More Books to scan from the Haverhill Public Library

General
1

Continuing the discussion from Public Domain Books I Would Like to Scan:

I would be very happy to reconnect with the library about another list of public domain books for the digitization program. I simply wasn’t aware that they had this book!

It seems they may have added “shoe industry” keywords to a number of holdings in their special collection. Perhaps going in there to fetch the lastmaking books I’d mentioned, they noticed a number of others.

List

I’d like to propose a new list of books to digitize, rather than one at a time. In other words, I’d prefer to bother them in batches. They’ve been very generous with their time so far—and rebuffed my repeated offers of donations to defray costs. But I don’t want to abuse their generosity.

Here’s a search link for the “shoe industry” subject key. Items with publication dates of 1929 or earlier will likely be in the public domain, so they’ll be able to forward them to the state scanning initiative for digitization.

I see:

Pattern-Cutting Made Easy

Brophy
1890 See here
HM1.2/S55/B87
31479002623261

Available on Google Books:

Upper Closing Illustrated

Kilworth
1908
HM1.2/S55/K48
31479002624160

Applied to Scan

Modern Shoemaking

1916
HM1.2 MAG SEP1916
31479003495354
Periodical

Applied to Scan

The Shoe of Today

Stuart
1915
HM1.2/S55/S92
31479002624483
Catalog Permalink

WorldCat:

  • California State Sutro Library, San Francisco [This is close to me. — @kemitchell]
  • California State Library, Sacramento

Lynn independent industrial shoemaking school

1918?
974.41/L98/LYNN/LYNN
31479005784805

Applied to Scan

Report on the American methods of boot and shoe manufacture

Swaysland
1901
HM1.2/S55/S97
31479002624491

Applied to Scan

United Shoe Machinery Company: The Story of its Service and Methods…

1912
HM1.2/S55/U58.7
3147900262465

Applied to Scan

The Secret of the Shoe

1910?
HM1.2/S55/U58.13
31479002624681

Applied to Scan

The Building of a Shoe

Nichols, editor
1912
HM1.2/S55/N61, HM1.2/S55/N61/C.2
31479002624301, 31479002624319

Older Edition on Google Books:

Technology of Boot & Shoe Manufacture

Crepidam (pseudonym)
1924
HM1.2/S55/H64.1
31479002624137
Catalog

Applied to Scan

On Open Library, but no digital version available — @kemitchell

A Manual of Boot & Shoe Manufacture

Hill and Yeoman
1900
HM1.2/S55/H64
31479002624129
Catalog

Applied to Scan

New Zealand bookseller listing with photos:

shoemakerstoolmakers.com listing:

WorldCat with copies at:

  • University of Rochester
  • Penn State
  • Smithsonian
  • Philips Library, Rowley, Mass.
  • British Library

Another WorldCat entry with copies at:

  • Saint Louis Public
  • Manchester Metropolitan

Crispin Anecdotes

1827
HM1.2/S55/C93
31479002623253
Catalog

Not Accepted for Scanning. See More Books to scan from the Haverhill Public Library - #28 by kemitchell.

Not on Google Books. — @kemitchell 2025-05-17T07:00:00Z

Tons of WorldCat listings, each with at least one copy:
https://search.worldcat.org/title/65255078
https://search.worldcat.org/title/17463148
https://search.worldcat.org/title/244442270
https://search.worldcat.org/title/16068672
https://search.worldcat.org/title/557874698
https://search.worldcat.org/title/837782715
https://search.worldcat.org/title/1429797642

The Manufacture of Shoe Uppers

Union Special Machine Company (not United Shoe Machinery Corporation)
1923
HM1.2/S55/U58.14
31479002436185
239 Pages!

WorldCat:

  • Los Angeles Public
  • U. Wisconsin — Madison
  • U. Chicago
  • Buffalo and Erie Public
  • Smithsonian
  • New York Public
  • LIBRIS, Stockholm
  • Rijksmuseum Research Library Amsterdam

Goodyear Welt Shoes

United Shoe Machinery Co
1909
HM1.2/S55/U58
31479002624582
46 pages

Scanned by Hagley Archives, but their site is down due to aggressive “AI” company data scraping.

