Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly
Speaker 1: Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. The shoes that you're
Speaker 1: wearing today likely were made possible by an invention from
Speaker 1: the late nineteenth century, unless you're wearing like ballet slippers
Speaker 1: or very fancy handmade shoes, right, or something that doesn't
Speaker 1: have like an upper and a soul, which I suppose
Speaker 1: is possible if you're a medieval reenactor, or there are
Speaker 1: other outlier cases. But the thing is, most of us
Speaker 1: are wearing shoes that are made possible by this inventor
Speaker 1: from the late nineteenth century. And that inventor of the
Speaker 1: machine that made that possible had little to no formal education,
Speaker 1: and he didn't really get to enjoy the fruits of
Speaker 1: his labor. And he's one of those people that unless
Speaker 1: you're a shoe person, you might not know about. So
Speaker 1: we're talking about jan Ernst Matzalaiger today. Jan Ernst Matzelager
Speaker 1: was born on September fifteenth, eighteen fifty two, in the
Speaker 1: city of Paramaribo in Dutch Guiana in South America. So
Speaker 1: today that is in Surinam, and this city is its capital.
Speaker 1: Jan's father was Dutch and his mother was a Serenemese
Speaker 1: black woman. Several but not all, sources note that his
Speaker 1: mother was enslaved to his father. Jan's father was in
Speaker 1: Dutch Guiana at the behest of the Dutch government. He
Speaker 1: was an engineer and his job there was to manage
Speaker 1: various business interests and especially factories controlled by the government
Speaker 1: that ran heavy machinery. Jan lived with an aunt on
Speaker 1: his father's side of the family, starting at age three.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of biographical sketches of Yon that
Speaker 1: say that he would occasionally make the rounds of factories
Speaker 1: with his father as a child, and that he was
Speaker 1: drawn to the various pieces of machinery he saw, which
Speaker 1: kind of makes it sound sort of idyllic. He was
Speaker 1: in those factories at a very young age, but the
Speaker 1: reality was that was because he was put to work
Speaker 1: at age ten apprenticing for a machinist. He is said
Speaker 1: to have shown a lot of intuitive engineering skill from
Speaker 1: a very young age, and he was able to repair
Speaker 1: machinery he wasn't all that familiar with with very little instruction.
Speaker 1: When he was nineteen, Jan left Dutch Guiana by getting
Speaker 1: work on an East India merchant ship. For two years,
Speaker 1: he worked on the ship and he traveled, but when
Speaker 1: he arrived in Philadelphia, he decided to stay there for
Speaker 1: a while. It's believed that he spent some time in
Speaker 1: Philadelphia as a cobbler before moving on to Boston, and
Speaker 1: then in eighteen seventy three, Mattzlagger arrived in Lynn, Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: where he would live for the rest of his life.
Speaker 1: When Matzlagger arrived in Lynn, it had a population of
Speaker 1: about thirty five thousand and it was one of the
Speaker 1: main places in the United States where shoes were made,
Speaker 1: so eventually he found work in a shoe factory. He
Speaker 1: worked in a number of roles in the factory, starting
Speaker 1: on a soul sewing machine and then a heel burnisher,
Speaker 1: and then eventually onto a buttonhole machine, probably others as well,
Speaker 1: and to supplement his factory income, he also drove a coach.
Speaker 1: During those early years in the United States, Yan had
Speaker 1: to learn English and to recognize the restrictions that racism
Speaker 1: placed on his movements. One story from his time early
Speaker 1: on is that he tried to go to a church,
Speaker 1: but he was turned away from that church because he
Speaker 1: was black. He did eventually find a church, which was
Speaker 1: the North Congregational Church, and a community there in their
Speaker 1: Christian Endeavor Society, which was a youth group. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: church became very important to his life. In addition to
Speaker 1: driving a coach in his off hours, Yon also started
Speaker 1: formally studying English at evening classes several nights a week,
Speaker 1: and with these structured lessons, he soon progressed really quickly.
Speaker 1: And it said that he not only learned to read
Speaker 1: and speak English, but that when he spoke, he had
Speaker 1: no perceivable accent. And as his English improved, he became
Speaker 1: more and more involved in his church. He started teaching
Speaker 1: Sunday school and serving on various committees, and he also
Speaker 1: settled into life in the Greater Lynn community, and he
Speaker 1: soon built up this reputation as a gentleman with a
Speaker 1: very keen wit and a lot of kindness for others.
