WHERE DO SNEAKERS COME FROM?

This Humble Shoe Owes Its Success To Amazon Natives, An Inventor's Mistake,
And Americans' Passion For Sports.

"Canvas" is a corruption of the Dutch word for "cannabis," Greek for hemp.
The plant, native to central Asia, was cultivated for its fiber in China as
early as 2800 BC. Hemp made its way to Europe 2,000 years ago. The tough
plant was used for rope, fish nets, sails, tents, and work garments. (The
first blue jeans were made of hemp canvas.) The narcotic use of Cannabis
sativa, or marijuana (as it was called in American Spanish), was known from
ancient times in Asia. Its use as a drug grew dramatically in 19th-century
England, which caused it to fall out of favor as fiber. Today's canvas is
cotton or sisal.

ENGLISHMAN Thomas Saint patented the first sewing machine in 1790. It was a
crude device, and the stitches tended to come apart. Barthelemy Thimonnier
of France patented an improved device that used a hooked needle in 1830.
The Parisian made uniforms for the Army for 10 years, until an angry mob
ransacked his establishment for putting so many tailors out of work. (His
method of stitching is still used by industrial machines today, though) The
first hand-operated home sewing machine was patented in 1846 by Elias Howe.
Howe's invention wasn't received well in the United States, so he moved to
London. There he sold the invention to William Thomas, who became a
millionaire. Back in the US, Isaac Singer patented the foot-treadle home
machine in 1851. It became a runaway success.

ON his second trip to America in 1494, Columbus saw children playing with
small balls of something that bounced strangely. The natives called it
"caoutchouc," and said it came from the sap of a tree. He took a few of the
curiosities back with him. Soon the king of Portugal was sending his boots
to Brazil to be coated with the wondrous waterproof substance. English
scientist Joseph Priestley dubbed it "rubber" in 1770 when he found it
erased pencil marks. But rubber was sticky in summer and cracked in winter
until 19th-century inventor Charles Goodyear spilled sulphur and latex on a
hot stove and made "vulcanized" rubber.

AMERICAN biochemist Wallace Carothers began searching for a synthetic fiber
in the 1920s. He experimented by creating polymers, long strings of
molecules that are the building blocks of silk, wool, and other natural
fibers. His employer, Dupont, invited him to head up a team of researchers.
Nearly 11 years and $27 million later, he perfected "polymer 66," later
called nylon. Two years later, in 1939, the first nylon products were
introduced. Nylon threads are produced by combining two chemicals
(hexamethylenediamine and adipic acid) and blowing the liquid through small
holes called spinnerets. Nylon forms when the liquid is exposed to air. The
fibers - one-quarter the diameter of a human hair - are stretched and spun
into threads to make a cloth that is strong, resists abrasion, can be dyed,
and resists moisture. Nylon sneakers - now "athletic shoes" - arrived in
the 1970s.

THOMAS JEFFERSON, third president of the United States and author of the
Declaration of Independence, was the first prominent American to wear shoes
with shoelaces. Laces were not new: Artifacts from the palace of Nineveh
(about 650 BC) show an Assyrian king wearing sandals tied on with elaborate
laces. Scholars at Oxford University in England had popularized lace-up
half-boots called "oxfords" in 1640. But laces were still considered
foppish and a Parisian fad when Jefferson wore shoes with leather laces
rather than a gentleman's silver buckles in the early 1800s. He had
acquired the custom in France while serving as ambassador there from 1785
to 89. France's revolutionaries scorned "elitist" buckles for "democratic"
laces.

THE secret of glue was lost for nearly 1,000 years. Ancient Egyptians made
glue derived from the gelatin present in animal bones and hides. They used
the glue in furniture and caskets. The Chinese developed a glue made of
cheese and lime. But archaeologists can find no evidence of animal glues
being used in Europe from the fall of the Roman Empire (about AD 500) until
the 1500s. Today, most glues are synthetic (manmade). Some glues are now
made from soybeans.

SNEAKER HISTORY

THEY have their roots in pre-Columbian Brazil, where Brazilian natives used
to dip their feet in sap from the rubber tree and let the latex coating
harden by the fire.

1868: Canvas uppers with vulcanized rubber soles appear. The "croquet
sandals" sell for $6, six times the price of a leather shoe.

1870: "Sneaks" are shoes with canvas tops and "india-rubber" soles.
"Sneaks" may have been coined by female prisoners in England to describe
shoes worn by guards.

1897: Sears, Roebuck and Co. is selling tennis shoes for 60 cents a pair by
mail.

1917: Converse, a rubber-footwear company in Massachusetts, introduces the
first All Star basketball shoe. (The game is 26 years old.) The sneaker
market starts to boom as Americans turn to sports.

1950s: Friday-night dance parties require students to wear sneakers so they
don't scuff gym floors. Sneakers gain acceptance.

1962: The New Yorker magazine points to a "revolution that seems to be
taking place in footgear." Sneaker sales, $35 million a decade before, hit
$150 million that year.

1970s: Jogging craze popularizes high-tech running shoes.

1972: Nike brand founded. First Air Jordans appear in 1985.

1991: Reebok's The Pump costs $170.

S.B.

Source: 'The Sneaker Book,' by Tom Vanderbilt

Checked-by: Richard Lake