Jan Ernst Matzeliger

Summary

Summary of "Stuff You Missed in History Class" Episode: Jan Ernst Matzeliger

Podcast Title: Stuff You Missed in History Class
Hosts: Holly Frey & Tracy V. Wilson
Episode Title: Jan Ernst Matzeliger
Release Date: December 4, 2024

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Introduction

In this episode, Holly Frey and Tracy V. Wilson delve into the life and legacy of Jan Ernst Matzeliger, an unsung hero whose invention revolutionized the shoe manufacturing industry in the late 19th century. They highlight how Matzeliger’s lasting machine made affordable, quality footwear accessible to the masses, even though he himself did not reap the full benefits of his innovation.

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Early Life and Background

Holly Frey introduces Matzeliger by emphasizing his humble beginnings:

"The shoes that you're wearing today likely were made possible by an invention from the late 19th century... we're talking about Jan Ernst Matzeliger today." ([02:47])

Tracy V. Wilson provides a detailed biography:

• Birth and Heritage: Born on September 15, 1852, in Paramaribo, Dutch Guiana (now Suriname), to a Dutch father and a Surinamese mother, who was enslaved ([03:36]).

• Early Exposure to Machinery: Lived with his paternal aunt from age three and was exposed to factory machinery, leading to his early interest in engineering ([04:17]).

• Migration to the United States: At 19, Matzeliger traveled to Philadelphia via an East India merchant ship, worked as a cobbler, and eventually settled in Lynn, Massachusetts, a major shoe manufacturing hub ([04:57]).

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Career Beginnings in the Shoe Industry

Upon arriving in Lynn, Matzeliger took on various roles in shoe factories, starting with operating a sole sewing machine and progressing to more complex tasks like heel burnishing and using a buttonhole machine. To supplement his income, he also worked as a coach driver.

Holly Frey comments on his dedication:

"Jan was able to repair machinery he wasn't all that familiar with, with very little instruction." ([04:17])

Despite facing racial discrimination, such as being turned away from churches, Matzeliger became an active member of the North Congregational Church, where he honed his English skills and built a reputation as a kind and witty gentleman ([05:24]).

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The Problem in Shoe Manufacturing

By the mid-19th century, shoe manufacturing had mechanized nearly every step except lasting—the process of shaping the shoe's upper onto the last (a foot-shaped mold) and attaching it to the sole. This bottleneck required skilled hand labor, limiting production efficiency and scalability.

Tracy V. Wilson explains:

"Skilled cobblers were still the ones to fit the upper of a shoe over the last... but this also created a workflow problem, because... shoe pieces would pile up and create a bottleneck." ([08:38])

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Invention of the Lasting Machine

Determined to solve the lasting bottleneck, Matzeliger dedicated his evenings to studying mechanical engineering and observing hand laborers to understand the nuanced movements involved in lasting.

Holly Frey recounts his resourcefulness:

"He used discarded goods and made his prototype out of things like cigar boxes and wire offcuts..." ([17:56])

After years of perseverance and with the help of factory employment that provided workspace and materials, Matzeliger developed a functioning model of his lasting machine.

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Patent and Business Development

On January 24, 1882, Matzeliger filed a patent application detailing his machine’s mechanisms for automating lasting. The process was arduous, requiring a patent official to inspect the machine in Lynn to validate its uniqueness and functionality.

Holly Frey summarizes the patent's complexity:

"The patent application... may have seemed a bit unreal to patent experts... on March 20, 1883, Matzeliger received a patent for his invention." ([22:24] - [23:18])

With the patent secured, Matzeliger partnered with Charles H. Delnau and Melville C. Nichols to form the Consolidated Lasting Machine Company. This venture allowed for mass production of his machine, quickly meeting the burgeoning market demand.

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Impact on the Shoe Industry

Matzeliger's lasting machine significantly increased shoe production efficiency:

• Production Rates: Hand lasters produced about 50 pairs daily, whereas Matzeliger’s machine could produce up to 700 pairs per day for simpler designs ([25:21]).

