Poor Farmer shoes

[bazoo]

Re: Poor Farmer shoes

For the wooden shoes like this dutch one ( http://www.ncmuseumofhistory.org/exh...ction4a.html#4) , I think there was not a lot but I have no complementary information.
I think this could be avoid because very difficult to find accurate one.
In France , there was a lot and each part of the country have his spécific pattern.
There was pattern for the different moments of the life working or for wedding .

There was the wooden soles shoes like the slaves shoes, more confortable .
I've some sources I 've give bellow.

In France when the wooden shoes died , the farmer put them in the cheminey , so it's difficult to find some really old ones.
Regards
Luc géraudie

[georgerutherford1861]

Re: Poor Farmer shoes

The Deutschheim Historic Site in Hermann, Missouri, has one if not a couple of pairs of wooden shoes on display as in use in the area. This website http://www.ulib.iupui.edu/kade/deutschheim.html mentions them. How extensive was their use? I do not know, but perhaps the staff at the historic site could be of assistance, they may have specific documentation to the fact. Hope this helps.

Doug Frank

[Last Southron]

Re: Poor Farmer shoes

Recent studies are claiming russet were not the original colour but turned that way over time (by time they mean now). I saw where several different sources was working on it but never saw a final result.

[David Jarnagin]

Russet brogans

I posted information on russet shoes some time ago and here is the link.

http://www.authentic-campaigner.com/forum/showthread.php?35918-Russet-Brogans&highlight=russet+brogans

I think the confusion over black fading to brown can be found with article.

http://confederatesaddles.com/cswp/?p=611

David Jarnagin
djarnagin@bellsouth.net

[Elaine Kessinger]

Re: Poor Farmer shoes

With wooden shoes being worn by immigrants, we must remember that the goal of the immigrant was to be hired on as soon as work could be found. Prejudice was rampant against the immigrant, so the less like an immigrant the new American looked, sounded, acted the more likely he was to find employment.
The wooden shoes that marked the man as belonging to a certain country, town, clan, or guild in the Old Country marked him as an immigrant in the US.
He would have put them aside (carefully packed in a trunk to show a grandchild, if he were proud) as soon as other, more American style, shoes could be acquired. With the second-hand markets, it wouldn't have taken long.

[Busterbuttonboy]

Re: Poor Farmer shoes

Couple quick things to keep in mind and then an excerpt. First off there is a reason a large number of wooden soled shoes survive- have you worn a pair to do field, laboratory or mechanics work? They are terrible and why hundreds of NE companies try to sell off their over abundance in stock to southern states as durable "negro shoes" and the same reason why hundreds still survive today- this is where our favorite hobby crosses paths with experimental anthropology and archaeology to answer questions to which there are no answers in the manuscript record. Talking with the Master Boot and Shoemaker at Colonial Williamsburg he reminded me that the ready made market in the 19th century takes to a new level what the Atlantic marketplace does in the 18th century- it makes all goods readily available and affordable to all strata of society. There are few places if any in the interior of America by the 1850s (Arabia is a great example) where quality, durable and comfortable shoes- a necessity for a productive life as a mechanic, farmer or field hand- are made abundantly available at a wide range of prices. Besides a contextual argument like a laboratory worker or ancestral peice- why wouldn't someone opt for a tradition, comfortable and AFFORDABLE pair of leather soled, leather shoes? Here is an except from "World of a Slave" Page 426. by D.Al. Saguto (Master Boot and Shoemaker at CWF) "Durability for rough use characterized the 19th- century shoes worn by field slaves in the Deep South. One Mobile, Alabama, factory in 1851 produced slave "brogans" (ankle boots) that surpassed the quality of all other boots, with triple rows of steel hobnails reinforcing the soles, and the seams in uppers reinforced with copper rivets. In 1860, a novel idea was advertised in Atlanta, George to make slave shoes with russet uppers nailed to thick wooden shoes. These wooden-soled shoes became an expedient that spread beyond the slave community during the war years."
When I asked him to elaborate he made the comments above he essentially said that these wooden-soled shoes were an expedient or stop-gap measure during the war, only when and where the material for traditional building were no available. In short this idea of wooden soled shoes in the middle part of the 19th century is limited to context however is cited in the WPA narratives.

