One does not simply throw something away in the Early Modern Period! Having seen people mudlark on the river Thames who in turn pull out 200 year old shoes that are riddled with repairs, this is accurate.
its a real shame that we live in such a throw away society. I had a nice pair of smart shoes that i used for special occasions, but they were old and falling apart. I couldnt find anywhere that would repair them... the only shop that did repairs said it would cheaper to buy new shoes
When stitching the sole to the welt, grooving the sole first, to put the stitches below the surface, would prevent them from wearing and parting again soon. The stitches would be protected until the sole wore down too, so you'd replace the sole before the stitches parted.
My grandfather kept his family of six in a nice home plenty of food and a good education for the kids all being a “lowly” cobbler throughout the depression years…👏👏
@@kevinjackson4933 Yeah you can't live modestly with a family in a real home (not trailer or apartment) for any less than 30 dollars a hour. Even then forget about saving anything
I love people who fix, repair and keep their shoes forever. Love my 1940’s alligator pumps. Nicole Rudolph makes ladies historical shoes on her channel.
My family ridicule me every time I take my “Jesus sandals” to the repair shop. I’ve had them for over 20 years and all they are is a two strap sandal ( toe ring and instep) all leather. I constantly tear the toe ring loose and I’ve had them resoled twice. I get more compliments on these than anything I’ve ever owned. They will likely out live me.
The last cobbler in our city closed last year; so very sad. I would like more cobbler episodes, please! Can you repair places where leather has worn through or torn? When I was an antique dealer, I bought/sold several pairs of old shoes with leather uppers, and wooden soles with metal horseshoe-type cleats. They were never my size or I'd have worn them everywhere!
Shoes like that in the UK are called Lancashire clogs and are very different to Dutch clogs. They were still being made in a factory at Hebden Bridge up until relatively recently. I now think its only artisan makers sadly.
I am a Cobbler from New Zealand, been doing repairs for over thirty years.Training my son in the trade to keep the knowledge alive. Love your videos Thank you very much for this one ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
That's great to hear Andy, a good cobbler can often treble the life of a well made pair of shoes. I have a pair of shoes from Clarks, a respected mass manufacturer here in the UK. They are so comfortable and supportive I would hate to just toss them out when the sole is worn.... so 3 soles and heel replacements and a little restitching of the brogued trim and they are still going. THANK YOU to all the great cobblers out there.
REQUEST: Can you please show how metal objects such as a bucket or tin roof would be repaired? Love the videos! We watch them with our children. You guys are the best!
I've been a cobbler almost seven years and I love this. You explained the backbone of shoe repair and it's great to see how older shoe repair is done, especially because it almost the exact same! Lovely leatherwork, accurate historical info, and rad tools!!
What was your training? or How do you go about training? I was just thinking about this the other day. A memory from my early childhood, there was a cobbler shop in my town that would re-sol my dad's boots.
@@patriotpioneer there used to be vocational schools that taught it! However these have slowly faded away and a lot of people either study as a hobby to do every so often or just find a cobbler to apprentice under like I did. Getting into basic shoe maintenance is rather simple if you have a hammer and some nails. Heck I've used a chair leg as a makeshift shoe anvil on multiple occasions to make quick repairs while on trips! But having the proper machines and tools makes all the difference between a repair job and a refurbish job, and the machines have gotten rather hard to find or repair inexpensively so finding good shops or teachers has gotten rough. However I've met some incredible sandal makers and repair hobbyists that do great work, and they learned everything online!
I didn't realise at first - this is filmed in the rarely-seen "living room" of the German Kitchen set, isn't it? It threw me at first - the walls being whitewashed in what I thought was the log cabin - until I remembered that was a thing.
This was really interesting. How about an episode on cobblers and the military? Did the Continental and British armies have their own cobblers? Did they travel with the armies? What was their volume of work? Think that would be a challenging profession because of the number of repairs, hard life and battle wear.
I don't know about what was done during the time of the Revolution with either army, but during the Civil War Confederate general William Mahone, when he was recruiting his brigade, had the recruiters note the civilian occupations of the men. Guess what the cobblers wound up doing? Right! And as a result Mahone's Brigade rarely lacked for serviceable footwear!