• Market Transformation: By the early 20th century, Lynn and its surroundings housed 230 shoe factories, producing a million pairs daily, and the industry's income surged by 350% thanks to the lasting machine ([38:37]).

Sydney Kaplan, a biographer cited in the episode, notes:

"Matzeliger... created something that had made quality footwear available to a much larger portion of the public." ([38:37])

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Labor Union Conflicts

The introduction of Matzeliger’s machine led to tension with labor unions representing skilled lasters. Concerns arose over potential wage reductions and replacement of skilled labor with unskilled workers operating the machines.

Tracy V. Wilson details a significant strike:

"...the 40 lasters employed at the factory of W.L. Douglas in Brockton quit work... because of two non-union men being employed on the lasting machines." ([28:28])

Despite initial conflicts, the unions successfully negotiated to maintain wages and restrict machine operation to union members. Matzeliger himself was never directly targeted in these disputes, and many lasters appreciated the reduced physical strain of operating the machines ([28:28] - [29:12]).

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Personal Life and Health

While navigating professional challenges, Matzeliger continued to innovate, exploring interests in motors and perpetual motion machines. Unfortunately, his health deteriorated due to tuberculosis, which he battled relentlessly while maintaining his commitments.

Holly Frey shares:

"He kept working through it, but he also just kept getting worse... diagnosed as tuberculosis." ([33:42])

Supported by friends and his church community, he lived with Mr. and Mrs. William Lewis in his final years, continuing his passion for painting despite his weakened state ([34:21]).

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Legacy and Impact

Jan Ernst Matzeliger passed away on August 24, 1889, at the age of 37. His obituary highlighted his exemplary character and the merit of his lasting machine, which had already been widely adopted.

Tracy V. Wilson reflects on his legacy:

"By the Beginning of the 20th century... the industry's income reportedly increased by 350% as a direct result of the lasting machine's introduction." ([38:37])

Posthumously, Matzeliger received numerous accolades:

• Pan American Exposition (1901): Awarded a gold medal and honorary diploma.

• U.S. Postal Service (1991): Honored with a 29-cent postage stamp in the Black Heritage Stamp series ([40:02]).

Modern tributes include the 2023 launch of the shoe brand "Gems" by Dr. Dwayne Ed Edwards, named in honor of Matzeliger, reflecting his enduring influence on footwear design and manufacturing ([40:22]).

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Community and Financial Legacy

Matzeliger left his wealth to the community that supported him, including the North Congregational Church and various friends. His provisions ensured educational opportunities for youth and financial support for those who cared for him during his illness. The church maintained ownership of his stock in Consolidated Lasting Machine Company, using the proceeds to aid Lynn’s poor regardless of religious affiliation ([35:59] - [36:56]).

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Conclusion

Jan Ernst Matzeliger's story is a testament to innovation, resilience, and community support. Despite facing significant personal and professional challenges, his contributions fundamentally transformed the shoe industry, making quality footwear accessible and affordable. His legacy continues to inspire, underscoring the profound impact one individual's ingenuity can have on society.

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Notable Quotes

• Holly Frey:
  "The shoes that you're wearing today likely were made possible by an invention from the late 19th century... we're talking about Jan Ernst Matzeliger today." ([02:47])

• Holly Frey:
  "But when he submitted this patent application and his documentation, it said that it kind of stumped officials at the U.S. Patent Office." ([22:24])

• Tracy V. Wilson:
  "At a time when the average number of pairs of shoes produced by an artisan laster working by hand was about 50 in a day, one of Matzeliger's machines, working at its slowest, could make 150." ([25:21])

• Sydney Kaplan (Biographer):
  "What Matzeliger did for his country and for humanity... can hardly be measured in a quantity of dollars." ([38:37])

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Additional Notes

The episode also includes listener interactions and brief mentions of other content, but the primary focus remains on Jan Ernst Matzeliger's life and contributions. Ads and non-content segments have been excluded to maintain the summary's coherence and relevance.

Transcript

[Holly Frey]

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[Holly Frey]

O o.com welcome to Stuff youf Missed in History class. A production of iHeartRadio. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frey.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

And I'm Tracy V. Wilson.