Speaker 1: Once Jan was proficient in English, he kept working to
Speaker 1: expand his education. He started acquiring all kinds of books,
Speaker 1: particularly scientific works. He learned about natural sciences and physics,
Speaker 1: and soon he started tinkering with various inventions. It's possible
Speaker 1: that some of these were successful and were eventually patented,
Speaker 1: but those patents would have been held by Matzlagger's employers.
Speaker 1: They helped him pay for the supplies that he needed. Y. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of variation on what you will find
Speaker 1: in terms of what people think he invented during that time,
Speaker 1: which surely I did not include them because it's all speculation.
Speaker 1: But whatever he may have done in his early inventiveness,
Speaker 1: it was his work in shoe manufacturing that was the
Speaker 1: most important. And this reveals an interesting state in the
Speaker 1: manufacture of shoes that had been the case for a
Speaker 1: very long time. There were mechanized processes for just about
Speaker 1: every step of shoe manufacture by the mid nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: with the exception of the step known as lasting. So
Speaker 1: lasting is the stage of construction when the stitch together
Speaker 1: and more or less completed upper is shaped into its
Speaker 1: final form and then joined to the soul. And in
Speaker 1: the early half of the nineteenth centuries, machines had been
Speaker 1: developed they could handle literally all of the other steps,
Speaker 1: and Mattzalager was familiar with all of those machines because
Speaker 1: he worked on most, if not all, of the available
Speaker 1: ones of the factory. But no one had been able
Speaker 1: to mechanize lasting. There are some good reasons for that.
Speaker 1: You may have heard the term shoe last as a noun.
Speaker 1: That's the form often made of wood that is made
Speaker 1: to mimic the shape of a human foot, and it's
Speaker 1: what the finished upper is stretched over and formed on
Speaker 1: so that when you put the shoe on, it fits correctly.
Speaker 1: Lasts are still part of shoe manufacture. If you've ever
Speaker 1: wondered why some brands of shoes usually fit you better
Speaker 1: than other ones, it's because different companies use different lasts.
Speaker 1: With all the variations in foot shapes that humans have,
Speaker 1: some of them will match up to any given person's
Speaker 1: foot better than the others. This is also why sometimes
Speaker 1: a shoe you've been wearing for years can betray you
Speaker 1: because a new last has been selected to form an
Speaker 1: on right. If you buy the newest model, it may
Speaker 1: not be the same last as the old one, just
Speaker 1: as in a side that like. You can still have
Speaker 1: custom shoes made with a custom last sure where they
Speaker 1: will cast your foot and you get shoes that are
Speaker 1: made specifically just for you. And there was a lot
Speaker 1: of that going on in the nineteenth century when Mattzlagger
Speaker 1: was working, but he was focused on the industrial production
Speaker 1: of shoes. So in the eighteen seventies, when mattz Lagger
Speaker 1: started working in these shoe factories, skilled cobblers were still
Speaker 1: the ones to fit the upper of a shoe over
Speaker 1: the last, carefully shape it to that form, and then
Speaker 1: attach it to the sole with nails. And that human
Speaker 1: finishing was kind of a necessity because leather, which is
Speaker 1: what the vast majority of shoes were made from, has
Speaker 1: natural variables in it. Even two cuts of leather taken
Speaker 1: from the exact same animal hide and treated with the
Speaker 1: exact same processes might have different thicknesses, or may have
Speaker 1: different tendencies in different spots when it to stretch in flexibility.
