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

French shoe trades. At the 1851 Great Exhibition French shoemakers occupied
only 23 display cases. French commentators underlined the great potential of the
industry (especially in the export markets), but had to admit that it was still in a
phase when "elle s'observait, elle sondait le terrain". 19 Just eleven years later at
the 1862 London exhibition French shoemakers were able to exhibit a wide
range of boots and shoes, very often innovative products manufactured by what
was now defined as a 'grande industrie'. 2° The 1850s coincided with a period of
major changes in the French boot and shoe trade.
7.4 The modernisation of Parisian shoemaking
During the first half of the nineteenth century the French boot and shoe trade
still operated on a small scale. It was only in the 1850s that the first large
productive units began to appear. 2' Nantes, Bordeaux, Marseille, Limouges,
Toulouse, Lillers and Le Quesnay were the new towns where 'fabrique de
chaussures' employed up to 1,200 workmen. However, the term fabrique did not
indicate a mechanised and/or centralised productive system. 22 In general the
centralised factory was part of a wider productive structure in which "les atelier
sont disséminés". 23 In 1863 the famous Parisian shoemaker François Pinet
employed 120 workmen in his atelier in rue Paradis Poissonnières, but gave also
work to another 700 people as outworkers. Large factories were deemed
unsuitable for the footwear trade:
Pour fonner avec avantage des grands ateliers, ii faut pouvoir y fabriquer en
quantité des produits tousjours les mêmes, et cette premiere condition n 'existe
pour la chaussure que dans certains genres tous a fait spéciaux. Le goat et la
mode, avec ses caprices, changeent a chaque instant les formes, qui ont besoin
p. 851
19 A. Ratouis, Histoire de la cordonnerie... (Paris, 1886), p. 26.
20Jbjd
21 Chauvin states that industrialization started in the 1 820s but does not support such claim.
Cfr. J. Chauvin, 'Trasmission des savoirs et identité professionelle: les cordonniers poitevins au
XXe siècle', Revue d'Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine, XL - 4 (1993), p. 506.
22
Dictionaire Universe! Theorique et pratique du Commerce et de la Navigation (Paris, 1859),
vol. i, p. 843.
Annuaire general du commerce et de l'industrie (Paris, 1840), p.4.
297