Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 41.djvu/516

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
500
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

in New England are, having not changed their nature in this, between them both they have kept men to their stand hitherto, almost doubling the price of their commodities, according to the rate they were sold in England, and yet the plenty of leather is beyond what they had there, counting the number of the people. But the transportation of boots and shoes into foreign parts hath vented all, however."

Inasmuch as this was written only a year after Dagyr's arrival at Lynn, it is pretty safe to set Mr. Johnson down as something of an optimist. But it points to the immediate impetus the industry received under the latter's hand. Yet, by a strange irony, Dagyr, who did so much to establish the shoemaker's art in this country,

Fig. 4.—Parts of a Button Shoe. 1, Large quarter; 2, vamp; 3, small quarter; 4, button piece; 5, drill lining; 6, glove button-piece lining; 7, heel lining stay; 8, button stay; 9, top stay; 10, heel stiffener; 11, sole lining; 12, inner sole; 13, outer sole: 14, heel lifts (six); 15, steel shank; 16, rand.

died in the Essex County almshouse. The principal part of the work at that time was done in little, one-story shops. The rooms were scarcely more than a dozen feet square, with windows at sides and end and a broad fireplace in one corner. They were good-natured, industrious, thrifty companies that filled those shops. Fishermen and farmers and those trained "to the last" were all represented. Journeyman and apprentice, master and workman, stood on the same footing and shared alike. These shops stand, economically and mechanically, between the home and the factory. Shoes were