[Holly Frey]

The shoes that you're wearing today likely were made possible by an invention from the late 19th century. Unless you're wearing, like, ballet slippers or.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Very fancy handmade shoes. Right.

[Holly Frey]

Or something that doesn't have, like, an upper and a sole, which I suppose is possible if you're a medieval marine actor or there are other outlier cases. But the thing is, most of us are wearing shoes that are made possible by this inventor from the late 19th century. And that inventor of the machine that made that possible had little to no formal education, and he didn't really get to enjoy the fruits of his labor. And he's one of those people that, unless you're a shoe person, you might not know about. So we're talking about Jan Ernst Matzeleiger today.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Jan Ernst Matzleiger was born on September 15, 1852, in the city of Paramaribo in Dutch Guiana in South America. So today that is in Suriname, and this city is its capital. Jan's father was Dutch, and his mother was a Surinamese black woman. Several, but not all, sources note that his mother was enslaved to his father. Jan's father was in Dutch Guiana at the behest of the Dutch government. He was an engineer, and his job there was to manage various business interests and especially factories controlled by the government that ran heavy machinery.

[Holly Frey]

Jan lived with an aunt on his father's side of the family starting at age three. There are a lot of biographical sketches of Jan that say that he would occasionally make the rounds of factories with his father as a child, and that he was drawn to the various pieces of machinery he saw, which kind of makes it sound sort of idyllic. He was in those factories at a very young age, but the reality was that was because he was put to work at age 10, apprenticing for a machinist. He is said to have shown a lot of intuitive engineering skill from a very young age, and he was able to repair machinery he wasn't all that familiar with, with very little instruction.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

When he was 19, Jan left Dutch Guiana by getting work on an East India merchant ship. For two years he worked on the ship and he traveled, but when he arrived in Philadelphia, he decided to stay there for a while. It's believed that he spent some time in Philadelphia as a cobbler before moving on to Boston. And then in 1873, Matzeliger arrived in Lynn, Massachusetts, where he would live for the Rest of his life.

[Holly Frey]

When Matzaliger arrived in Lynn, it had a population of about 35,000, and it was one of the main places in the United States where shoes were made. So eventually he found work in a shoe factory. He worked in a number of roles in the factory, starting on a sole sewing machine and then a heel burnisher, and then eventually onto a buttonhole machine, probably others as well. And to supplement his factory income, he also drove a coach.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

During those early years in the United States, Jan had to learn English and to recognize the restrictions that racism placed on his movements. One story from his time early on is that he tried to go to a church, but he was turned away from that church because he was black. He did eventually find a church, which was the North Congregational Church and a community there and their Christian Endeavor Society, which was a youth group.

[Holly Frey]

Yeah, that church became very important to his life. In addition to driving a coach in his off hours, Jan also started formally studying English at evening classes several nights a week. And with these structured lessons, he soon progressed really quickly. And it said that he not only learned to read and speak English, but that when he spoke, he had no perceivable accent. And as his English improved, he became more and more involved in his church. He started teaching Sunday school and serving on various committees. And he also settled into life in the greater Lin community. And he soon built up this reputation as a gentleman with a very keen wit and a lot of kindness for others.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Once Jan was proficient in English, he kept working to expand his education. He started acquiring all kinds of books, particularly scientific works.

[Holly Frey]

He.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

He learned about natural sciences and physics, and soon he started tinkering with various inventions. It's possible that some of these were successful and were eventually patented, but those patents would have been held by Matzaliger's employers. They helped him pay for the supplies that he needed.