Speaker 1: In addition to the careful shaping that had to be
Speaker 1: done taking these variables into account, the right and left
Speaker 1: shoe had to match perfectly, and they had to be
Speaker 1: perfectly joined to the soul. So there were plenty of
Speaker 1: people in the industry who really believed that there would
Speaker 1: always have to be a pair of human hands doing
Speaker 1: the finishing on shoes. But this also created a workflow
Speaker 1: problem because when all of those other parts of the
Speaker 1: process were mechanized, but the finish wasn't, that meant that
Speaker 1: shoe pieces would kind of pile up, and you had
Speaker 1: this bottleneck unless you had just a huge team of
Speaker 1: people who had the skill to handle lasting. We will
Speaker 1: talk about how manufacturers were trying to address this issue
Speaker 1: after we pause for a sponsor break. There were plenty
Speaker 1: of people trying to come up with a machine that
Speaker 1: could last shoe but there just wasn't anything working. By
Speaker 1: the time Matt Selager was in the industry, they had
Speaker 1: been trying for decades and the best that had come
Speaker 1: of it were kind of near misses or machines that
Speaker 1: could sort of do the job, but they weren't much
Speaker 1: faster than a manual finish, so there wasn't really a
Speaker 1: lot of impetus to adopt them. Gordon McKay, who was
Speaker 1: a businessman responsible for many of the machines in the industry,
Speaker 1: attempted to corner the lasting market by purchasing just about
Speaker 1: all of the existing patents that people had filed for
Speaker 1: various parts of it and kind of throwing a load
Speaker 1: of money at research and development. He was also very
Speaker 1: very ligitious with any competitors, but that wasn't really worth it,
Speaker 1: because while his efforts did eventually produce a lasting machine.
Speaker 1: It was only able to handle certain types of shoes,
Speaker 1: and the results even within that set of certain types
Speaker 1: of shoes were not consistent. And as these mechanization efforts
Speaker 1: were underway, the lasters in the industry unionized in eighteen eighty,
Speaker 1: and they were able to force the companies they worked
Speaker 1: for to give them significant pay increases because it had
Speaker 1: become deeply apparent that without them the whole system would
Speaker 1: fall apart. This unionization only spurred manufacturers to want a
Speaker 1: lasting machine so they could step around the last's union
Speaker 1: and its relatively high weekly salary arrangement. We say relatively
Speaker 1: because they were being paid what they deserved, but compared
Speaker 1: to other people in the industry, they were getting more.
Speaker 1: As Massachusetts and specifically Lynn were an epicenter of the
Speaker 1: shoe industry, Yon Matzalager had a front row seat to
Speaker 1: all of this playing out, and he thought that perhaps
Speaker 1: he could make a machine that could finish shoes. He
Speaker 1: started working through ideas for such a machine in the
Speaker 1: evenings when he wasn't working either of his jobs or
Speaker 1: seeing to any of his charch activities. He had to
Speaker 1: study mechanical engineering to even know where to start, and
Speaker 1: he acquired a set of drafting tools secondhand to start
Speaker 1: making diagrams. He didn't try to build on the previous
Speaker 1: efforts of other engineers because those were not working. Instead,
Speaker 1: he started by making a study of the people who
Speaker 1: were lasting shoes by hand. He observed them whenever he
Speaker 1: could and made detailed notes about how their hands moved
Speaker 1: through each step of the process. Six months later he
Speaker 1: had produced his first prototype. And this effort at making
Speaker 1: a prototype was really a case of making do with
Speaker 1: what he had on hand, because Mattzelager did not have
Speaker 1: much money, so he used discarded goods and made his
Speaker 1: prototype out of things like cigar boxes and wire offcuts
Speaker 1: that had been thrown away so that he could put
Speaker 1: it together. But this was really just a proof of concept.
Speaker 1: It was not intended to be a working piece of machinery.
Speaker 1: He just wanted to see if he had gotten the
Speaker 1: motions right before he attempted to build an iron version
Speaker 1: of his mechanism. Initially, he was as with his proof
Speaker 1: of com gathering cast off materials to try to make
Speaker 1: that iron version work. But then he had a stroke
Speaker 1: of luck when he was hired as a maintenance machinist
Speaker 1: for one of Lynn's Shoe manufacturers, and he was allowed
Speaker 1: to claim a small workspace in the plant there where
Speaker 1: he could work on his personal project and had access
Speaker 1: to some better materials. So there's some incongruity in the
Speaker 1: accounts in terms of whether people knew what he was
Speaker 1: up to, because we don't really have his own account.
Speaker 1: So these are secondhand versions that are often intended to
Speaker 1: frame the story in a particular way. Usually they involve
Speaker 1: people mocking him or secretly thinking he was a genius.
