Today, shoes are easy to get for most people. Abundant in stores, available in almost any size, shape and color, we might even discard them before they have worn through. Shoes fill thrift stores and free boxes for anyone to take. They wash up on our beaches and mysteriously appear, alone or in pairs, on the side of the road. But this has not always been the case.
In the early days of Rhode Island, shoes were a precious commodity. And, throughout most of human history, precious and necessary things get repaired. The role of repair has changed, and not only has it affected our culture of consumption, it has also affected our labor, our material culture and our use of space. In 2025, several shoe repair shops still exist across the state. But in 1942, there were 225 businesses listed as “shoe repairer” in Providence alone. From sole proprietorships, (excuse the pun), to larger businesses with several employees, these repair shops were located in nearly every neighborhood in the capital city. Shop owners represented a variety of different people, but on closer inspection, a few patterns emerge.
The majority of those listed were men. Only one of the shoe repairers listed in 1942 can be clearly identified as a woman, and that was Mrs. Emilia Gallo. A large number of the surnames were Italian, with significant representation of Armenian, French-Canadian and Jewish names as well. Both Anglo names and Americanized store names are represented, such as Correct Shoe Repairing, Empire Shoe Repairing and Modern Shoe Repairing. Might these speak of an assimilationist pressure, amidst a wave of immigration?
While 225 “feels” like a large number of shoe repair businesses, how does it compare to the repair scene before 1942? We can start by going backwards in time through directories. Although the first Providence Directory was printed in 1824, the category of “shoe repairer” first appeared in 1914. At that time, there were 278 businesses listed under the heading. There goes my theory that 1942 was the peak of local shoe repair due to the Great Depression! It actually reflects a decline from an earlier peak. It is important to note here that city directories are not a perfect record of all business transacted in a given year. What they give us today is a reliable snapshot of the overall types of work being done, the goods and services offered, and the abundance or lack thereof of our topic of study. While we can’t use it to track shoe repairers before 1914, we can take note of the abundance of shoemakers in previous directories, some of whom also repaired the goods.
Many shoes were made locally in the early days of Providence, and shoemaking was a common job often taught to indentured servants, orphans, or those in the workhouses or jails.1 In fact, not just shoes, but much of what we take for granted today was made locally. For example, we see the following makers listed in the mid-1800s directories, in addition to shoes: comb maker, rope maker, sail maker, tool maker, chair maker, cigar maker, harness maker, saddle maker, umbrella maker, wig maker, leghorn bonnet maker, mathematical instrument maker, mantua maker, cabinet maker, coffin maker, machine maker, habit maker, spar maker, watch maker, reed maker and block maker. This is just a small sample of the abundant makers, and many of them also offered repair. Each occupied a space, whether inside of, attached to, or separate from their own home and this means that local residents would walk through a streetscape of making and repair every day.
Every day, we walk on soil made of shoe leather. Not entirely, of course; there is geological material, and bones, and compost, and dust. But among that is all that has worn off the shoes of thousands of feet for thousands of years. The shoe leather of Indigenous peoples is part of the soil. The shoe leather of Roger Williams is part of the soil. The shoe leather of migrants and refugees, seekers and colonizers, enslaved people and sailors who have come before us lives on as a tiny little bit of our built environment.
In addition, we can turn to the archives for account books and receipts. These show what goods and services people were buying and selling, and take us a bit further back in time. For example, in the mid to late 1700s, there were many charges in the accounts of the Brown Family Business Papers for shoes and shoe repair. The family paid craftsmen and women for repairing the shoes and clothing of their children, workers, and the people they enslaved. While it may not give us numbers, this evidence clearly confirms the existence of shoe repair in this city during the 18th century.
We can also look at archaeological and historic artifacts. The Rhode Island Historical Society houses a collection of shoemaker’s tools in their archival collections, clear evidence of making and repairing. A number of artifacts at Rhode Island School of Design show evidence of repair, especially in the textile department. And artifacts housed at the Public Archaeology Lab show evidence of shoe repair in the local archaeological record. In fact, one set of artifacts from nearby Canton, MA consists of 33 shoes, at least half of which showed clear evidence of repair. Not only had soles been partially or fully replaced, but several of these shoes had been patched in high-use areas like the toes, upper arch and heel.
Making and repair aren’t just actions and skills. They’re values – values which are passed down from person to person, across generations and identities. Values which show what mattered to people in the past; what they wanted and needed, what they used, what surrounded them. Making and repair alter the historic record, and provide us with visual evidence. They add a sensual dimension to the past, wherein one can imagine the sound, smell and touch of leather and glue, iron and starch, pounding nails and the stitching and swishing of fabric. These actions are something still available to us today, something which connects us to the past. Whether we engage in repair of a historic item or a modern item, we communicate our values through these acts. We speak to our friends and family through repair. We speak to strangers. And we speak to the future.
- For more on this, see Overseer of the Poor records in Providence City Archives ↩︎
By Traci Picard // Traci Picard is a public historian from Providence.