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Black Kos, Week In Review - The Man Who Made Shoes Affordable [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-05-16

Sometimes the greatest inventions are those which simplify necessary tasks. Such is the case with Jan Matzeliger – the man who made it possible for ordinary citizens to purchase shoes.

Jan Matzeliger (September 15, 1852 – August 24, 1889) was born in Dutch Guiana (now known as Surinam) in South America. His father was a Dutch engineer and his mother was born in Dutch Guiana and was of African ancestry. His father had been sent to Surinam by the Dutch government to oversee colonial work in the South American country.

At an early age, Jan showed a remarkable ability to repair complex machinery and often did so when accompanying his father to a factory. When he turned 19, he decided to venture away from home to explore other parts of the world. For two years he worked aboard an East Indian merchant ship and was able to visit several countries. In 1873, Jan decided to stay in the United States for a while, landing in Pennsylvania. Although he spoke very little English, he was befriended by some Black residents who were active in a local church and took pity on him. Because he was good with his hands and mechanically inclined, he was able to get small jobs in order to earn a living.

At some point he began working for a cobbler and became interested in the making of shoes. At that time more than half of the shoes produced in the United States came from the small town of Lynn, Massachusetts. It was during a visit to Lynn I saw a small plague honoring him and I became curious about who he was.

Jan at this time in his life was unable to speak more than rudimentary English. Due to this language gap Matzeliger had a difficult time finding work in Lynn. But after some time, he was able to begin working as an apprentice in a shoe factory.

At the factory, Jan operated a McKay sole-sewing machine which was used to attached different parts of a shoe together. Unfortunately, at the time, no machines existed that could attach the upper part of a shoe to its sole. Therefor, attaching the upper part of a shoe to the sole had to be done solely by hand.

The people who were able to sew the parts of the shoe together were called "hand lasters" and expert ones were only able to produce about 50 pairs of shoes in a 10 hour workday. Thee hand-lasters were held in high esteem and were able to charge a premium for their services, especially after they banded together and formed a union called the Company of Shoemakers. Because the hand lasters were able to charge so much money, a pair of shoes was very expensive to purchase.

Hand lasters were confident that they would continue to be able to demand high sums of money for their services. One renoun lasting wrote "… no matter if the sewing machine is a wonderful machine. No man can build a machine that will last shoes and take away the job of the laster, unless he can make a machine that has fingers like a laster – and that is impossible."

But Jan Matzeliger decided they were wrong. Working from his small shop, Jan created the first practical workable automated lasting machine. Jan obtained a patent for his invention of an automated shoe laster in 1883.

Before his invention a skilled hand laster could produce 50 pairs in a ten-hour day. Matzeliger's machine could produce between 150 and 700 pairs of shoes a day, cutting shoe prices across the nation in half.

Matzeliger's invention was perhaps "the most important invention for New England" and "the greatest forward step in the shoe industry," according to the church bulletin of The First Church of Christ (where he was a member) as part of a commemoration held in 1967 in his honor.

Professional lasters (especially in the Company of Shoemakers Union) and many others in the white community, reacted negatively to this praise. Contemporaries in the shoe and apparel industry started referred to him as the "Dutch n*gger" and his machine as the "n*ggerhead laster," a term used in the widely in the apparel industry at the time.

Unfortunately Jan Matzeliger suffered an early death in Lynn, Massachusetts from tuberculosis before he saw the full profits from his invention. Matzeliger died on August 24, 1889, at aged 36.

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