Buggy horse farrier here. Your explanations alone truly exemplify the parallels between traditional cobblers and contemporary farriery! Great content as always!
I'm REALLY loving these craft videos. I'm a historical sewist who also does leatherworking, so I'm always looking to expand my skills and... well dang, I have all the tools I need to do this kind of repair!
This is fascinating, shoe making and repair always seemed a bit magical to me, I'm not sure why, but its really lovely. I recently went to a cobbler to get some rubber soles for my leather highheel boots, they did a lovely job. I thought one would be hard to find, but it seems like there is at least one in many cities.
Great show! I have two ancestors that were cordwainers. One lived in Haverhill area of Massachusetts and the other in Abergavenny, Wales. Yes, more shoe videos, please! I have a pair of leather boots that need new soles. :( Do you sell shoe supplies at Townsends?
That was great. I would really like to see this channel explain how currency worked in that time. What was it called? How much did the average man make a week? What could you buy with a weeks wages?
I really find it fascinating how people solved everyday problems, many of which we still deal with today, some that we don’t have to give a second thought to, using the early technology and techniques of their day. Your videos are very informative, and interesting, as well as entertaining! Thank you!
Having only one pair and being prevented from letting it dry out between wearings likely contributed to wearing out quickly. I take it that at 6:15 you're waxing the leather edges. How often did mocassins need repair or replacement?
I was unfamiliar with the term cordwainer before this video. Would love to know more about how the two trades became so separate. Awesome video, thanks!
Cordwainers, as mentioned were makers of shoes and did so for all classes. They have their own guild in London so were considered very resectable. Maybe wealthy clients often passed on their worn shoes the cobbler only dealt with the less affluent who couldn't afford to waste 'good' shoes...... who knows
I love it. I have an old pair of LL Bean duck shoes that I repaired with carpet thread and pop rivets a few years ago, and they’re still going strong. The tongues stick straight up and there are no laces, so I can easily slip them on and off. I hate throwing things away.
Is there anything Brandon Can't do - carpenter, blacksmith, leather craftsman & now cobbler.......... he'll be setting a micro brewery in the Nutmeg Tavern next!
Hmmm.... I check Google Maps for shoe repair where I live (Inland Empire region east of Los Angeles, Ca) and get results for a 50 mile radius: 142 results. I do the same search for Indianapolis and there's only 9 results. I dunno what the heck you're talking about.
2:42 - Throws away a perfectly reusable, or re-deployable, bit of functional leather! Anything from cutting tap washers, to building shims. Not a throw-away society then? You rather set off your own petard there!
Maybe a lesson in historical perspective would be in order. Poverty, until the Great Depression meant the true threat of starvation during winter and other times of scarcity. Poverty today means only eating out for 7 or fewer times per week, only last year's model of smartphone with 4gte instead of 5g, only 3 cars for the adult and 3 licensed children in the "family," seconds of everything on the table, $150 shoes instead of the $200 ones..... :/ First World Problems. :/ Hold on people, you ain't seen nothing yet!
...you can sink the bottom thread in by cutting a shallow groove, a cut about 1/16", all around the circumference of the bottom part of the sole, the thread sinks into the leather when you stitch & pull, and you don't walk on the thread - the leather actually molds over the stitches, covering them....German cobblers did this, that's where I learned it
Mother said to not mess with the peach cobbler in the kitchen, but I did not listen. I stood there and taunted him while he made his silly little peach shoes. But on he worked. For hours and hours he would work as I taunted him. I told him that no one would buy them. He did not listen.
A good pair of affordable 18th Century shoes were "Straight-last" and therefore could be worn on either foot, preferably changed Right-to-Left every day which would keep them wearing more evenly and lasting far longer before major repair was needed - sorta' like Rotating the Tires on your Automobile every 5,000 Miles! 😁
Nice presentation but after many videos with the same music on such a short loop, listening to the videos is becoming unpleasant and that's a shame because the videos are so informative. Please update the background music more frequently. Please!
My grandfather arrived in America in 1900 from Poland. He was a cobbler and taught a few of his sons and a brother in law. It's an honorable profession albeit a poorer one in days past. (He eventually became a janitor) Thanks for this video!