The American Footwear Designer

Nevin Meck
1918
HM1.2/S55/M48
31479002624228
Catalog
WorldCat. Several copies available.

Not Accepted for Application See More Books to scan from the Haverhill Public Library - #28 by kemitchell

@thenewreligion found signs of a recent restored edition, but that edition is going to be under copyright, while the original is in the public domain.

The Footwear of Soldiers

United Shoe Machinery Co
“191-?” [no later than 1914. See note below.]
HM1.2/S55/U58.6
31479003037339
75 pages

Not Accepted for Scan. See More Books to scan from the Haverhill Public Library - #28 by kemitchell.

WorldCat:

  • Saint Louis Public
  • U. Chicago
  • Duke
  • Smithsonian
  • New York State, Albany
  • Brown U., Providence, RI
  • Phillips Library, Rowley, Mass.

A Colonial Williamsburg webpage mentions a photocopy in papers.

Catalog entries give question marks or ranges for the publication date. However, a couple of them bracket it to before 1919. Google Books’ entry dates it specifically 1919. But the pamphlet is actually at least five years older than that. You can see a mention of it by name in a September, 1914 issue of Shoe and Leather Facts, Google Books direct page link here.

The Manual for Upper Leather Cutters

Byon Bolton
1927
HM1.2/S55/B69
31479002623154
248 pages!
Catalog

Applied to Scan

WorldCat:

  • Saint Louis Public
  • U. Chicago
  • Library of Congress
  • New York Public
Online Shoemaking Book Hunt
2

Sometimes the bibliographies of these books can prove incredibly useful as a “jumping off” point. The CJ Ward text sounds intriguing.

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Not sure if Haverhill has this one for example, but… they tend to have them all. I was desperately trying to get out there to scan editions from their special collections in 2021 but kept hitting roadblocks and never made the trip. It’s brilliant that they are now scanning these texts and making them available.

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The lastmaking books scanned from Haverhill Public came about through a program called Digital Commonwealth, which operates at the Massachusetts state level. As I understand it, their conditions boil down to:

  1. the works need to be in the public domain
  2. we have to be okay with making them available unrestricted through Internet Archive

The process starts when Haverhill applies to the program to have books scanned. If the app is accepted, Digital Commonwealth schedules a day to pick the books up and take them to the Boston Public Library for scanning. The Boston scanning center acts like an extension of Internet Archive, based in San Francisco. The end result is a link to an entry in Internet Archive’s Open Library for the scan.

4

@AvM,I noticed that Haverhill’s librarians weren’t sure of Brophy book’s publication date—and therefore the relevant year for determining whether it’s in the public domain and can be scanned. Their catalog entry has this note:

Title page missing. Preface to first edition refers to material previously published in “Boot and shoe trades journal” (est. 1869)

So they dated the book “1888?”, just like that, with a question mark.

However, it looks like the British Library has both the original and revised editions in catalog, with dates, and they’re well clear of the current cutoff of January 1, 1929:

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Hmm. On second look, those British Library dates are approximate. “Ca.” stands for “circa”.

@AvM have you seen Brophy’s book mentioned in bibliographies, with a publication date? I think pinning down the publication date would make it easier for Haverhill to get it scanned.

6

@AvM, I was looking through this topic, saw your old post, and remembered that I just found a bibliography compiled by Business Information Service in 1948 on Google Books:

You can download the PDF by clicking the gear-icon menu in the upper right and then “Download PDF”.

Many seem to be government sources, but there are a few pages of others, too. I haven’t read through entirely yet, but on skim I saw a few titled I hadn’t seen before, and I printed the list out for later.