[Holly Frey]

Yeah, there's a lot of variation on what you will find in terms of what people think he invented during that time, which, sure, I did not include them because it's all speculation. But whatever he may have done in his early inventiveness, it was his work in shoe manufacturing that was the most important. And this reveals an interesting state in the manufacture of shoes that had been the case for a very long time. There were mechanized processes for just about every step of shoe manufacture by the mid 19th century, with the exception of the step known as lasting. So lasting is the stage of construction when the stitched together and more or less completed upper is shaped into its final form and then joined to the sole. And in the early half of the 19th centuries, machines had been developed that could handle literally all of the other steps. And Matzaliger was familiar with all of those machines because he had worked on most, if not all, of the available ones at the factory, but no one had been able to mechanize lasting.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

There are some good reasons for that. You may have heard the term shoe last as a noun. That's the form often made of wood that is made to mimic the shape of a human foot. And it's what the finished upper is stretched over and formed on so that when you put the shoe on, it fits correctly. Lasts are still part of shoe manufacture. If you've ever wondered why some brands of shoes usually fit you better than other ones, it's because different companies use different lasts. With all the variations in foot shapes that humans have, some of them will match up to any given person's foot better than the others. This is also why sometimes a shoe you've been wearing for years can betray you, because a new last has been selected to form it on.

[Holly Frey]

Right. If you buy the newest model, it may not be the same last as the old one. Just as an aside, like, you can still have custom shoes made with a custom last where they will cast your foot, and you get shoes that are made specifically just for you. And there was a lot of that going on in the 19th century when Matzeliger was working, but he was focused on the industrial production of shoes. And so in the 1870s, when Matzaliger started working in these shoe factories, skilled cobblers were still the ones to fit the upper of a shoe over the last, carefully shape it to that form, and then attach it to the sole with nails. And that human finishing was kind of a necessity, because leather, which is what the vast majority of shoes were made from, has natural variables in it. Even two cuts of leather taken from the exact same animal hide and treated with the exact same processes might have different thicknesses or may have different tendencies in different spots when it comes to stretch and flexibility, in addition to the careful shaping that had to be done. Taking these variables into account, the right and left shoe had to match perfectly, and they had to be perfectly joined to the sole. So there were plenty of people in the industry who really believed that there would always have to be a pair of human hands doing the finishing on shoes. But this also created a workflow problem, because when all of those other parts of the process were mechanized but the finish wasn't, that meant that shoe pieces would kind of pile up and you had this bottleneck unless you had just a huge team of people who had the skill to handle lasting.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

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[Holly Frey]

There were plenty of people trying to come up with a machine that could last shoes, but there just wasn't anything working. By the time Matzaliger was in the industry, they had been trying for decades, and the best that had come of it were kind of near misses or machines that could sort of do the job, but they weren't much faster than a manual finish, so there wasn't really a lot of impetus to adopt them. Gordon McKay, who was a businessman responsible for many of the machines in the industry, attempted to corner the lasting market by purchasing just about all of the existing patents that people had filed for various parts of it and kind of throwing a load of money at research and development. He was also very, very litigious with any competitors, but that wasn't really worth it, because while his efforts did eventually produce a lasting machine, it was only able to handle certain types of shoes. And the results even within that set of certain types of shoes were not consistent. And as these mechanization efforts were underway, the lasters in the industry unionized in 1880 and they were able to force the companies they worked for to give them significant pay increases because it had become deeply apparent that without them the whole system would fall apart. This unionization only spurred manufacturers to want a lasting machine so they could step around the Lasters union and its relatively high weekly salary arrangement. We say relatively because they were being paid what they deserved. But compared to other people in the industry, they were getting more. As Massachusetts and specifically Lynn were an epicenter of the shoe industry. Jan Matzalaiger had a front row seat to all of this out. And he thought that perhaps he could make a machine that could finish shoes.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

He started working through ideas for such a machine in the evenings when he wasn't working either of his jobs or seeing do any of his church activities. He had to study mechanical engineering to even know where to start. And he acquired a set of drafting tools secondhand to start making diagrams. He didn't try to build on the previous efforts of other engineers because those were not working. Instead he started by making a study of the people who were lasting shoes by hand. He observed them whenever he could and made detailed notes about how their hands moved through each step of the process. Six months later he had produced his first prototype.

