American tanning, 1850-1920: the introduction of chrome tanning and its effects on footwear

Abstract

Changes in materials are fundamental changes affecting the industries that use them. In the United States, tanning was a commercially important industry. Tanners bought hides, prepared and tanned them, and finished them into a saleable product. Industrial tanning was carried out in tanneries using recipes which were often handed down from generation to generation, and guarded jealously. Tanning using vegetable tannins was the most common industrial method in the United States until around 1910, when it was displaced by chrome tanning. Developed relatively independently, then re-developed over and over, the process of chrome tanning first took a foothold in leather's fringe industries. It was only in the 1870s and 1880s that mainstream tanneries took an interest in this new method; first alum-based tanneries then vegetable based tanneries took up the process. Practical problems were slowly solved, culminating in the 1893 introduction of a ready-made one-bath liquor, "Tanolin", invented and marketed by Martin Dennis. After the introduction of Tanolin, the chrome process rapidly displaced vegetable tanning as the predominant method of creating kidskin and calfskin leathers. By 1918 more than 80% of leather being produced in the United States was chrome tanned. The increasing availability of chrome tanned leathers in the late 1890s provided a novel material for footwear. Its light blue-green-grey color, predictable dimensional stability, excellent heat tolerance, strength, abrasion resistance, lower cost and more rapid production amply made up for its poor resilience. The benefits of this new material changed the viability of already existing processes and styles, as well as suggesting new ones. The increased predictability of chrome leather's behavior allowed for the development of new construction methods and increased mechanization. Between 1890 and 1920 footwear became a more fashion dependent garment. Stylistic changes grew more frequent; by 1925 annual style changes were followed by manufacturers across the country. Changes in materials play an important part in affecting technological and stylistic change. The introduction of chrome-tanned leather assisted in the development of rapid stylistic change.