7

Dating Brophy’s Pattern-Cutting Made Easy

The third edition of Walter J. Lewis’ Measurement of the Human Foot and Last Fitting, dated to 1889 in Haverhill’s catalog, includes an advertisement for the sixth edition of Thomas J. Brophy’s Pattern Cutting Made Easy:

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Based on the dating of Lewis, then, the sixth edition of Brophy has to be older, so also well ahead of the public domain cutoff date.

8

I’ve just e-mailed the kind folks at Haverhill about Brophy, Kilworth, Swaysland, and Nichols.

9

Our amazing friend at the Haverhill library e-mailed me back in a jiffy!

Upper Closing Illustrated and Swaysland’s report are qualified for the digitization initiative and set to be scanned. I was also embarrassed to get back two links to books that are actually already on Google Books, for free download:

@avm, here is the Brophy book you mentioned you’d been hunting! All credit to Becky at Haverhill on this one. She found it on Google Books.

This isn’t the same edition that Haverhill has. At first glance, I’m a little less excited than I’d hoped to be. But that’s just on first glance.

Becky asked about more books, and I’m going to mention the others on my list. I’d be interested in the USMC history myself, though I expect it’s likely more corporate hagiography than deep or penetrating expose. A few of the others are no more than promising titles to me. But I’ll see what I can find before passing along the call numbers.

10

I noticed today that Abe Books has a copy of Ward’s Standard Pattern Cutting for sale, but not cheap:

$162.88 as listed, $32.42 for shipping from England, or $195.30 total.

That’s more than I’d spend myself, but perhaps we could take up a collection? $195.30 four ways would be $48.82 each.

If we’re alright with me cutting the binding off, I could scan with my ScanSnap iX600.

The Internet Archive is also a short drive away from me, though I understand they prioritize scanning books from library partners, and it can take more than a year to scan any old walk-in.

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11

A few more items are going to be included on the application for scanning:

  • United Shoe Machinery Company: The Story of its Service and Methods
  • The Secret of the Shoe, published by USMC, probably a promotional booklet
  • Lynn independent industrial shoemaking school
  • some volumes of Modern Shoemaking, a trade journal I hadn’t heard of

If any Haverhill Public Library fans out there find themselves in need of t-shirts, Becky used an old Fox Shoe Company ad from Modern Shoemaking to make t-shirts with Haverhill’s nickname, “Queen Slipper City”.

12

@AvM, @thenewreligion: There may be a chance to add a few more books to the application for scanning the next batch from the Haverhill library. If you have a chance to try some searches in their catalog over the next few days and find anything more that catches your eye, please share titles and call numbers here!

I will double check eligibility before passing anything along. But generally speaking, the most important requirement is that items have publication dates of 1929 or earlier.

If something looks to have been published some time before that, as in the 1880s, 1890s, or 1910s, but the exact year isn’t certain, go ahead and mention. I’ve learned a few tricks for proving something’s old enough to scan by relative dating.

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Wow. Nice searching work.

I’ll have a look at each of these.

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16

Already on the list!

I am checking the others.

17

@thenewreligion, again, great job searching up catalog entries!

I’ve updated the table at the top of this topic. It looks like a number of these still survive in copies around various libraries, as indexed by WorldCat. I noticed the New York Public Library and Library of Congress more than once.

I’ve made a note to come back to the list tomorrow.

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18

American footwear designers must be scanned somewhere somce its yet another public domain book turned into a robo-reprint. I just cant find the actual open source scan . But looks like a very interesting system for quick patterning.

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There are also a few books I found in the catalog that are already “available” on Hathi trust, like this cute little piece of USMC propaganda. But of course if you live in a Library desert like central Florida you are limited to viewing within your browser because the scanners are somehow dictating access. So I can’t really complain, but I am because these are in the public domain and doesn’t feel like anyone should be controlling their access. Archive seems like the more appropriate place for them.

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20

Also potentially really interesting background on this book below. But the ISBN the reviewer mentions comes up blank
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/review/1447427505/R2IDO7VEBU80NQ

And heres a nubbin from google books

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