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

important changes in productive processes of the 1850s are due to exogenous
innovations. The American sewing machine is the first real machine to be
applied to shoemaking. Although its application led to important English
patents, American, and later Gennan technology, dominated the sector in the
later part of the nineteenth century. It appears that the English shoe industry was
not only an eager employer of imported technologies. Its role was also connected
in improving such technologies. An example is the application of rubber to boots
and shoes in the 1840s and early 1850s. While rubber had been discovered in the
States, a real attempt to apply it to render shoes waterproof was successfully
made in Britain.
Table 5.10 - Patents in boot and shoe making, 1770-1852
Period Buckles and Clogs Heels Leather Machine Rubber and Cut and Total
fastening waterproof structure
1770-79
1780-89
1790-99
1800-09
1810-19
1820-29
1830-39
1840-49
1850-52
Total
1
8
7
3
2
1
5
1
28
2
1 1 1 1
1 2
3
3
1 1 2
2 2 2
2 3 2 3 14
1 1 1 1 3
15 6 5 11 19
3
1 13
2 12
1 7
3 9
3 7
1 7
6 35
4 12
21 105
Source: Subject matter index.., of patents of invention from March 2, 1617 to October 1, 1852
(London, 1854); Title of patents of invention, chronologically arranged from March 2, 1617 to
October 1852 (London, 1854).
du bottier et du cordonnier (Paris, 1831); M. Sensfelder, Histoire de la cordonnerie (Paris,
1856).
246