As mechanization made shoemaking less dependent on highly skilled craftsmen, Brown Shoe and the wider St. Louis footwear industry increasingly filled factory positions with women and children who could be paid less. A 1911 survey of St. Louis shoe workers found that more than half were between fourteen and nineteen years old; girls under sixteen earned an average of less than $10 per week. The figures reveal how the company's low-price competitive strategy was connected to a young, poorly paid labor force rather than simply to efficient machinery. Brown's expansion also pushed production into smaller Missouri and Illinois towns, where management could obtain tax subsidies and draw on cheaper, less organized labor while the company's leadership remained in St. Louis. The resulting system helped make Brown shoes affordable across the Midwest, but transferred much of the cost of that affordability onto adolescent workers and women with little bargaining power. The labor tensions contributed to the growth of the Boot and Shoe Workers Union and the more radical United Shoe Workers of America, which was associated with the Industrial Workers of the World, setting the stage for years of strikes and employer retaliation.
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AI concept artworkArchive Record · 1910s
The Child-Labor Economy Behind Brown Shoe's Early Expansion
Brown Shoe Company / 1910s
As mechanization made shoemaking less dependent on highly skilled craftsmen, Brown Shoe and the wider St. Louis footwear industry increasingly filled factory positions with women and children who could be paid less. A 1911 survey of St. Louis shoe workers found that more than half were between fourteen and nineteen years old; girls under sixteen earned an average of less than $10 per week. The figures reveal how the company's low-price competitive strategy was connected to a young, poorly paid labor force rather than simply to efficient machinery. Brown's expansion also pushed production into smaller Missouri and Illinois towns, where management could obtain tax subsidies and draw on cheaper, less organized labor while the company's leadership remained in St. Louis. The resulting system helped make Brown shoes affordable across the Midwest, but transferred much of the cost of that affordability onto adolescent workers and women with little bargaining power. The labor tensions contributed to the growth of the Boot and Shoe Workers Union and the more radical United Shoe Workers of America, which was associated with the Industrial Workers of the World, setting the stage for years of strikes and employer retaliation.
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