[David Jarnagin]

wooden soled shoes

Drew,

I agree with Al in certain points but the amounts of evidence on wooden soled shoe goes much earlier and were not a stop gap measure but served a purpose.

Before I get back to the wooden soled shoes I want to pass a few definitions to help with the names of shoes.
The earliest definition is Brogue: a wooden shoes; a corrupt or vicious manner of speaking or pronouncing. This comes from the Royal English Dictionary, 1775.

Bootee, dimin. of boot. A boot without a top, or a shoe made like a boot without a leg.
Brogans (brogues): The first word is used in the United States, to distinguish a heavy, coarse shoe, between a boot and a shoe. In England coarse or wooden shoe are called brogues. Both of these come from the Dictionary of Americanisms 1848.

The first mention on wooden shoes I have found was in March, 25 1820 in The Plough Boy of Albany, NY published weekly.
“ Mr. Curtis, of Arlington, Va. Brought into use, among his labourers of his plantation, shoes of the above description. He says that those, by whom they are worn, declare them to be much warmer, and more comfortable, than shoes with leather soles. They keep the feet perfectly dry, and are therefore much more conducive to health. Mr. C says the introduction of this improvement has lessened his expenditures for keeping the laboring part of his family in shoes, at least four-fifths—that in this way every man can be his own shoe-maker, and can make half a dozen pairs in a day. The upper leather of the shoes in sewed together in the usual manner. The soles are made in the usual shape of soles, with the heel about three-fourths of an inch thick, and a groove is cut into the upper parts of the edges, sufficiently wide and deep, to nail on the leather, which is done with little tacks drove so closely together as to exclude the entrance of any water. During the winter it is advisable to fasten little plates of iron round the heel, and the fore part of the shoe, with mails somewhat projecting, so as to prevent slipping; or the nails may be drove into the wood for that purpose. The harder the wood of which the soles are made, the longer will last. It would doubtless be an improvement to have the upper side of the soles scooped out a little, so as better to suit the shape of the foot.
A shoe somewhat similar to this has long been in use among the peasantry of France; and there can be no doubt that for those whose labors expose them to the inclemency of the seasons, this is much the healthiest and cheapest sort of shoes.”

In the Annals of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania; in the olden time, Volume 1, printed in 1857.
“It strikes me as among the remarkable changes of the modern times, that blacksmith shops, which used to be low, rough one story sheds, here and there in various parts of the city, and always fronting on the main street, have been crowded out as nuisances, or rather as eyesores to genteel neighborhoods. Then the workman stood on ground floors in clogs or wooden-soled shoes, to avoid the damp of the ground.” I am sure there was more use than protection from water when dealing with hot metal.

Scientific American, June 15, 1861. A manufacture of wooden soled shoe is listed along with a little more information. “But every soldier should have two pairs of shoes, and for various duties the wooden soled shoes manufactured by McClallan & Son, of Chicopee, Mass., are the most suitable which can be provided, as one of the two pairs.
We stated on page 10 of the present volume of the Scientific American, that numbers of the French soldiers, when in the Crimea, wore wooden shoes during the winter, and they suffered less from sickness than those who wore shoes of leather. The reason of this is evident, and it should afford a lesson to all military authorities. The wooden sole is an excellent non-conductor, therefore such shoes keep the feet dry and warm in wet weather, or when exposed upon guard during damp weather.”

The Confederates did make some of these shoes as well on firm was Theim and Fraps of Raleigh North Carolina and in Mobile. There may have been more but that is all I have found so far. These again are made with a leather upper nailed to the wooden sole.

The last source I have is a picture taken in a tannery in 1860 where you can see the shoes with a tall sole that looks like the wooden soled shoes. Again they would have been very useful in the damp environment of a tannery. I can not post the picture but it is on my web site.

David Jarnagin
djarnagin@bellsouth.net

[Spinster]

Re: Poor Farmer shoes

David,

Just making sure you are aware of the extant wooden soled pairs in the Alabama Archives........ I did not make a picture, as that wasn't what I was researching, but they were certainly there