The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1884-05-22
Six Pairs Of Shoes a Minute.

Six Pairs Of Shoes a Minute.
A cobbler takes half a day to sole and
heel a pair of shoes. In Crow Hill
p~enitentiary a few hundreds of men
and women start with the raw material
and turn out $500 pairs of shoes in ten
hours, Oh o than six pairs of shoes
a minute. The men. and women have
little to do with it. Machines do the
work, and need only to be fed, started,
and stopped; all the fine and ingenious
work of building a beautiful shoe they
do, one part at a time and one ma
chine to each part. For instance, the
first machine cuts the soles out of the
leather. 1t is nothing but a punch
fitted with a knife the shape of a shoe
sole. Different sized knives cut out
anything, from a baby's to a plantation
darkey's size. Cutting out the sole;
leaves the sheets of leather in tatters.
The biggest tatters are used for heels;
the smallest make fuel. Leather scraps
make as good a furnace fire as coal
does. The next machine splits a thin
slice of the upper surface of the sole a
little way from the edge all around, so
that it looks as if a thin sheet had been
pasted on to the sole, leaving the edges
unpasted. Under this loose edge a
machine presses a little gutter or chan
mel in which the mailing or sewing
is done, and afterward hidden by
FASTING the loose edge over it when the
upper is attached.
At the same moment other ~convicts
are cutting uppers out of sheets of
dressed calfskin. They lay patterns on
the skins and thus cut the needed sizes.
This is done by hand. but the Innings
are sewed to the uppers, and the button
holes are put through both leather and
lining by machinery. The buttonholes
are stitched by automatic machines,
consisting of a sewing machine having
under the needle a little plate which
turns exactly in accordance with the
outlines of the buttonhole, and stops
when the buttonhole is finished. One
man feeds several machines. starts
them, and does not touch them while
they are at work. After this the soleS
and uppers come into the hands of one
set of convicts, the lasters and tackers
on, who put the two together with a
very few small tacks. These people all
work like lightning, but are slow be.
side the machinery.
The soles and uppers are firmly Joined
in several ways. One machine puts in
brass screws and bites them off exactly
at the right distance between the upper
and the under surface of the leather
another drives in an iron screw witt
the same nicely; another sews the paris
together with wax thread, the threac
passing through a heated metal horn:
which keeps it soft and warm; yet an
other initiates hand sewing with yellow
thread, leaving an extended sole, which
is afterward bevelled to look pretty
The merit of this machine is that thu
shoes it sews are pliable and easy to
the foot, and bring a good price. Thi:
does its work in eleven seconds.
The heels are made separately, an
when finished have all the nails pro
jecting half an inch below the bottom
of the lower sheet of leather. A con
vict puts one of these veels into meta
cup in a press of great power, and ovel
that he rests a shoe in the right posi-
ton. Then down comes a great bal
and squeezes the heel and shoe together
driving every other nail all the way in
and leaving every other nail sticking {
llIUlG way OuU. I1c GdhCS luC SuO0 Jul
puts a pretty heel tap in, puts the shoe
back, submits it to the pressure, ane
then w%ithdraws it, and finds the tai
through the tap, which presents {
smooth, unbroken under service. Thu
heel-shaving machine presents to thu
heel a set of rapidly revolving knives
shaped to make a straight heel or
guttered one, or even a lady's French
heel. Another machine cuts the from
of the heel square,, and another trim
and smooths the edge of the sole. Tn
edge of the sole and the sides of tn
heel are blackened and the edge is pu
under a hot iron about the size of a fa
chestnut. This iron moves to and fri
with incredible rapidity, in imitation o
the motions of the cobblers who uset
to do the work by hand. A large iron
also heated by a gas jet. does the sam
thing for the heel, and does it unde
such pressure that cracks and uneven
nesses in the heel are smoothed over
filed up and concealed.
Some shoe uppers have eyelet hole
instead of ~buttonholes. There is
machine in the prison for doing thi
work. 1t has two steel rods close to on,
another, and while one punches tn,
holes the other inserts the eyelets
which run down a little gutter, RICH
side up, exactly in a place to fix int
the punctures in the leather, and t,
have their edges squeezed owe by tn
other rod and the piece that fits upon it
Twenty years g shoemaking ma
chinery performed only one-half thi
work and did that roughly. Now tn,
shoes made in Grow Hill prison are sue
as most persons wear, and are in al
respects shapely, ~presentable and wei
finished. Some of them retail for fou
dollars or five dollars a pair.
In this prison, side by side with tn
scum of humanity, reputable men an
girls are employed. There are prob
ably two hundred girls in the femal
prison who live in Brooklyn. com
every morning, and are free to g
home whenever they present a ticket a
the prison door. The Warden, who is
in all probability, not consulted, sine
!: these persons work for the contractors
was asked what he thought was I'll
effect of such surroundings upon tn
youths of good morals. He replied tina
t there used to a general feeling that tn
arrangement was improper and danger
Gus, but it has not proved so. Outsid
free labor has been employed in Croy
} Hill eleven or twelve years, and of al
the hundreds who have thus com
daily to the prison not one has ever bee,
ent there as a prisoner. The outsider
do not have anything to do with tn
prisoners. They sit apart, and never
under any circumstances, speak a wor
10 the cnnrictS -N Y SIN.