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Teacher note: A number of students contributed to these pages on Colonial times. Each contributed diffferent information or a different perspective. You may find that each article adds to your understanding and research base.
Doug Mann is a shoemaker. He makes and sells for the people in
his town called Williamsburg. Doug was an apprentice at his father's shoe
shop in Norfolk when he was about10 years old. While working as an apprentice,
Doug learned how to make shoes in different sizes by engraving wooden lasts,
work with leather,sew, & make shoes! By the time Doug was in his twenty's,
He had fully learned the craft of shoemaking By watching his father at work.
Soon Doug decided to move to the new colony of Virginia. There, Doug opened
his own shop in the shoemaking buisness. Now Doug is a master craftsman,an
expert on at shoemaking. He knows the craft well and he runs his own buisness.
Instead of working for people, Doug has people working for him.
He gets dressed, eats breakfast that his wife cooks for him,
and leaves for work. When he arrives at work he starts on the shoes that the
people in his town have ordered. First he takes some leather and some nails
from his desk, along with a hammer, water and oil. He uses the last that he
carved the previous day to size the shoe. (A last is a foot shaped piece of
wood that a shoemaker would carve to the same size as a customers foot. The
shoemaker would make the shoe the right size.) Doug would cut a piece of leather
called the upper and soaks it in oil and water, then stretches it over the
top of the last. Then Doug would nail the upper to the last around the edges
of the last. Then Doug waits for a couple of hours, letting the leather dry
onto the last.
This site is created and maintained by Holly
Geddes.
Last updated on
March 14, 2003