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

compared to other European states as noticed by the St. Crispin Journal when it
reported in 1869 that "no one will pretend to deny that the French, German, and
Austrians have availed themselves, to a remarkable extent of labour-saving
processes". 48 Prejudice against machine-made footwear seemed to be one of the
major reasons for the late mechanisation of the sector.49
It is therefore not surprising that the mid-nineteenth century experienced an
enormous expansion of more traditional productive processes. The variety of
productive organisations included in the expression 'sweated labour' prevents
any clear categorisation. Much research has been done in understanding the
labour problems associated with sweating, especially in the metropolitan
tailoring and shoemaking trades. 5° Much less has been said on business and
productive practices related to sweating. One of the characteristics of sweating
directly derived from the decentralised system of production dominating boot
and shoemaking in the eighteenth-century was the reliance on outwork. Piece-
rate workmen were producing for so-called 'garret-masters' who were agents,
middlemen and sometimes producers in their own right. 5' From their workshops
materials were dispatched. Finished products were packed to be sold to
shoemakers in town or in the provinces. Hundreds and sometimes thousands of
unskilled workers, especially immigrants from East Europe, worked at home in
appalling conditions.
This traditional productive model was surely very efficient in producing large
quantities of low quality goods at cheap prices. The maintenance of such
Lynn, Massachusetts, 1800-1920', in I.M.G. Quinby, ed., The craftsman in early America (New
York, 1982); M.H. Blewett, We will rise in our might. Working women's voices from nineteenthcentury
New England (Ithaca, 1991).
48 St. Crispin, a weekly journal, 19th June 1869. See also A. Godley, 'Singer in Britain: the
diffusion of sewing machine technology and its impact on the clothing industry in the UK, 1860-
1905', Textile History, XXVII - 1 (1996), pp. 59-76; id., 'The global diffusion of the sewing
machine, 1850-1914', in A.J. Field, 0. Clark and W. Sundstrom, eds., Research in economic
history, vol. 20 (Oxford, 2001), pp. 1-46.
At the Paris Exhibition British shoemakers were impressed by the United States. A certain
E.C. Burt of New York was showing his 'new shoemaking' that was entirely based on a
mechanised process of production: "the work thus produced, as here exhibited, can be said to
rival the best hand-made goods of England, France and Belgium". St. Crispin, a weekly journal,
2' January 1869.
0. Stedman, Outcast London (Oxford, 1971); D. Bythell, The sweated trades. Outworking in
nineteenth-century Britain (London, 1978), pp. 107-119; J.A. Schmiechen, Sweated industries
and sweated labour: the London clothing trades, 1 860-1914 (London, 1984), pp. 29-32.
' See P.G. Hall, 'The East London footwear industry. An industrial quarter in decline', East
London Papers, V - 1, pp. 3-21; id., The industries of London since 1861 (London, 1962), pp.
309