A century ago, New England was the world's shoemaker. Factories in Massachusetts towns such as Brockton, Haverhill, Marlboro and Peabody drove the local economy, churning out millions of pairs of shoes that were shipped from nearby ports to Europe and beyond.
Most of those factories have long since gone quiet, but last week's US$3.8 billion sale of Canton-based Reebok International Ltd to German-based Adidas-Salomon AG continues the erosion of what was once one of the region's signature industries.
The Reebok sale was the latest in a series of industry mergers that has also swept up two other Massachusetts shoemakers in recent years -- Saucony and Converse -- and threatens more lost jobs.
The symbols of New England's shoemaking legacy are still easy to see in Lynn, the North Shore city of 80,000 where three of every five workers was once employed by shoe factories. But Lynn's last shoe plant shut down five years ago, and the few remaining brick factories are either vacant or being converted to loft apartments.
"It's a factory town, and we're embracing what we once were," said Diane Shepard, archivist librarian at the Lynn Museum and Historical Society.
The industry emerged alongside textile mills in the early 19th century. With easy access to ports and waterways, entrepreneurs employed new manufacturing techniques and relied on low-cost raw materials from the South to mechanize and expand the industry, giving New England a global reputation as a shoe supplier. Shoemaking equipment was produced by United Shoe Machinery Corp, whose Beverly headquarters are a local landmark.
The industry eventually spread to neighboring New Hampshire and into Maine, home to brands like Bass, Rockport and Eastland.
Regional links among shoe and leather makers and machinery suppliers kept the industry healthy through much of the 20th century.
"As long as those historical links stayed intact, the regional industry did well," said Bob Forrant, a historian who has studied New England's industrial past.
But the industry was challenged by the emergence of midwestern meatpacking plants, which produced leather that could be transported on an expanding rail network to shoemakers nationwide. New England's high labor costs also drove jobs to the South and eventually to East Asia.
"The companies began to see the potential for making more money by moving the work, at first to other places in the United States, and then to the global economy," Forrant said.
Reebok in the 1980s became one of the first major sneaker makers to move production jobs to east Asian countries with low labor costs.
‘UPHOLDING PEACE’: Taiwan’s foreign minister thanked the US Congress for using a ‘creative and effective way’ to deter Chinese military aggression toward the nation The US House of Representatives on Monday passed the Taiwan Conflict Deterrence Act, aimed at deterring Chinese aggression toward Taiwan by threatening to publish information about Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials’ “illicit” financial assets if Beijing were to attack. The act would also “restrict financial services for certain immediate family of such officials,” the text of the legislation says. The bill was introduced in January last year by US representatives French Hill and Brad Sherman. After remarks from several members, it passed unanimously. “If China chooses to attack the free people of Taiwan, [the bill] requires the Treasury secretary to publish the illicit
NO HUMAN ERROR: After the incident, the Coast Guard Administration said it would obtain uncrewed aerial vehicles and vessels to boost its detection capacity Authorities would improve border control to prevent unlawful entry into Taiwan’s waters and safeguard national security, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday after a Chinese man reached the nation’s coast on an inflatable boat, saying he “defected to freedom.” The man was found on a rubber boat when he was about to set foot on Taiwan at the estuary of Houkeng River (後坑溪) near Taiping Borough (太平) in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), authorities said. The Coast Guard Administration’s (CGA) northern branch said it received a report at 6:30am yesterday morning from the New Taipei City Fire Department about a
A senior US military official yesterday warned his Chinese counterpart against Beijing’s “dangerous” moves in the South China Sea during the first talks of their kind between the commanders. Washington and Beijing remain at odds on issues from trade to the status of Taiwan and China’s increasingly assertive approach in disputed maritime regions, but they have sought to re-establish regular military-to-military talks in a bid to prevent flashpoint disputes from spinning out of control. Samuel Paparo, commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, and Wu Yanan (吳亞男), head of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Southern Theater Command, talked via videoconference. Paparo “underscored the importance
CHINA POLICY: At the seventh US-EU Dialogue on China, the two sides issued strong support for Taiwan and condemned China’s actions in the South China Sea The US and EU issued a joint statement on Wednesday supporting Taiwan’s international participation, notably omitting the “one China” policy in a departure from previous similar statements, following high-level talks on China and the Indo-Pacific region. The statement also urged China to show restraint in the Taiwan Strait. US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell and European External Action Service Secretary-General Stefano Sannino cochaired the seventh US-EU Dialogue on China and the sixth US-EU Indo-Pacific Consultations from Monday to Tuesday. Since the Indo-Pacific consultations were launched in 2021, references to the “one China” policy have appeared in every statement apart from the
RSS