Leather and leather products were important crafts through
1850, employing 15.7 percent of all workers in manufacturing, with shoemakers
outnumbering workers in any other industry. European handicraft techniques
adopted by colonists persisted with minor modifications throughout the
mid-nineteenth century. In leather making, hides were soaked in lime and water,
and loosened hair was scraped off. After this cleaning, hides were tanned in
large vats by the chemical action of the tannin-bearing bark of hemlock, sumac,
or oak trees. Finishing improved the suppleness of the leather, enabling the
leather to be worked into a variety of products. The most important, boots and
shoes, were made by cutting leather pieces with a knife, sewing upper-leather
pieces, forming the upper around a foot-shaped device called a last, and
stitching the soles to the upper with awls and waxed thread.
Initially, tanning was undertaken on a small scale and
often on a part-time basis. Using local materials and targeting local markets,
it was widely dispersed. Capital costs were modest, and skills were acquired
experientially. Tanneries in the United States and the colonies that came to
make it up grew with the population, passing 1,000 by 1750, 4,000 by 1810, and
8,000 by 1840. Early shoemakers were widespread; over 11,000 establishments
operated in 1850. Saddlers and harness makers, numbering about 3,500 in 1850,
were equally common. There was little guild activity in these trades. Although
tanners secured legislation to control their trade, it had little effect.
The most important changes in the industry until 1850 were
organizational. Emerging regional leather markets led to the growth of larger
tanneries, the separation of merchants from tanners, and some concentration of
tanning in cities, where hides were available, and in the Catskill Mountains in
New York, where hemlock trees abounded. Nineteenth-century wholesale shoemakers
sold ready-made shoes in regional and increasingly national markets. To supply
shoes, they organized a "putting-out system" in which upper pieces
were cut in central shops, put out to women who sewed them, and then put out
again to men who bottomed the shoe.
This system was concentrated in Massachusetts, which in
1850 employed almost half of shoemaking workers, in establishments averaging
thirty-seven workers. New products originated, including morocco and patent
leathers, leather belting used to transmit power in factories, and pegged
shoes, made by using wooden pegs to attach soles to uppers. Except for
shoemaking's central-shop system, these changes little affected the size of
establishments, which in 1850 averaged 3.8 workers in leather making; 4.5 in
saddlery, harnesses, and other products; and 5.4 in shoemaking outside
Massachusetts.
The leather-based industry especially leather products
industry (footwear, garment, leather goods) is highly fashion oriented.
Moreover, articles made of (genuine or simulated) leather are complementing
clothing. Leather products (shoes, garment, leather goods) is important export
earner for many developing countries. In many countries leather products export
ranks within the first three places in the total export. Especially the
footwear industry’s importance to the national economies in developing
countries is underlined by the fact that it is the main contributor to the
countries export and – being a labour intensive industry – provides employment
to the most vulnerable groups of the society (including a large number of
women) in towns and villages where other job opportunities are very scarce.
The most of the leather products and footwear industry is dominated by small-
and medium-scale operations. These SMEs lack of design information, product
development knowledge, information and educated personnel for applying
up-to-date quality assurance techniques and productive technology. The
institutional background is weak in providing necessary services, support and
professional training needed for becoming competitive and thus remaining in
business (providing/maintaining working opportunities). UNIDO with other
institutions and organizations through tailor made technical assistance
assisted to up-grade and enhance leather products sector. For
more details visit our website allindiayellowpage.com.