Document text
ORIGINAL MSS. OR FIELD NOTES (Check one)
PUB. Livinc Lore in
New England
TITLE Sho2 Laster in Lynn
WRITER Jae K. Leary
DATE 07/39 WDS.
CHECKER RATE
SOURCES GUM_ (?)Interview
PP.
6
COMMENTS
Jane K. Leary
Informant --Samuel 2cKie, 45 Parrott St.
Assignment --The Shoe Laster
Section I
Page 1
When you first look at Mr. McKie, you think he
appears too yourh;f, (he doesn't look much over fifty) to
have been a laster of the hand lasting days. But a slight
protruding of the left side of his lower lip substantiates
his avowal that he has been a laster for more than 50 years,
a member of the laster's union for 53 years.
This protruding of his lower lip? It's the char-
acteristic mark of the old hand 'aster. For in the natural
pocket of the mouth there, the old hand laster of shoes
hoid his tacks. He trained himself to feed them from his
mouth one by one and head foremost. The left hand took the
tacks and right nand pounded them into the shoe. Sometimes
a veterant laster could even chew tobacco with one side of
his mouth while ire fed himself tacks from the other.
"In the old days a laster did all four operations
Aj
of the lastel,. He aid the assemblin', the pullin' over,
the drawint and shapint, and the tackinl. The assemblinl
consisted of puttin, in the counter the stiff inner sec-
tion of the back part of the shoe which holds it firm) and
the box toe. The pullint over consisted of drawing the
leather over the last; the drain' and shapin' wuz the pul-
lin' the leather tight over the last with the pincers. Ya
had ta know leather ta do this right. For some sections
of leather'll stretch moreln others. If the leather wuzn't
pulled over jest right, the shoe wouldn't be shaped right
Page 2
when it wuz done.
"The tackin consisted of tackint the upper ta the
inner sole.
"The first lastin' machine didn't do all four of
them operations. It wuz the Boston Lasting Machine. It
wuz practically a hand lastin' machine. The laster did the
assemblinl, the pullinf, the drawinl and shapinl by hand.
The machine drove the tacks in. This machine afterwards
become the property of the United Shoe Machinery Corporation.
"This machine wuz first tried in Lynn in Mark
Vibrthley's factory. The first strike wuz held in that shop
over it somewhere in '86 or '87.
"Most of the union members resented its coml.'.
They thought, in the first place, it mun't practical; and
they figured if it wuz pracitcal it would take their jobs
away.
"But the lastin' machine wuz here ta stay. Not so
many years afterwards come the consolidated hand lastin,
machine, commonly called the niggerhead, because a man from
Brazil invented it. That's the best all round lastin' machine
in the shops still because it can be made to do all the
tackinf. In modern shops there are other machines to do part
of the tackin, today, like the bed machine that wipes in the
heel and the toe of the shoe faster than the niggerhead can
do it. But the old niggerhead is the thing that still tacks
page 3
the sides. If a company can't afford many machines, it
always chooses the niggerhead because the whole shoe can
be tacked by that. No other machine can tack the whole
thing.
"Of course there's been improvements an the nig-
gerhead. And each time there's been an improvement, the
United Shoe Machiner Corporation took out a new patent on
it. But the nigerhead patents run out now, I guess. A
patent only lasts so many years.
"Just the same though, a shoe company is jest
about forced ta get their machinery from the United hoe.
That's because they still got patents on so many machines
that a shoe factory needs, that they'd refuse ya one of
their machines they got a monopoly on if ya didn't get 'em
all from them. They got the shoe machinery all sewed up
that way and I guess they'll hold the power for some time
ta come.
"They rent the machines ta the companies. Some-
times there's a flat rate per month or for a stated time.
On other machines they got some sort& apparatus that tells
how many shoes wuz worked on that machine and they get so
much per shoe.
"In some modern shops taday, the four operations
of the lasting department are done by four different oper-
ators on four different machines. The first operator does
Page 4
the assemblin' and a machine tacks three temporary tacks
in the heel; a second machine pulls the leather over the
last and puts one tack on each side of the ball of the
foot and one at the toe. The third machine puts all of
the tacks on the heal of the Deftchine with one click of the
machine. The fourth machine is the old niggerhead, which
tacks one by one, but quick as a flash, the tacks around
the front part of the shoe. Then a steamer softens the
leather and fits it snug around the last.
"But in a lot of shops today, there is only the
niggerhead. I work in one like that. There are two oper-
ators. The one assembles the shoes and pulls them and
draws them, and puts three tacks in the front of the shoe
and three in the pack. Then the niggerhead wipes 'em in
all around."We still feed ourselves tacks from the mouth in
that shop. I can hold fifty or sixty in my mouth easy and
make 'tem come out one by one head first as I want 'am.
"No, we don't often swallow 'en', One in a while
I have. But they never did me no harm. 4