[Holly Frey]

And this effort at making a prototype was really a case of making do with what he had on hand because Matzleiger did not have much money. So he used discarded goods and made his prototype out of things like cigar boxes and wire offcuts that had been thrown away so that he could put it together. But this was really just a proof of concept. It was not intended to be a working piece of machinery. He just wanted to see if he had gotten the motions right before he attempted to build an iron version of his mechanism. Initially he was, as with his proof of concept, gathering cast off materials to try to make that iron version work. But then he had a stroke of luck when he was hired as a maintenance machinist for one of Lynn's shoe man manufacturers. And he was allowed to claim a small workspace in the plant there where he could work on his personal project and had access to some better materials.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

So there's some incongruity in the accounts in terms of whether people knew what he was up to, because we don't really have his own account. So these are secondhand versions that are often intended to frame the story in a particular way. Usually they involve people mocking him or secretly thinking he was a genius. One thing that's universally recognized was that Jan Matzelager was driven in pursuit of this invention. Two women who worked with him at the factory realized that he was skipping meals to work on his project in this little space that he was in. And they started sharing their meals with him. He worked on getting this Right. For four years, yeah.

[Holly Frey]

Those two women became very good friends of his. He, you know, attended their weddings. They were like his work buddies and they all took care of each other. And it's very, very sweet. But once he had a functioning model, Matzaliger realized that he still needed money. The machine was more or less built, but there were other steps in the process that were going to need capital, like running tests with the machine and filing for a patent. And he reached out to potential investors, but most of them just wanted to purchase his ideas, or in some cases, they wanted to purchase just parts of his machine. And he was not interested in either of those outcomes.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Eventually, he did find financing in the form of a business partnership. Two men, Charles H. Delnau and Melville C. Nichols, offered to finance and start a company with Matzaliger in exchange for a three way split of the profits. Thanks to their investment, Jan was able to complete his patent application. The patent application was submitted January 24, 1882, and it read in part, quote, heretofore, devices have been contrived for performing a part of the operation, such as holding the last in proper position and drawing the leather over the last. While the nailing was done by hand in my machine, I perform all the operations by the machine and automatically, requiring only the service of a boy or girl or unskilled labor to attend the machine. My invention includes a mechanism for holding the last in place and allowing it to be turned, and the last fed forward in proper position for the operation of the machine. It includes a feeding device for moving the last step by step at a proper distance, whereby the mechanism for drawing over the leather may operate successfully and at proper intervals. It includes pinchers or gripping mechanism for drawing the upper over the last, mechanism for turning the gripping mechanism in order to plait the leather at the heel or toe, mechanism for holding the last in proper position for the operation of the feeding mechanism, mechanism for feeding the nails and holding them in proper position to be driven, and mechanism for driving the nails at the proper instant. The details of construction are all fully set forth here and after and together with the principles of my invention are stated in the claims. So, in case that slightly stilted language is unclear, the machine could pull the leather down over a last, pleat it at the toe to fit around the last, and then it would grip the last with the leather upper on it while positioning it over the sole, nail the two of them together, and then eject the shoe. Completed.

[Holly Frey]

But when he submitted this patent application and his documentation, it said that it kind of stumped officials at the U.S. patent Office. There wasn't anything wrong with the paperwork. It was just unique enough and complex enough that a patent official had to be sent to Lynn to inspect the machine himself to make sure he knew what Matzaliger had created before he approved it for a patent. So that excerpt that I made poor Tracy just read includes a lot of steps for one machine. So it may have seemed a bit unreal to patent experts. And that's particularly so when you consider that up to this point, the majority of people were like, no one is ever going to be able to invent a machine that does this. So this visit, though, to Lynn must have done the trick because on March 20, 1883, Matzaliger received a patent for his invention.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

When I read this, I had a moment where I was like, this seems like more. More effort to get the patent approved than a lot of the patents we have talked about.

[Holly Frey]

Yes, for sure. They were just like, I'm sorry, what, sir?

