Shoes Made in the USA and Listing

Mainpoint: Clothingmadeinusablog searches for shoes made in the U.S.A. Plus, some fun facts about shoe history and fashion.

Unlike socks, shoes have a long history involving fashion. It is thought that shoes may have been mankind’s first clothing/clothing accessory. Most think shoes were invented for the protection of the feet. But I feel it was probably really done for fashion. Try to imagine, there, in the Garden of Eden, Eve finds these large leafy fronds and attaches them to her feet – Tah, dah! The first shoes. And what does Eve do next? She has to show Adam her new invention. So, she goes up to Adam, in her new green coverings, totally naked, except for the shoes, and says, “So, what do you think?” Adam slowly looks up and down at her and then replies, because he lives in paradise, “Those shoes just compliment the color of your eyes so well”. But what if he kept going on and on: “Those shoes are just so fantastic, maybe we need a little bag to go with it, and maybe a little mascara around the eyes and maybe a little sash …” – maybe their might not have ended up becoming the parents to the world. Then, a couple, in a later time, would take their place in history, Ethel and Frederich. Poor Ethel and Frederich. In a parallel universe they would have been considered the mother and father to all humanity. It also makes me think, how many false starts were there before Adam and Eve? Was there an Adam and Steve? Maybe it wasn’t humans that were the first choice. Maybe it was sponges. Two sponges – both bisexual – continuing to produce generation after generation, when after a couple million years, the Lord gets bored and then comes some other new characters, like aardvarks, and then, opossums, and then, humans.

But, I digress. Back to Adam and Eve, without Steve. So, there they were (in paradise) – Adam and Eve – living, enjoying, not being bothered by nosy neighbors, and admiring Eve’s new leafy shoes – when all of a sudden, things changed. The clothing industry, symbolized by a snake, sends a subtly poisonous gift, an apple – which symbolizes media advertising (infomercials, fashion magazines, television ads) which causes both Adam and Eve to be unsatisfied with their life and embarrassed by their bodies and therefore, they start wearing cheap clothes from China and buying Bowflex-like contraptions. And bam, here we are in present day.

History

No coma-inducing, snooze-fest of an article is complete without an incredibly long and irrelevant history. So, let us start our arduous trek.Study author, Erik Trinkaus, a paleoanthropologist and Chinese co-author, Hong Shang published in the July 2008 issue of The Journal of Archaelogical Science that Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis), which walked the earth 25,000 to 80,000 years ago, had differences in size and strength of their middle toe bones as one might see when one wears shoes consistently.Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Sorry, fell asleep. Where was I? Oh, yes. National Geographic found a pair of well-preserved leather shoes in Armenia in 2010, thought to be from 3500 BC. And zzz, but sandals, zzz, are even older, zzz. So, shoes have been around for a while.

Pointed Shoes and Other Fun Facts (Excerpts from Big Site of Amazing Facts)

All discussions of shoes are completely void if this question isn’t asked: “Where did pointy shoes come from?” Pointy shoes were the height of fashion in the twelfth century. It was started by a Frenchman (naturally), the count of Anjou who wished to hide his deformed feet.Fashionable shoes were soon so long that their toes had to be stuffed to prevent the wearer from constantly tripping over the ends, and at one point in history, the points of the shoes had to be fastened to the wearer’s leg just below the knee. The clergy objected vehemently to the fashion, claiming that the long-pointed shoes prevented the faithful from kneeling in church. In many communities, shoe-point length was eventually limited by law to about two inches. (Fashion fascists).

High Heels

In the sixteen century, aristocratic French women began wearing high-heeled shoes so steep that the well-heeled wearer was literally standing on her toes when she wore them, which made walking very difficult. This fashion also passed on to the Venetians who eventually outlawed the too high-heels, because of the high death rate resulting from ladies tripping and falling to their deaths. (Fashion fascists). High heels were also in fashion for men at the court of Louis XIV, because of the King’s desire to hide his diminutive stature.

Wide Shoes

Henry VIII (I am, I am) initiated the vogue for wide-tied shoes in England. The wide shoes were thought to be developed because of the King’s gout-ridden feet. Gout can make the feet very painful and very swollen, and in severe cases cause bony deformities, zzz. Sorry. The shoes grew to such widths that sometimes the shoes were wider than then they were long. Shoes became so comically wide that Parliament passed a law limiting the width of a shoe to six inches. (Fashion fascists).

