The Boot and Shoe Trades in London and Paris in the Long Eighteenth Century

The use of the micro-analytic approach is motivated not only by the nature of
the research, but also by the nature of the trade itself. The boot and shoe trade is a
good example of 'flexible production' in which the relationship between the
market (local or far) and production is continuously reshaping products and
quantities, modifying equilibria in the labour market and changing the destiny of
competition.' 6 Shoes are not only functional products, but are connected with
issues such as quality and fashion. They also carry social meanings. The rapid
changes in shoe style during the French Revolution provide a clear example of the
interconnection between new ideas, taste and the 'tyranny of fashion'.' 7 My thesis
is therefore concerned also with the 'consumption approach', footwear being a
particular object of consumption and fashion.' 8 Both the 'micro-analytic' approach
and the 'consumption approach' have created new routes in the broad field of
economic history of the industrial age. They have underlined in a more practical
way what is lacking in present knowledge of the economic history of late modern
and contemporary Europe, giving potential room for national adaptations and
international comparisons.'9
It is inside this frame created by the recent economic historiography that my
research considers two European cities that were prolific in boot and shoe
production in Europe until the second half of the nineteenth century: London and
Paris. My particular interest in an urban productive environment is concerned with
16 On the concept of flexible production see: C. Sabel and J. Zeitlin, 'Historical alternatives to
mass production', Past and Present, CVIII (1985), pp. 133-76; C. Sabel and M.J. Piore, The second
industrial divide: possibilities for prosperity (New York, 1984) and the more recent C. Sabel and 1.
Zeitlin, 'Stories, strategies, structures: rethinking historical alternatives to mass production', in C.
Sabel and 1. Zeitlin, eds., World of possibilities. Flexibility and mass production in Western
industrialization (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 1-22.
17 E.L. Jones, 'The fashion manipulators: consumer tastes and British industries, 1660-1800', in
L.P. Cain and P.1. Uselding, eds., Business enterprise and economic change. Essays in honour ofF.
Williamson (Ohio, 1973), pp. 198-226.
18 On the 'consumer revolution' see: J. Thirsk, Economic policy and projects: the development of
a consumer society in early modern England (Oxford, 1978); J. Brewer, N. McKendrick and J.
Plumb, The birth of a consumer society: the commercialization of eighteenth-century England
(London, 1982); L. Weatherill, Consumer behaviour and material culture in Britain, 1660-1 760
(London, 1988); J. Brewer and R. Porter, eds., Consumption and the world of goods (London,
1993).
19 S. Pollard, Peaceful conquest: the industrialisation of Europe, 1 760-1970 (Oxford, 1981); R.
Sylla and G. Toniolo, Patterns of European industrialisation: the nineteenth century (London,
1991); R. Leboutte, Vie et mort des bassins industriels en Europe, 1750-2000 (Paris, 1997), in
particular chapter 1; S. Pollard, Marginal Europe: the contribution of marginal lands since the
middle ages (Oxford, 1997).
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