Description

Description: A long line of shoe makers stand at attention next to their machines in this original early 20th century shoe factory photograph. Completed footwear is stacked neatly on shelves throughout the factory, illuminated by the light streaming in through the wall of windows at the left.

Photographer’s backmark on verso for Bennett’s Studio of Endicott, NY. This could indicate that this photograph depicts the interior of one of the Endicott-Johnson Shoe Company’s factories. The E-J was a prosperous manufacturer of shoes based in New York’s Southern Tier, with factories mostly located in the area’s Triple Cities of Binghamton, Johnson City, and Endicott. An estimated 20,000 people worked in the company’s factories by the 1920s, and an even greater number worked there during the boom years of the mid-1940s when, helped by footwear it produced for the military during the war years, it was producing 52 million pairs of shoes a year. During the early 1950s, the work force was still approximately 17,000 to 18,000. Today, EJ Footwear, LLC operates as a unit of Nelsonville, Ohio-based Rocky Shoes & Boots, Inc.

5″ x 8″ photograph on an 8″ x 10″ plain mount. Item #P00291

Condition: Corners of mount are chipped, some scratches and smudges on surface of photograph. Overall very good condition, with very good resolution and contrast.