Speaker 1: One thing that's universally recognized was that Jon Matzlagger was
Speaker 1: driven in pursuit of this invention. Two women who worked
Speaker 1: with them at the factory realized that he was skipping
Speaker 1: meals to work on his project in this little space
Speaker 1: that he was in, and they started sharing their meals
Speaker 1: with him. He worked on getting this right for four years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: those two women became very good friends of his. He
Speaker 1: attended their weddings. They were like his work buddies, and
Speaker 1: they all took care of each other and it's very
Speaker 1: very sweet. But once he had a functioning model, Matzelager
Speaker 1: realized that he still needed money. The machine was more
Speaker 1: or less built, but there were other steps in the
Speaker 1: process that were going to need capital, like running tests
Speaker 1: with the machine and filing for a patent, and he
Speaker 1: reached out to potential investors, but most of them just
Speaker 1: wanted to purchase his ideas, or in some cases they
Speaker 1: wanted to purchase just parts of his machine, and he
Speaker 1: was not interested in either of those outcomes. Eventually, he
Speaker 1: did find financing in the form of a business partnership.
Speaker 1: Two men, Charles H. Delnow and Melville C. Nichols, offered
Speaker 1: to finance and start a company with Mattzlager in exchange
Speaker 1: for a three way split of the profits. Thanks to
Speaker 1: their investment, Yan was able to complete his patent application.
Speaker 1: The patent application was submitted January twenty fourth, eighteen eighty two,
Speaker 1: and it read, in part quote, heretofore devices have been
Speaker 1: contrived for performing a part of the operation, such as
Speaker 1: holding the last in proper position and drawing the leather
Speaker 1: over the last, while the nailing was done by hand.
Speaker 1: In my machine, I perform all the operations by the
Speaker 1: machine and automatically, requiring only the service of a boy
Speaker 1: or girl or unskilled labor to attend the machine. My
Speaker 1: invention includes a mechanism for holding the last in place
Speaker 1: and allowing it to be turned and the last fed
Speaker 1: forward in proper position for the operation of the machine.
Speaker 1: It includes a feeding device for moving the last step
Speaker 1: by step at a proper distance, whereby the mechanism for
Speaker 1: drawing over the leather may operate successfully and at proper intervals.
Speaker 1: It includes pincher or gripping mechanism for drawing the upper
Speaker 1: over the last, mechanism for turning the gripping mechanism in
Speaker 1: order to plat the leather at the heel or toe,
Speaker 1: mechanism for holding the last in proper position for the
Speaker 1: operation of the feeding mechanism, mechanism for feeding the nails
Speaker 1: and holding them in proper position to be driven, and
Speaker 1: mechanism for driving the nails at the proper instant. The
Speaker 1: details of construction are all fully set forth here and after,
Speaker 1: and together with the principles of my invention, are stated
Speaker 1: in the claims, so in case that slightly stilted language
Speaker 1: is unclear, the machine could pull the leather down over
Speaker 1: a last, plead it at the toe to fit around
Speaker 1: the last, and then it would grip the last with
Speaker 1: the leather upper on it while positioning it over the
Speaker 1: sole nail. The two of them together and then eject
Speaker 1: the shoe completed. But when he submitted this patent application
Speaker 1: in his documentation, it said that it kind of stumped
Speaker 1: officials at the US Patent Office. There wasn't anything wrong
Speaker 1: with the paperwork. It was just unique enough and complex
Speaker 1: enough that a patent official had to be sent to
Speaker 1: Lynn to inspect the machine himself to make sure he
Speaker 1: knew what Mattzalaiger had created before he approved it for
Speaker 1: a patent. So that excerpt that I made poor Tracy
Speaker 1: just read includes a lot of steps for one machine.
Speaker 1: So it may have seemed a bit unreal to patent experts.