Brilliant effort for a first attempt, keep at it, it's fine work. When finishing around the edge, whether the sole or the heel when machines weren't available, cobblers used a tool called a spoke shave to trim the edge close and then blended in using a piece of broken glass as a scraper. These could then be polished using a stick called a rubbing down stick. Cherry wood was considered the best wood for this. The rubbing down stick was also used for pushing the sole down into the welt and for closing stitching channels. And for twatting me on the arse for getting things wrong. Shoes should always be repaired as a pair because they can be matched up. If the shoes end up different in height then the wearer will almost always start experiencing back pain. Also please don't cut towards your finger.
I am so very grateful you made this video so people can learn the difference between a Cordwainer and a Cobbler! So many people use the term Cobbler to mean shoe maker and they do not understand when I correct them! Thank-you!
My mother remembered her father replacing soles and heels on their shoes...and even making shoes for himself and my grandmother. Of course, he also had lots of horse tack to make and to repair.
All through highschool and as a young adult I worked retail at a bookstore or clothing store, so I wore nice leather dress shoes with wooden heels. I always wondered why they would wear down on a slant. I didn't know that was normal, I thought I must've walked like a weirdo.
Footwear is so important and it often get's ignored. Crazy. I mean it took me years to find out what romans wore in winter and what hobnails were for precisely. the most mundane thing can be the mosst interesting.
I work at a work boot store. and we use a local shoe repair guy all the time. Its amazing how long you can make a well constructed boot last if you repair the right parts at the right time.
Never knew they used wooden nails. I've watched a good amount of modern day cobblers and it's always skinny metal nails. The wood surprised me. I wonder how it compares to modern day nails.
I honestly think that the usage of replaceable wood for the bottom of shoes might have been better than leather, since sculpting a piece of wood to the right shape would be cheaper than the leather which would occupy the same space and do the same job. Though, in that case, there might be a need for a different mechanism for swapping the shoe bottoms (the parts which would be on the ground or on the street, not the part you would step on), to make the swapping easier and cheaper. It would also allow different models of thread, like car tyre threads, which to make the shoes better for some purposes, as well as to have general-purpose shoes which are decent at everything but not the best at anything.
I really appreciate your craft. I've always liked leather craft, and now I'm Simi retired I want to learn as much as I can in the craft including shoe making or repair. Thank you so much and God bless 🙏
I've loved seeing every one of your recent vids for the channel. You're making learning about such a wide variety of things that were a part of everyday life easier to learn about, in these little bite sized videos-- or maybe snack sized, bc there's enough information to actually satisfy my curiosity. Keep it up with shoe repair, or do another material vid like the horn vids-- whatever you do next, I'm sure I'll like it 👍
Great video… as a kid one of the few movies my grandparents had at their house was a VHS of Timeless Tales: The Elves and the Shoemaker. Olivia Newton John introduced the stories oddly enough. I watched that probably a hundred times and it was very interesting to me as a kid to imagine my modern sneakers being sewn together. This video brought me back to that a bit and just had to say thanks for the great video and trip down memory lane!
I actually enjoy shoe shine and shoe repair asmr from time to time. I have an interest in old fashioned things like this and in the middle of the most busy part of my town (a place I 'lovingly' refer to as Red Light Alley) there is a Gyro joint (the only one in my town) and a shoe repair store. Never been in the repair store cause I don't have shoes that are fancy enough to warrant a visit to one..I buy cheap shoes and wear them till they fall apart. If I honestly thought in my area there was a demand for that kind of work I might try and be a cobbler..but tbh I'm surprised the ONE repair store for shoes I know of is still in business after at least 10 years that I can remember.
I work leather , mostly making belts , sheaths , and holsters . It was interesting watching you replace the heal . Was it common to treat the leather , especially the welt area with something like beeswax or an oil ? Fun video 👍
I know that the term cobbler is most associated with shoes, but I've seen it claimed that the term can be applied to anyone who makes makeshift repairs to anything.
This was a lovely video. Brandon Oswald is a knowledgeable and fun feller! I would enjoy seeing more cobbler and shoe related videos. As a quick question, why were shoes made from leather when they seemed to wear down fairly easily? were there no other cheaper materials available to make the shoes out of? Or was leather the most comfortable material,. so its lack of durability was just an unfortunate side effect of an otherwise superior material?
