mechanics is due the fact that the United States has attained the
highest perfection in this branch. Lynn, Mass., as far back as 1750, had
become famous for its women's shoes, the making of which was carried on
in the families of the manufacturers. At first no especial skill was
shown; but in 1750 a Welsh shoemaker, named John Adam Dagyr, settled
there and acquired great fame for himself and the town for his superior
workmanship. In 1788 the exports of women's shoes from Lynn were one
hundred thousand pairs, while in 1795 over three hundred thousand pairs
were sent out, and by 1870 the number had reached eleven million.

Beginning with the employment of a few dozen women, twenty other towns
took up the same industry, and furnish their quota of the general
return. The Massachusetts Bureau of Labor gives, in its report for 1873,
the number of women employed as 11,193, with some six hundred female
children. Maine and New Hampshire followed, and both have a small
proportion of women workers engaged in the industry, while it has
gradually extended, New England always retaining the lead, till New
York, Philadelphia, and many Western and Southern towns rank high in
the list of producers.

As in every other trade, processes have divided and subdivided.
Sewing-machines did away with the tedious binding by hand, which had its
compensations, however, in the fact that it was done at home. There is
only incidental record of the numbers employed in this industry till the
later census returns; but the percentage outside of Massachusetts
remained a very small one, as even in Maine the total number given in
the Report of the Bureau of Labor for 1887 is but 533, an almost
inappreciable per cent of the population. The returns of the census of
1880 give the total number of women in this employment as 21,000, the
proportion still remaining largest for New England.