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

the fact that cities had the essential components for production to remain local.20
Cities such as London or Paris had a meat eating population and therefore access to
raw animal hides. They had also sufficient labour to produce and sell boots and
shoes. A clear interdependent relationship emerges. The focus on an urban
productive system is therefore not methodological in a strict sense, but derives
from a historical phenomenon that sees the production of boots and shoes
associated to an urban context. The importance of London and Paris is also based
on the international role they played in the clothing sector. The two cities, not only
dominated national manufacturing, but were able to influence the standard of
production, quality requirements and also European fashion. They had a particular
productive organisation that influenced both the national and the international level
of production.2'
My research is not comparative in nature. It draws a series of parallelisms
between the two cities in the attempt to construct a contrasting study of pre-
conditions, strategies and influences in the evolution of the sector. The centre of
the analysis is London, while the Parisian case is used to highlight differences and
similarities. This is the result of a conscious choice in the structure of my thesis.
While researching the material used in my thesis I realised that sources for Paris
and London could be different and sometimes not suitable for a general
comparative analysis. If on the one hand this creates a serious problem in drawing
comparative interpretations, on the other hand it suggests the different contexts
(political, social, cultural and economic) in which the sector evolved in the two
nations. This perspective is used in particular in chapter one in the discussion of the
raw material market. The second important element towards what can seem an
'unbalanced' comparative research relates to the results of the research itself. In
many cases similarities rather than differences seemed to dominate. This is
particularly true of chapters 3, 4 and 5 in which consumption, retailing and
20 B Ratcliffe, 'Manufacturing in the metropolis: the dynamism and dynamics of Parisian industry
at the mid-nineteenth century', Journal of European Economic History, XXIII - 2 (1993), pp. 263-
328; D.R. Green, From artisan to paupers. Economic change and poverty in London, 1 790-1870
(Aldershot, 1995); Id., 'The nineteenth century metropolitan economy', London Journal, XVI - 1
(1996), pp. 10-23; Mi. Daunton, 'Industry in London: revision and reflections', London Journal,
XVI - 1(1996), pp. 1-8.
21 T. Kusamitsu, "Novelty gives us novelty': London agents and Northern manufacturers', in M.
Berg, ed., Markets and manufacture in early industrial Europe (London, 1990), pp. 114-35.
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