Speaker 1: And that's particularly so when you consider that up to
Speaker 1: this point, the majority of people were like, no one
Speaker 1: is ever going to be able to invent a machine
Speaker 1: that does this. So this visit though to Lynn must
Speaker 1: have done the trick, because on March twentieth, eighteen eighty three,
Speaker 1: Mattzaliger received a patent for his invention. When I read this,
Speaker 1: I had a moment where I was like, this seems
Speaker 1: like more more effort to get the patents approved than
Speaker 1: a lot of the patents we have talked about. Yes,
Speaker 1: for sure, they were just like I'm sorry, what sir, Yeah. Next,
Speaker 1: there had to be factory tests to make sure that
Speaker 1: the machine laster worked. It took two years after the
Speaker 1: patent was granted for Matzlager to build a second model
Speaker 1: that would be ready for these kinds of tests, But
Speaker 1: at the end of May of eighteen eighty five, Mattzlager's
Speaker 1: invention was put through its paces. It turned out seventy
Speaker 1: five perfectly finished pairs of shoes. After the success, things
Speaker 1: moved very quickly, so quickly, in fact, that it gets
Speaker 1: hard to track the business deals that were made in
Speaker 1: the wake of this success. Beyond and his partners had
Speaker 1: formed a company, but they needed bigger investors so they
Speaker 1: could produce the machines at the scale that was needed
Speaker 1: to meet this instant market interest. Soon George W. Brown
Speaker 1: and Sydney W. Winslow were partners and the company was
Speaker 1: reorganized as the Consolidated Lasting Machine Company. Consolidated as a
Speaker 1: business owned the rights to Matzalauger's patent, and Matzelagger got
Speaker 1: a large chunk of the company stock. Consolidated Lasting Machine
Speaker 1: Company got up and running with the staff of two
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty five workers to build Lasting machines and
Speaker 1: very quickly demand to outpace their output, as is pretty
Speaker 1: common whenever there's a revolutionary invention, and Matzeliger's laster definitely
Speaker 1: was that. There were imitations. Many inventors sought to replicate
Speaker 1: the consolidated lasting machine, but nobody was really able to.
Speaker 1: One of the things that no one else seemed to
Speaker 1: ever get right was creating a machine that could complete
Speaker 1: all of the steps that Mattzaligers did while still handling
Speaker 1: the leather with care. Many of the imitation machines lost
Speaker 1: product due to tears and punctures in the material. At
Speaker 1: a time when the average number of pairs of shoes
Speaker 1: produced by an artisan laster working by hand was about
Speaker 1: fifty in a day, one of Matt's Laige's machines, working
Speaker 1: at its slowest, could make one hundred and fifty. That
Speaker 1: number was dependent on the style of the shoe and
Speaker 1: how fancy or intricate its design was. For simpler shoes,
Speaker 1: the machine could make as many as seven hundred pairs
Speaker 1: in a day, But of course this was not good
Speaker 1: news for the people who had been making their living
Speaker 1: as hand lasters. The rapid adoption of this machine by
Speaker 1: shoe manufacturers meant that there needed to be people to
Speaker 1: run them, and there was even a school set up
Speaker 1: by the consolidated Lasting Machine Company to train people. Many
Speaker 1: of the people that went through that training had been
Speaker 1: hand lasters, but you'll recall that mattz Lager's patent language
Speaker 1: specifically noted that a boy or a girl or an
Speaker 1: unskilled laborer could handle running the machine. That meant the
Speaker 1: factories felt like the wages for Lasting Machine operators could
Speaker 1: be a lot lower than what the lasters had been
Speaker 1: making when they were doing all that work by hand.
Speaker 1: The lasters were not against the use of Matzealiger's machine
Speaker 1: for those who transitioned from hand lasting to operating them.
Speaker 1: They recognized that their job was less strenuous, but they
Speaker 1: were against the way that it was being used to
Speaker 1: justify a reduction of their wages. In the middle of
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty seven, one factory W. L. Douglas Company had
Speaker 1: a strike. The lasters wanted an advance paid on the
Speaker 1: work they were doing, and they wanted an agreement in
Speaker 1: place that only union members would run the Lasting machines.
Speaker 1: This strike was reported in the Daily Item, which is
Speaker 1: the local paper for Lynn, on August eighth. It reads,
Speaker 1: quote the forty lasters employed at the factory of W. L.
Speaker 1: Douglas in Brockton quit work Saturday morning because of the
Speaker 1: disagreement between the lasters union and mister Douglas regarding the prices,
Speaker 1: and also because of two non union men being employed
Speaker 1: on the Lasting machines. Mister Douglas said that morning that
Speaker 1: the trouble was caused by the Lasting machines, which he
Speaker 1: had recently put into his factory. He said that last
Speaker 1: Monday he brought up from Plymouth two men to work
Speaker 1: on the machines, as he intended to put one half
Speaker 1: union and the other half non union men on the machines.
