leather over its delicate lines and curves seemed for a long time impossible.
This took place in the early seventies, when a machine was invented for doing this work. It created a great change in a department of shoemaking which, prior to this time, had been regarded as a confirmed hand process. This machine, as well as those which followed afterwards for a period of twenty years, was known as the best type of machine, by which the shoe upper was drawn over the last by either friction or pincers, and then tacked by use of a hand tool.
At a comparatively recent period another machine which revolutionized all previous ideas in lasting was introduced. This machine is generally in use at the present time, and is known as the “consolidated hand method lasting machine.” It was fitted with pincers, which automatically drew the leather round the last, at the same time driving a tack which held it in place. This machine has been so developed that it is now used for the lasting of shoes of every type, from the lowest and cheapest to the highest grade, and it is a machine that shows wonderful mechanical ingenuity.