When soles were leather, they wore out faster than they do today. Artificial materials make soles so much more durable than they used to be. But in Europe i have seen cobblers/cord waineers who did both bespoke shoes and shoe repairs.
Not too many making ox carts or buggy whips either! Many modern shoes/boots don't have a welted sole, and you can't really mould a new pair of soles on old shoes. If you do have a quality pair of shoes get them mended before you wear into the mid-sole.
Any idea of the ratio between Cobblers and Cordwainers in colonial times? I knew a woman, an acquaintance of my parents, from the Shetland Islands back in the early 60's. I remember she told my parents that everything she was wearing came from their croft (sheep farm). This was common back then, but I don't know if it happens now.
Going to buy some buckle shoes from you guys and if they weren't made by someone who was dressed as a cobbler from the 18th century I will absolutely sue. And I WILL know.
Is it just me, or is the exposed stitching on the bottom of the shoe a big point of failure? I wonder what it would look like to reimagine a classical shoe made of traditional materials (leather, linen or hemp canvas, linen thread, tar, animal glue) in order to make it somewhat more durable.
This is AWESOME!! Can you share some sources you used on cobblers and the tools needed and cord waners?! I’m getting into leather working and really interested in fixing as well as making shoes. Thanks guys!!
Thank You Brandon, So interesting and well done I might add! I’m a craftsman much like yourself and my great great Grandfather was a shoemaker. I have some of his tools and his ledgers from the 1840s-1870s. A fine pair of boots was $5. Children’s shoes were from .95-$1.25. Often things were paid for with bushels of oats, firewood and leather. He took on an apprentice in the 1840s for $25 a year and 6 weeks off for harvest.Of course this included room and board as well. It was for 3 years and the agreement was written on a page in his ledger, signed and sealed. His shop was in Chestnut Level in southeastern Pa. The names of all his customers are written with each order, which makes it all the more interesting. I have repaired my own shoes (if possible) for years and the crafts you are doing as well. For years I restored period antique furniture and made furniture as well. I’ve always preferred antique tools, which often work better than new and feel better as well. I believe you can well appreciate using old and well made tools. Thank You again Brandon! I very much enjoy your work. If there may be any old tools you might be looking for feel free to email me. Living in Lancaster Co. Pennsylvania I run across many old tools. Many Blessings and Joy of Being and the Arts! DaveyJO in Pennsylvania
What a great Chanel. It absolutely blows my mind how this Chanel doesn’t have 100 million subscribers, this is quality stuff, you guys should for sure be on tv! Keep up the great work!
So cobblers were considered low status, typically preformed quick fixes for lots of customers, and weren't considered as good as the shoe makers themselves? I'm calling it now Cobblers are 18th century IT.
The repair would last him a month? Is a month or two typical for sole replacements for shoes in that time? How did the shoes last for years while the soles were peeled off and sewn back on? Wouldn’t the holes used to sew wear larger and larger and eventually not be viable anymore? I remember hearing that people would buy new shoes once a decade or something. Why wouldn’t they seek out material that would last longer than leather for the soles?
While not contemporaneous with the period represented here, I have some excerpts from my gr gr gr gr grandfather's expense book from 1837 to 1842. In 1838, a pair of kip boots were $4.75 and having shoes resoled was 50¢, so that gives some idea of just how expensive footwear was and the economics of repair vs. replace. (A shave at a barber was 13¢, BTW.)
I'm using this as reference for a comic I'm writing so having the clear visuals plus narrative on what's happening as well as terminology was so incredibly helpful!!
I really like these original DIY type videos: back then it wasn't a philosophy of life, it was necessity for survival. Other possible ones: - Gun repair (when you broke your stock, maybe damaged your barrel, etc) - Wood saws and other handtool repairs (when it was more practical than making/buying a new one) - Glass? How did people get glass for their homes in frontier, or far from big cities? Were blacksmiths also skilled in ceramics/porcelain (plates etc), AND glasses (for eyeglasses, window glasses, etc)
I grew up right at the end of the time when there still were cobblers. I can remember seeing my grandfather talking about getting his boots repaired and taking them to a cobbler. These are skills that some should still learn with the cost and availability of things.
