Shoes
Dateca. 1750
MediumWool, leather, silver, linen, silk, and wood
DimensionsOverall Length: 10in. (25.4cm)
Heel Height: 2 1/4in. (5.7cm)
Overall Width: 3 1/4in. (8.3cm)
Credit LineMuseum Purchase, The Antique Collectors' Guild in memory of Jim Bilderback, Barbara Driscoll, Richard Kent, Arthur Kimball, Tom Wood, and Phil Young
Object number2016-198,1&2
DescriptionPair of red wool women's shoes with red broadcloth uppers and wooden and leather covered heels, the top of the shoe has a strip of wide silver metallic lace, the inside fully lined with blue and white checked linen. The shoes are constructed with a stitched rand that is now off white, but was probably bright white when the shoes were new. The shoes are bound around the edges in a yellow silk binding. It is possibly that due to exposure that the red dye in the silk binding has gone fugitive and all that remains is the yellow pigment. This is commonly seen on red dyed silks throughout the 18th century. The interior binding on the shoe is cast down with a red silk twist.Label TextThroughout the eighteenth century, women primarily wore shoes made from textiles with leather soles with carved wooden heels. The fabrics used were typically hard wearing wools and silk for fancier occasions. Worsted wool shoes seldom survive, and even rarer are shoes made from cloth, a heavily napped wool. This pair of red cloth shoes shows a common form worn during the mid-eighteenth century. The single strip of silver metallic lace running down the center front of the shoe was a fashion seen earlier in the century and may suggest an older or more conservative fashioned woman wore this particular pair of shoes.
The quality of construction and materials when compared to European and English exported shoes, suggest that this pair was probably manufactured in New England. By the mid eighteenth century, New England started to become a center for shoe making and this would fully develop in the early nineteenth century.