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah. Next, there had to be factory tests to make sure that the machine laster worked. It took two years after the patent was granted for Matzaliger to build a second model that would be ready for these kinds of tests. But at the end of May of 1885, Matzleiger's invention was put through its paces. It churned out 75 perfectly finished pairs of shoes. After the success, things moved very quickly. So quickly, in fact, that it gets hard to track the business deals that were made in the wake of this success. Jan and his partners had formed a company, but they needed bigger investors so they could produce the machines at the scale that was needed to meet this instant market interest. Soon, George w. Brown and Sydney W. Winslow were partners, and the company was reorganized as the Consolidated Lasting machine company. Consolidated, as a business, owned the rights to Mazaliger's patent, and Matzeleiger got a large chunk of the company stock.

[Holly Frey]

Consolidated lasting machine company got up and running with a staff of 225 workers to build lasting machines. And very quickly, demand outpaced their output, as is pretty common whenever there's a revolutionary invention, and Matzaliger's laster definitely was that there were imitations. Many inventors sought to replicate the consolidated lasting machine, but nobody was really able to. One of the things that no one else seemed to ever get right was creating a machine that could complete all of the steps that Matzleigers did while still handling the leather with care. Many of the imitation machines lost product due to tears and punctures in the material.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

At a Time when the average number of pairs of shoes produced by an artisan Laster working by hand was about 50 in a day. One of Matz Lager's machines, working at its slowest, could make 150. That number was dependent on the style of the shoe and how fancy or intricate its design was. For simpler shoes, the machine could make as many as 700 pairs in a day. But of course this was not good news for the people who had been making their living as hand lasters. The rapid adoption of this machine by shoe manufacturers meant that there needed to be people to run them. And there was even a school set up by the consolidated Lasting Machine Company to train people. Many of the people that went through that training had been handlasters. But you'll recall that Matt Slager's patent language specifically noted that a boy or a girl or an unskilled laborer could handle running the machine. That meant the factories felt like the wages for Lasting machine operators could be a lot lower than what the Lasters had been making when they were doing all that work by hand.

[Holly Frey]

The Lasters were not against the use of Matzaliger's machine. For those who transitioned from hand lasting to operating them. They recognized that their job was less strenuous, but they were against the way that it was being used to justify a reduction of their wages. In the middle of 1887, one factory, W.L. douglas Co. Had a strike. The Lasters wanted an advance paid on the work they were doing and they wanted an agreement in place that only union members would run the lasting machines. This strike was reported in the Daily Item, which is the local paper for Lynn on August 8th. It reads, quote, the 40 lasters employed at the factory of W.L. douglas in Brockton quit work Saturday morning because of the disagreement between the lasters union and Mr. Douglas regarding the prices and also because of two non union men being employed on the lasting machines. Mr. Douglas said that morning that the trouble was caused by the lasting machines which he had recently put into his fact. He said that last Monday he brought up from Plymouth two men to work on the machines as he intended to put one half union and the other half non union men on the machines. The men were paid $2 and 50 cents a day, which is about the same price they received for hand lasting. Mr. Douglas states that he does not intend to allow the union to control the machines. So as this write up continues though it reports that Douglas was actually planning to use only non union men going forward on the Lasting machines, but that he will still give hand work to anyone who wants it. That article states, quote, all Lasters who wish to return to work on Monday will be given employment and all who do not return will consider themselves discharged. Those who do not return will never be employed again by him. Of course if they came in they would be paid at a lower rate.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Though this was the first of several Lasters strikes in Lynn and beyond, the messaging of the Lastrs union always made clear that they weren't anti mechanization, they just wanted fair wages and in a refreshing turn of events they actually got them. The union managed to negotiate for the Lasters pay to move back up to where it had been before the lasting machine came into the factories and for the machines to be run only by union members. Maybe even more surprising is that Jan Matzleiger was never the target in any of these conflicts. And once the Lasters were back at the factories running the machines, a lot of them noted that they were quite happy running them.

[Holly Frey]

Yeah, it was a lot less backbreaking than hunching over a pair of shoes and having to do that 50 times a day. In a moment we're going to talk about what Jan Matzaliger was up to while the Lasters union and the factories were figuring out their conflict. But first we will hear from the sponsors that keep the show going.