Speaker 1: The men were paid two dollars and fifty cents a day,
Speaker 1: which is about the same price they received for hand lasting.
Speaker 1: Mister Douglas states that he does not intend to allow
Speaker 1: the union to control the machines so as this write
Speaker 1: up continues, though, it reports that Douglas was actually planning
Speaker 1: to use only non union men going forward on the
Speaker 1: Lasting machines, but that he will still give handwork to
Speaker 1: anyone who wants it. That article states quote, all lasters
Speaker 1: who wish to return to work on Monday will be
Speaker 1: given employment, and all who do not return will consider
Speaker 1: themselves discharged. Those who do not return will never be
Speaker 1: employed again by him. Of course, if they came in,
Speaker 1: they would be paid at a lower rate. Though this
Speaker 1: was the first of several lasters strike in Lin and beyond,
Speaker 1: the messaging of the lasters Union always made clear that
Speaker 1: they weren't anti mechanization, They just wanted fair wages, and
Speaker 1: in a refreshing turn of events, they actually got them.
Speaker 1: The union managed to negotiate for the laster's pay to
Speaker 1: move back up to where it had been before the
Speaker 1: Lasting machine came into the factories, and for the machines
Speaker 1: to be run only by union members. Maybe even more
Speaker 1: surprising is that Yon Matzalager was never the target in
Speaker 1: any of these conflicts, and once the lasters were back
Speaker 1: at the factories running the machines, a lot of them
Speaker 1: noted that they were quite happy running them. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was a lot less backbreaking than hunching over a pair
Speaker 1: of shoes and having to do that fifty times a day.
Speaker 1: In a moment, we're going to talk about what Yon
Speaker 1: Matzalaiger was up to while the Laster's Union and the
Speaker 1: factories were figuring out their conflict. But first, we will
Speaker 1: hear from the sponsors that keep the show going. While
Speaker 1: the strikes and union negotiations were playing out, Matzelager was
Speaker 1: still busy perfecting new iterations of the machine and coming
Speaker 1: up with completely new ideas. He became very interested in
Speaker 1: motors and perpetual motion machines. But though his curiosity and
Speaker 1: ingenuity were still running at full tilt, his health was failing.
Speaker 1: He had first come down with a cold in eighteen
Speaker 1: eighty six, but that cold never seemed to go away.
Speaker 1: He kept working through it, but he also just kept
Speaker 1: getting worse, and what he had thought was a persistent
Speaker 1: cold was eventually diagnosed as tuberculosis. Things progressed to a
Speaker 1: point that it really wasn't even feasible for Yan to
Speaker 1: live by himself. He had become really weak and eventually
Speaker 1: was too ill to even leave the house. He depended
Speaker 1: on his friends to take care of him, and he
Speaker 1: also took care of them. In a return. He purchased
Speaker 1: a home for his friends, mister and Missus William Lewis,
Speaker 1: and he lived there with them in his final years.
Speaker 1: Although he really couldn't get out of the house, he
Speaker 1: was not living in isolation. Through his church and his
Speaker 1: friendly demeanor, Matzlagger had built up a devoted community of friends,
Speaker 1: and people were always stopping by the house to visit
Speaker 1: and see what he had been working on. Outside of
Speaker 1: engineering and machinery, Yan's other interest was painting. He had
Speaker 1: taken it up early in his life, and he had
Speaker 1: gifted friends some of his work over the years, But
Speaker 1: as he became weaker and weaker and unable to do
Speaker 1: as much work with his machinery, he continued to paint,
Speaker 1: including painting landscapes of Dutch Guiana as he remembered it
Speaker 1: from his childhood. In the spring of eighteen eighty nine,
Speaker 1: Jon Matslagger made out his will. He was hospitalized in
Speaker 1: August of that year, and he died on August twenty fourth.
Speaker 1: Was only thirty seven years old, and while he had
Speaker 1: completely changed an entire industry, he had not really gotten
Speaker 1: to see the impact of his work. His obituary in
Speaker 1: the Linn Paper read, in part quote, he was an exemplary,
Speaker 1: big hearted young man and had many friends in this city.
