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Shoe Technology
- When Jan Matzeliger immigrated to the United States at age
18 he spoke no English. He found work in a shoe factory in
Philadelphia.
- Hundreds of inventors and thousands of dollars had been
spent in an effort to make a complete shoe by machinery.
Machines where able to perform all but the final step, that of
shaping the upper leather over the last and attaching this
leather to the bottom of the shoe.
- Workers called "Hand-lasters"
performed this this final step by hand. Hand lasters where very
highly paid, however no matter how fast the other portions of
the show were completed, the best hand laster could only
complete 50 pairs per day.
- Matzliger heard it said many times that it was impossible to
last shoes by machines; the job simply could not be done. In
secret he started experimenting, first with a crude wooden
machine, then with a model made out of scrap iron. For ten years
he worked, steadily and patiently, with no encouragement.
- Finally in 1882, Metzeliger felt he had perfected his
machine to solve the impossible problem. When he applied for a
patent and sent his diagrams to Washington, patent reviewers
could not even understand them. They were so complicated that a
man was sent to Massachusetts to see the machine itself. On
March 20, 1883, patent number 274,207 was granted to Jan E.
Matzeliger. Matzeliger's machine was able to turn out from 150
to 700 pairs of shoes a day versus an expert hand lasters fifty.
- Learn more about Jan
Ernst Matzeliger
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