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F+441944 XFA 1419.1.4

HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY

FROM

THE BEQUEST OF
EVERT JANSEN WENDELL

1918

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1847,

BY J. S. REDFIELD,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Southern District of New York.

STEREOTYPED BY REDFIELD & SAVAGE,

13 Chambers Street, N. Y.

1817

37

AMERICAN PREFACE.

THE work embraced in the following pages, which has been received with great favor in England, in the fashionable circles, as well as by the trade, the publisher has great confidence will prove attractive and interesting to the American public.

"I have given,” says Mr. Hall, in his preface to the English edition, "the result of my experience, derived from an intimate practical acquaintance with this department of trade for twenty years, and have endeavored to correct much that was bad in form and material, and I trust have not only found fault in many instances with past and present fashions, but have also enforced and provided the remedy. The illustrations of the ancient fashions are all taken from the highest authorities, and I believe may be relied on as historical."

;

In addition to the matter in the second London edition, we have subjoined a History of Boots and Shoes in the United States, showing the changes of fashion in this indispensable article of dress also, numerous biographical sketches of individuals, who, having learned the art of shoemaking, have afterward distinguished themselves by their genius, talents, or worth, and occupied eminent stations among their fellow-men.

The frequency of the development of literary talent among shoemakers has often been remarked. Their occupation, being a sedentary and comparatively noiseless one, may be considered as more favorable than some others to meditation; but perhaps its literary productiveness has arisen quite as much from the circumstance of its being a trade of light labor, and therefore resorted to, in preference to most others, by persons in humble life who are conscious of more mental talent than bodily strength.

To add further to the interest of this volume, we have selected a few pages of anecdotes, and other miscellaneous matters, tending to elucidate this

History and account of the "gentle craft;" the members of which may well be proud of such names as their Sherman, Drew, Bloomfield, Gifford, Lee, Sheffey, Worcester, and others, whose memory will long live, as having adorned the various pursuits in which they became eminent.

While this work will prove useful and instructive as presenting, in the biographical sketches, a body of examples showing, how the most unpropitious circumstances have been unable to subdue an ardent desire for the acquisition of knowledge, and the cultivation of a refined taste; the lover of antiquities, and the votary of fashion, will here have their curiosity gratified, in a history of the varied changes which have taken place in an important article of dress, from the pyramidal ages of ancient Egypt, long ere Greece or Rome occupied a space in history, to the present time, when the beauty, taste, and convenience, of modern boots and shoes, combine to establish the superiority of the cordwainers of Europe and America, compared with their predecessors of any nation or age.

CONTENTS.

CHAP. I.-On the most ancient Covering of the Feet....
CHAP. II.-The History of Boots and Shoes in England..
CHAP. III.-On the more modern Forms of foreign Boots
and Shoes.

PAGE.

7

30

58

CHAP. IV.-Commencement of the Trade...

75

CHAP. V.-The Structure of the Human Foot, making

Lasts, Curing Corns, etc.......

96

CHAP. VI.-The Poetry of the Feet, etc.....

112

CHAP. VII.-History of Boots and Shoes in the United
States.

........

135

CHAP. VIII.-Biographical Sketches of Eminent Shoe-

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Roger Sherman, 147.- Daniel Sheffey, 155.- Gideon
Lee, 156.-Samuel Drew, 163.- Robert Bloomfield,
176.- Nathaniel Bloomfield, 181.-William Gifford,
183.-Noah Worcester, 192.-James Lackington, 196.
-Joseph Pendrell, 198.-Thomas Holcroft, 199.-Rev.
William Carey, D. D., 200.-George Fox, 202.-Rev.
James Nichol, 202.-Rev. William Huntington, 203.
CHAP. IX.-Crispin Anecdotes, etc.....

Patron Saints of Shoemakers.- St. Crispin's Day.-
Cordwainers' Hall.-Incorporated Shoemakers.-Prov-
erbs.-Anecdotes.

147

204

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