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[Holly Frey]

While the strikes and union negotiations were playing out, Mazelleger was still busy perfecting new iterations of the machine and coming up with completely new ideas. He became very interested in motors and perpetual motion machines. But though his curiosity and ingenuity were still running at full tilt, his health was failing. He had first come down with a cold in 1886, but that cold never seemed to go away. He kept working through it, but he also just kept getting worse. And what he had thought was a persistent cold was eventually diagnosed as tuberculosis.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Things progressed to a point that it really wasn't even feasible for Jan to live by himself. He had become really weak and eventually was too ill to even leave the house. He depended on his friends to take care of him, and he also took care of them. In return. He purchased a home for his friends, Mr. And Mrs. William Lewis, and he lived there with them in his final years. Although he really couldn't get out of the house, he was not living in isolation. Through his church and his friendly demeanor, Matzelager had built up a devoted community of friends. And people were always stopping by the house to visit and see what he had been working on.

[Holly Frey]

Outside of engineering and machinery, Jan's other interest was painting. He had taken it up early in his life, and he had gifted friends some of his work over the years. But as he became weaker and weaker and unable to do as much work with his machinery, he continued to paint, including painting landscapes of Dutch Guiana as he remembered it from his childhood.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In the spring of 1889, Jan Matzleager made out his will. He was hospitalized in August of that year and he died on August 24. He was only 37 years old. And while he had completely changed an entire industry, he had not really gotten to see the impact of his work. His obituary in the Lynn paper read in part, quote, he was an exemplary big hearted young man and had many friends in this city. The lasting machine he worked so hard to perfect has much merit to it, and there are many of them in use.

[Holly Frey]

The money that Jan had made through his business dealings was left to the community that had cared for him right from his arrival in Lynn. He left the North Congregational Church, all of his interests in the Union Lasting Machine Company and 1/3 of his stock in Consolidated Lasting. And the church held onto that stock for decades. He wanted the money the church made from that second batch that Consolidated Lasting Company stock to provide for Lyn's poor community, regardless of their religious affiliation. He also left specific financial and material gifts, including his extensive library for several of the young people in his life with provisions to pay for their education. He also left stock to the medical professionals who had cared for him in his prolonged illness, and he left the rest of his business holdings to 15 of his closest friends. He left a handful of personal effects and paintings to his friends as well.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Although Jan had died, his invention lived on. Almost immediately after his passing, new engineers were assigned by consolidated lasting to finish the work he had been doing on a fourth version of a lasting machine. Consolidated lasting used matzleiger's patents to corner the market on machine lasting, and they also acquired a lot of those shoe manufacturing companies in Massachusetts and around the northeast, including the company that made the first shoemaking machine that matzleiger had trained on. That was the McKay Copeland company. McKay had spent a great deal of money in the years prior to matzleiger's lasting machine, Buying up patents that seemed like promising steps toward totally mechanized shoe manufacturers, and he remained an important player in the industry.

[Holly Frey]

The men who Jan had partnered with in the early days of production all got just ridiculously rich. Thanks to his ingenuity. United shoe machine corporation, which built the machines that were then sent to factories, Had a massive growth spurt in 1899, having absorbed 41 smaller facilities in the course of just a few years. Sidney Winslow, one of Jan's partners, who you may remember from earlier, became the president of that company, and he was soon regarded as the king of shoe machinery. One of the many men to benefit from matz liger's invention. Gordon mckay, who we just mentioned, founded a school for black boys in rhode island as a way to honor Jan, who had never had any formal schooling beyond a little bit of elementary school.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

As noted by biographer Sydney Kaplan in the journal of Negro history in 1955, quote, what Matzaliger did for his country and for humanity, however, can hardly be measured in a quantity of dollars. For his invention has gone down in history as one of those fundamental contributions that in the long run will have made work easier for men and women. By producing more swiftly and efficiently a basic article of human need, he had created something that had made quality footwear available to a much larger portion of the public. By creating a machine that was so efficient that it increased production to a massive degree and also drove down the cost of shoes. By the Beginning of the 20th century, there were 230 shoe factories in Lynn and in the surrounding area, and they were churning out a million pairs of shoes every day, the industry's income reportedly increased by 350% as a direct result of the lasting machine's introduction.

