Bill Bird Shoe Sizes Broadcast

radio broadcast, republished as a YouTube video, of Bill Bird discussing shoe sizing history

Notes

• no evidence, but said Edward I defined inch as three barleycorns
• barleycorns used since Roman times
• said that Edward defined English shoe size as one barleycorn
• Edward reigned in 13th century
  • shoes more like soft bags with stiffer soles
  • shoes adapted to foot shape
  • sizing arbitrary, up to local shoemakers
  • didn’t need precision sizing
• 1870: four machines needed to mass-produce had been invented in US, imported to Europe
  1. Singer’s sewing machine, for uppers
  2. Blake’s sole-stitching machine
  3. Gilman lathe
  4. Matzeliger lasting machine
• mass production made it possible for most people to wear shoes for the first time in British and European history
• that necessitated measuring systems
• leaders
  • Rober Knöfel, editor of Austrian Footwear News
  • F.F. Ergardt (1828-1895/96) medical professor at Kyiv University of St. Vladimir
  • 1876 at Bern General Exhibition of Footclothing, organized by Swiss government
  • English size confirmed as a third of an inch
  • size 5 is 10 inches by definition, others indexed from there
  • Paris Point system chosen as official metric
    • now called continental sizes
    • starts at zero
    • 3 sizes per 2 centimeters
• W.H. Alden
  • 1881: researches lasts in London
  • created spreadsheet of width fittings
  • A (1) as narrowest, EE (6) as widest
  • for each UK shoe sizes
• Americans weren’t at Berne exhibition
• shoemakers created sizing, academics looked at what they were doing