Shoe Sizes

So how did we come up with shoe sizes? Good question. The English King, Edward II, decreed in 1324 that an inch was equal to three average-sized barleycorns laid end to end. I guess there was nothing more consistent than the size of barleycorns. And he further decreed that the normal shoe was declared to measure thirty-nine barleycorns (probably measuring one of his own shoes no doubt.) And from this, thirty-nine barleycorn size, he designated this to be “13” (the shoe size), most likely deriving this by using this new fangled “inch” thing. It must be remembered that at this point in time when something needed to be measured you used your foot (a foot equals a foot, which is 12 inches). Apparently, there was no contradiction that a regular shoe, which is really the foot, was 13 inches. In the United States and England the way you derive the shoe size is by starting with the standard 13 inch or 39 barleycorn shoe. To add or subtract a full shoe size you add or subtract (appropriately) one barleycorn or 1/3 of an inch. A half size would be 1/6 of an inch. To make the difficult conversion from American shoe size to English shoe size, you follow this formula: U.S. shoe size minus one equals U.K. shoe size. There, now you can buy Chinese shoes in England.

If The Shoe Fits

It seems elementary that there would be a right shoe and a left shoe. But this didn’t actually happen until 1818. That is correct, everyone was living under the premise that one shoe fits both feet. And I bet the one who first came up with the idea was ridiculed incessantly. I can imagine in a small Italian town, there are a few shoe cobblers gathered together, and one comes up with this new Left foot, Right foot idea.”How are people gonna’ know which foot is which?” ” Are you gonna paint right and left onna top of their shoes?” ” Hey, you are inna shoe store, there’s this display, whicha shoe you gonna put out, the left or the right?” Gepetto, you are crazy, you should go back to making puppets.”

But the left and right shoe thing caught on. And they fit much better. Now, you have all sort of custom type shoes: wide, extra wide, extra, extra wide, one shoe a half size bigger, orthotics and plenty of extra linings and paddings with flare (Oh, my). Linings and Paddings with Flares (Oh my).

American Shoes

Up until the last 25-30 years, if you wanted to buy shoes, they were all manufactured here in the U.S., except for some very fancy, imported Italian shoes. There were all sorts of American shoe companies: Thom McAn, Florsheim, Hush Puppies, Pro Keds, Buster Brown, etc. Then, came homeland neglect and corporate greed and soon the shoes, the clothing and everything had been outsourced, and you wake up from the nightmare and say what has happened? It is time for a change. Here is a list of shoes still made in the United States, please note that in many companies, the amount of U.S. made shoes are the minority, so check the label. (Updated March 21, 2014).

Here is the list of U.S. made shoes:

1. Alden
2. Allen Edmonds
3. American Apparel
4. Ana Tech
5. Athena
6. Bass (rare)
7. Brooks Brothers
8. Callisto
9. Capps
10. Carolina
11. Chippewa Boots
12. Clinic
13. Cordani
14. Danner boots
15. Dezario
16. Double H Boots
17. Eastland Boots
18. En Shalla (undrest.com)
19. Etik (undrest.com)
20. Five Ten (climbing shoes only)
21. Foot Thrills
22. Frye Boots
23. Gokey (Through Orvis)
24. Helm
25. Hoy Shoe
26. Icon
27. Jack Rogers
28. Jerom C. Rousseau (undrest.com)
29. Justin Boots (also owns Chippewa, Tony Lama & Nocona Boots)
30. Kanin
31. KB Footwear (formerly Knapp Brothers)
32. Keen Boots (rare)
33. Kenneth Cole (rare)
34. Kork Ease
35. la botte gardiane (undrest.com)
36. Lia Bijou
37. LL Bean
38. Lucchese Boots
39. Magdesians
40. Munro
41. Nanette Lapore
42. Neil M
43. New balance
44. Nocona Boots
45. ONEX
46. Orvis
47. Rag and Bone
48. Ralph Lauren
49. Red Wing Boots
50. Rocky shoes (rare)
51. SAS shoes
52. Sbicca
53. Schnee’s Boots
54. Thorogood Boots
55. TNB shoes
56. Tony Lama Boots
57. Vintage
58. Vivanz
59. Walk Over
60. White’s Boots
61. Wolverine Boots
62. Woolrich (slippers)

On line only

1. Abilene Boots
2. A.F. Boots
3. Aurora
4. Belleville Boots
5. Capps Boots
6. CYDWOG Shoes
7. Duluth Trading Co.
8. Famolare
9. Footskin Shoes & Boots
10. Gypsy Soule
11. Johansen Shoes (Capps)
12. Karo
13. Kiwi Sandals
14. Klogs USA
15. OG Industries
16. Okabashi
17. Palm Sandals
18. Paul Bond Boots
19. Quaddy Trail
20. Rocky Boots
21. Russell Moccasins
22. Sage
23. Soft Star Shoes
24. SOM Footwear
25. Tic Tac Toe
26. Vivanz
27. Wassakeag Moccasins
28. West Coast Shoe Company
29. Wilson Boots
30. Yuketen Shoes

“You want to fall in love with a shoe, go ahead. A shoe can’t love you back, but, on the other hand, a shoe can’t hurt you too deeply either. And there are so many nice-looking shoes.” – Allen Sherman