Speaker 1: The lasting machine he worked so hard to perfect has
Speaker 1: much merit to it, and there are many of them
Speaker 1: in use. The money that Yan had made through his
Speaker 1: business dealings was left to the community that had cared
Speaker 1: for him right from his arrival in Lynn. He left
Speaker 1: the North Congregational Church all of his interests in the
Speaker 1: Union Lasting Machine Company and one third of his stock
Speaker 1: in Consolidated Lasting, and the church held onto that stock
Speaker 1: for decades. He wanted the money the church made from
Speaker 1: that second batch the Consolidated Lasting Company stock to provide
Speaker 1: for Lynn's poor community, regardless of their religious affiliation. He
Speaker 1: also left specific financial and material gifts, include his extensive
Speaker 1: library for several of the young people in his life,
Speaker 1: with provisions to pay for their education. He also left
Speaker 1: stock to the medical professionals who had cared for him
Speaker 1: in his prolonged illness, and he left the rest of
Speaker 1: his business holdings to fifteen of his closest friends. He
Speaker 1: left a handful of personal effects and paintings to his
Speaker 1: friends as well. Although Yan had died, his invention lived on.
Speaker 1: Almost immediately after his passing. New engineers were assigned by
Speaker 1: Consolidated Lasting to finish the work he had been doing
Speaker 1: on a fourth version of a Lasting machine. Consolidated Lasting
Speaker 1: used Matz Lagger's patents to corner the market on machine lasting,
Speaker 1: and they also acquired a lot of those shoe manufacturing
Speaker 1: companies in Massachusetts and around the Northeast, including the company
Speaker 1: that made the first shoemaking machine that Mattzlager had trained on.
Speaker 1: That was the McKay Copeland Company. McKay had spent a
Speaker 1: great deal of money in the years prior to Mattzlager's
Speaker 1: lasting machine, buying up patents that seemed like promising steps
Speaker 1: toward totally mechanized shoe manufacture, and he remained an important
Speaker 1: player in the industry. The men whom Jan had partnered
Speaker 1: with in the early days of production all got just
Speaker 1: ridiculously rich thanks to his ingenuity. United Shoe Machine Corporation,
Speaker 1: which built the machines that were then sent to factories,
Speaker 1: had a massive growth spurt in eighteen ninety nine, having
Speaker 1: absorbed forty one smaller facilities in the course of just
Speaker 1: a few years. Sidney Winslow, one of Jan's partners you
Speaker 1: may remember from earlier, became the president of that company,
Speaker 1: and he was soon regarded as the King of shoe machinery.
Speaker 1: One of the many men to benefit from Mattzalauger's invention,
Speaker 1: Gordon McKay, who he just mentioned, founded a school for
Speaker 1: black boys in Rhode Island as a way to honor
Speaker 1: Yan who had never had any formal schooling beyond a
Speaker 1: little bit of elementary school. As noted by biographer Sidney
Speaker 1: Kaplan in the Journal of Negro History in nineteen fifty five,
Speaker 1: quote what Mattzelagger did for his country and for humanity, however,
Speaker 1: can hardly be measured in a quantity of dollars, For
Speaker 1: his invention has gone down in history as one of
Speaker 1: those fundamental contributions. Then, the long run, will have made
Speaker 1: work easier for men and women by producing more swiftly
Speaker 1: and efficiently a basic article of human need. He had
Speaker 1: created something that had made quality footwear available to a
Speaker 1: much larger portion of the public by creating a machine
Speaker 1: that was so efficient that it increased production to a
Speaker 1: massive degree and also drove down the cost of shoes.
Speaker 1: By the beginning of the twentieth century, there were two
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty shoe factories in Linn and in the
Speaker 1: surrounding area, and they were churning out a million pairs
Speaker 1: of shoes every day. The industry's income reportedly in increased
Speaker 1: by three hundred and fifty percent as a direct result
Speaker 1: of the lasting machine's introduction, the inventor received a lot
Speaker 1: of posthumous accolades. In nineteen oh one, Jan Matzlager was
Speaker 1: honored at the Pan American Exposition held in Buffalo, New York.