[Holly Frey]

The inventor received a lot of posthumous accolades. In 1901, Jan Matzelaiger was honored at the Pan American Exposition held in Buffalo, New York. He was again posthumously given a gold medal and he was given an honorary diploma in recognition of his achievements and his commitment to his self directed education.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

On September 15, 1991, a 29 cent postage stamp was issued that featured Matzleiger. It was part of the Black Heritage Stamp series and the stamp portrait designed by Barbara Higgins Bond features Matzleiger in the foreground with diagrams from his lasting machine patent in the background.

[Holly Frey]

And then recently in autumn of 2023, a shoe brand called Gems by Pencil launched. It was founded by Dr. Dwayne Ed Edwards, who has designed footwear for huge brands over the years. If you are a sneakerhead, you know his name, but the name of his company, Gems, is a nod to Jan Ernst Matzeliger. That Jem is his initials and that's Jan Matzelaiger, who I'm personally thankful for because I love shoes.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Do you have listener mail for us?

[Holly Frey]

I do. I have two pieces because they're brief. The first is from our listener Scott, who writes Dear Holly and Tracy, on my visit to the Boston MFA today, I stopped by to see Patrick Lyon at the Forge. Photo attached for proof. So he went to see the portrait that Patrick Lyon had made of himself, which he did not want to portray him as a fancy rich man. And then Scott also attached a pet tax of his pug, Clementine, who is Radonka Doodle in the best way. Clementine looks like a gunned plush.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

So when I so cute. When I read this email I was scrolling down and I was like, oh, you know, I think I've probably seen that painting in the mfa because I have been to the MFA a number of times. And then as I kept scrolling, even though I had read the email and I knew it was coming, I had a moment where I was like, why are there dog toys on the floor at the mfa? It's because picture number two was not taken at the mfa.

[Holly Frey]

Correct. But they do. The way they line up in our email, they make it look like it's like one huge super image. The other email that I want to note is from our listener Rob. It has a little bit of a time limit on it, so I'm hoping that this can benefit some of our listeners. Rob writes, I have no idea if either of you will be anywhere near New York City in the next month, but I just learned there is an off Broadway show about Artemisia gentileschi playing at 59e59 Since I learned about her from you two, I feel obligated to bring it to your attention. There's also an interview that he links us to with the author and co star Kate Hamill on Friday's episode of the Today on Broadway podcast. This email was written on November 16, so I think when this episode comes out, there will still be time to see it. Rob also writes, I hope you are enjoying the fall dessert season. I have modified my pumpkin crack slash pumpkin dump cake dessert that you featured two years ago to be friendlier to diabetics as I am now among their number. Who knew there is now sugar free yellow cake mix. Between that and stevia baking blend, I can still take part in small portions. Rob, I wanted to read this one because if any of our listeners are near there and want to check that play out, that sounds amazing. And two just to say I feel you, not me, but my beloved has been dealing with the new world of having to really be careful about sugar, insulin, et cetera. So I'm glad that you found ways to adapt. I also think it's just a good reminder to people, this is my psa. If you can manage it, please get your regular health screenings because you can catch those things early before they become a problem. I know that's not easy for everybody, but if you have access, please do it. It's just good for you and we want you around forever. If you would like to write to us, you can do [e-mail] you can also subscribe to the show if you haven't done that already. It's super duper Easy on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you listen to your favorite show.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Stuff youf Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Here's to the season. From hanging ornaments in matching pajamas to building gingerbread houses with extra icing and staying up late to wrap gifts and watch movies, these traditions make the holidays truly special. And through it all, the Chinette brand is there to share in the joy with the Chinat crystal collection, holiday tables are perfectly coordinated, allowing for excellence with less cleanup so everyone can focus on what really matters. Here's to the traditions that bring everyone together year after year. Here's to us. All of us. Find a local [e-mail] Take a deep.

[Holly Frey]

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