Why Were Shoes So Popular In The 1800s

Pre-Test Essay

Did you know that one pair of shoes could be sold for over $104,000? Well this is about how shoes became so popular in the span of 200 years. Shoes became popular when the first people started making shoes and how people started changing the way they were designed and made.

In about 3,000 years ago the first sneakers were introduced through the Aztecs and other tribes making the first shoes. The shoes would have melted rubber they dipped their feet in to let harden, and then let it dry before peeling off their feet. They would then let the shoe harden by the fire. Only until the early 1800’s in England did the first shoes develop into the modern sneakers worn today. The Liverpool Rubber Company created a lightweight shoe that was made with a canvas, a heavy woven cotton fabric. In 1868 the price of shoes was six dollars which meant only wealthy people could buy them. By 1897 shoes were sold for sixty cents a pair which was very affordable. When in 1917 the U.S. Rubber company in Connecticut mass produced sneakers to all buyers everyone was wearing these shoes and then the shoes started to change.

G. Spalding had made the first ever high-top sneakers which featured pitted rubber soles for basketball, and then in 1917 Converse introduced its signature high-tops which was later adapted by Chuck Taylor and still to this day the most popular sneaker of all time. The year 1925 Adolf Dassler made the first shoe for track and field which had leather uppers plus metal spikes. The track star Jesse Owens wore those shoes and won four gold medals. From that point on sneakers began to change and grow by using different materials throughout the century including the use of different colors instead of just the white or black uppers and the use of Velcro instead of laces. The shoes produced today for a nice pair of running shoes people would have to pay $66 in 2013, some popular brands cost up to