Speaker 1: He was again posthumously given a gold medal and he
Speaker 1: was given an honorary diploma in recognition of his achievements
Speaker 1: and his commitment to his self directed education. On September fifteenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one, a twenty nine cent postage stamp was
Speaker 1: issued that featured Matts Lagger. It was part of the
Speaker 1: Black Heritage stamp series and the stamp portrait, designed by
Speaker 1: Barbara Higgins Bond, features Matts Lagger in the foreground with
Speaker 1: diagrams from his Lasting Machine patent in the background. And
Speaker 1: then recently, in autumn of twenty twenty three, a shoe
Speaker 1: brand called Gems by Pencol launched. It was founded by
Speaker 1: doctor d Wayne Edwards, who has designed footwear for huge
Speaker 1: brands over the years. You are a sneakerhead. You know
Speaker 1: his name, but the name of his company, Gems, is
Speaker 1: a nod to Jan Ernst Mattzealiger. That j Em is
Speaker 1: his initials, and that's Jan Mattzaliger who I'm personally thankful
Speaker 1: for because I love shoes. Okay, do you have listener
Speaker 1: mail for us? I do. I have two pieces because
Speaker 1: they're brief. The first is from our listener Scott, who writes,
Speaker 1: Dear Holly and Tracy. On my visit to the Boston
Speaker 1: MFA today, I stopped by to see Patrick Lyon at
Speaker 1: the Forge photo attached for proof. So he went to
Speaker 1: see the portrait that Patrick Lyon had made of himself,
Speaker 1: which he did not want to portray him as a
Speaker 1: fancy rich man. And then Scott also attached to pet
Speaker 1: tacks of his pug, Clementine, who is redonka doodle in
Speaker 1: the best way. Clementine looks like a gun to plush.
Speaker 1: So when I when I read this email, I was
Speaker 1: scrolling down and I was like, oh, you know, I
Speaker 1: think I've probably seen that painting in the MFA, because
Speaker 1: I have been to the MFA a number of times.
Speaker 1: And then as I kept scrolling, even though I had
Speaker 1: read the email and I knew it was coming, I
Speaker 1: had a moment where I was like, why are there
Speaker 1: dog toys on the floor at the MFA? Because picture
Speaker 1: number two was not taken at the MFA. Correct, but
Speaker 1: they do the way they line up in our email,
Speaker 1: they make it look like it's like one heuge super immach.
Speaker 1: The other email that I want to note is from
Speaker 1: our listener Rob. It has a little bit of a
Speaker 1: time limit on it, so I'm hoping that this can
Speaker 1: benefit some of our listeners. Rob writes, I have no
Speaker 1: idea if either of you will be anywhere near New
Speaker 1: York City in the next month, but I just learned
Speaker 1: there is an off Broadway show about Artemisia Gentileski playing
Speaker 1: at fifty nine E fifty nine. Since I learned about
Speaker 1: her from you two, I feel obligated to bring it
Speaker 1: to your attention. There's also an interview that he links
Speaker 1: us to with the author and co star Kate Hamill
Speaker 1: on Friday's episode of the Today on Broadway podcast. This
Speaker 1: email was written on November sixteenth, so I think when
Speaker 1: this episode comes out there will still be time to
Speaker 1: see it. Rob also writes, I hope you are enjoying
Speaker 1: the fall dessert season. I have modified my Pumpkin crack
Speaker 1: slash Pumpkin dump Cake dessert that you feature two years
Speaker 1: ago to be friendlier to diabetics, as I am now
Speaker 1: among their number who knew there is now sugar free
Speaker 1: yellow cake mix. Between that and Stevia Baking Blend, I
Speaker 1: can still take part in small portions. Rob I wanted
Speaker 1: to read this one because if any of our listeners
Speaker 1: are near there and want to check that play out,
Speaker 1: that sounds amazing. And two just to say I feel you,
Speaker 1: not me, but my beloved has been dealing with the
Speaker 1: new world of having to really be careful about sugar, insulin, etc.
Speaker 1: So I'm glad that you found ways to adapt. I
Speaker 1: also think it's just a good reminder to people. This
Speaker 1: is PSA. If you can manage it, please get your
Speaker 1: regular health screenings, because you can catch those things early
Speaker 1: before they've become a problem. I know that's not easy
Speaker 1: for everybody, but if you have access, please do it.
Speaker 1: It's just good for you and we want you around forever.
Speaker 1: If you would like to write to us, you can
Speaker 1: do so at History Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com. You
Speaker 1: can also subscribe to the show if you haven't done
Speaker 1: that already. It's super duper easy on the iHeartRadio app
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Stuff you
Speaker 1: Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For
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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.