in operation that year, the total production whereof was over one million pairs of boots and shoes, valued at more than thirteen hundred thousand dollars! Machinery propelled by steam power is now used in many large manufactories with highly satisfactory results.

VI. THE BOSTON SHOE TRADE

Extent and Value of Shipments in 18591

The center of the shoe trade of the United States was Boston. From the many factories located in the neighborhood of that city, the shoes were shipped to Boston for distribution. The extent of the trade was as follows:

The annual shipments of boots and shoes from Boston have reached the large figure of 723,069 cases. The shipments to domestic markets during the year 1859, amounted to 714,981 cases; the foreign shipments have been 5,078 cases, presenting the above aggregate. We are unable to make an exact comparison with the business of 1858, as our weekly railway tables were not commenced until July of that year, but we can make a near approximation. The clearances at the custom-house in 1858, were 229,780 cases; the shipments by rail for the last half of the year were 239,439 cases, and it is probable that those of the earlier portion of the year, which usually are somewhat less, were, in consequence of the previous panic, not more than threefourths of that amount. This would give a total of nearly 650,000 cases for 1858. There must have been an increase of at least 75,000 cases the past year.

These figures do not embrace the entire business. The shipments to the New England towns, which are kept distinct from the Southern and Western freights by the different railway companies, are so frequent and numerous, and at the same time the gross amount is comparatively so small, and the information of so little value, that we do not undertake the almost impossible task of including them in the weekly returns; in fact, by keeping a clerk constantly at the office of each road, we could scarcely take them from the freight bills during the busy season without interfering with the business of the road. Making due allowance for this New England trade, for the impossibility of deciphering obscure figures on the freight bills, for the errors of railroad clerks, and for the clearances by sea to Southern ports, which are sometimes entered as merchandise, we shall find that the sales of Boston dealers the past year have considerably

1 Hunt's Merchants' Magazine. (New York, 1860), XLII, 610-3.

exceeded three quarters of a million cases of boots and shoes. An average of fifty pairs to a case would give us over 37,500,000 pairs, which, at the estimate of $1.15 per pair, would present an aggregate value of more than $43,000,000.

The annual table gave the separate shipments for each quarter to each of 439 towns and villages at the South and West, and the aggregate quarterly shipments to a still larger number of places not specified, the last being such as received less than twenty cases, with a few that presented some difficulty in ascertaining with certainty the name of the town or State, but altogether amounting to only 19,271 cases. One-fourth of the whole number were sent to New York. Seven of the markets drew two-thirds of the entire shipments, viz., New York, 182,207 cases; San Francisco, 63,887; Baltimore, 62,464; Philadelphia, 59,119; St. Louis, 55,774; Cincinnati, 44,882; and New Orleans, 37,686 cases. The shipments to Louisville were 21,119; to Chicago, 19,168; to Charleston, 17,177; and to Nashville, 13,781 cases. Of the others, there were sent to Richmond, Detroit, Buffalo, Pittsburg, Memphis, and Milwaukee, from 3,000 to 5,000 cases each; to Indianapolis, Savannah, New Albany, St. Joseph, Portsmouth, O., Lexington, Alton, Keokuk, Troy, and Rochester, from 2,000 to 3,000 each; and to Albany, Galena, Evansville, Syracuse, Dayton, Lafayette, Ind., Columbus, O., Quincy, Ill., Burlington, Iowa, Dubuque, Norfolk, and Portsmouth, Va., Galesburg, Ill., and Paducah, Ky., from 1,000 to 2,000 cases each. Nineteen other places received from 500 to 1,000 each, and one hundred and three places from 100 to 500 cases. The remainder, amounting to 275 places, received from 20 to 100 cases each. Not counting those sent to the States of New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and California, and classing Missouri and Kentucky with the South, there were shipped to the Southern States, 185,147 cases; and to the West, 139,762 cases.

VII. MISCELLANEOUS MANUFACTURES

Extent, Variety, and Value in 18601

Several manufacturing industries other than those already noticed had become important by 1860.

The increase of Printing Presses in the book and newspaper manufacture has been great beyond all precedent, and has exerted the most

1 Preliminary Report on the Eighth Census, 1860. (Washington, 1862), 63-5,

beneficent influence by cheapening and multiplying the vehicles of instruction. Its effects are everywhere apparent. Never did an army before possess so much of cultivated intellect [written during the first year of the Civil War], or demand such contributions for its mental food as that now marshalled in its country's defence. Many of these reading soldiers ripened their intellectual tastes during the last ten years. In fact, many divisions of our army carry the printing press and type, and the soldiers issue publications and print the forms for official papers. The press is, indeed, the great prompter of enterprise. It constantly travels with the emigrant to diffuse light and intelligence from our remotest frontiers, where it speedily calls into existence the paper-mill and all the accessories which it supports in older communities.

In New England, the Middle, and Western States the value of book, job, and newspaper printing is returned as $39,428,043, of which eleven millions' worth consisted of books, the value of the latter being nearly equal to the whole product of the same branch in 1850, which was returned at $11,586,549. The manufacture of Paper, especially of printing paper, has increased in an equal ratio, the State of Massachusetts alone producing paper of the value of $5,968,469, being over 58 per cent. of the product of the Union in 1850. New York returned paper of the value of $3,516,276; Connecticut, $2,528,758; and Pennsylvania, $1,785,900.

The Sewing Machine has also been improved and introduced, in the last ten years, to an extent which has made it altogether a revolutionary instrument. It has opened avenues to profitable and healthful industry for thousands of industrious females to whom the labors of the needle had become wholly unremunerative and injurious in their effects. Like all automatic powers, it has enhanced the comforts of every class by cheapening the process of manufacture of numerous articles of prime necessity, without permanently subtracting from the average means of support of any portion of the community. It has added a positive increment to the permanent wealth of the country by creating larger and more varied applications of capital and skill in the several branches to which it is auxiliary. The manufacture of the machines has itself become one of considerable magnitude, and has received a remarkable impulse since 1850. The returns show an aggregate of 116,330 machines made in nine States in 1860, the value of which was $5,605,345. A single establishment in Connecticut manufactured machines to the value of over $2,700,000, or nearly one-half of the whole production in that year. During the year 1861 sewing

machines to the value of over $61,000 were exported to foreign countries. It is already employed in a great variety of operations and upon different materials, and is rapidly becoming an indispensable and general appendage to the household.

Among the branches of industry which have been signally promoted by the introduction of the sewing-machine is the manufacture of men's and women's Clothing for sale, which has heretofore ranked with the cotton manufactures in the number of hands two-thirds of them females and the cost of labor employed. The increase of this manufacture has been general throughout the Union, and in the four cities of New York, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and Boston, amounted in value to nearly forty and one-quarter millions of dollars, or over 83 per cent. of the product of the whole Union in 1850. The manufacture of shirts and collars, of ladies' cloaks and mantillas a new branch which has received its principal impulse within the last ten years and of ladies' and gentlemen's furnishing goods generally, form very large items in the general aggregate of this branch. They severally employ extensive and numerous establishments, many of them in our large cities with heavy capital. In Troy, New York, the value of shirt collars alone annually manufactured is nearly $800,000, approximating in value to the product of the numerous and extensive iron founderies which have been a source of wealth to that city.

The influence of improved machinery is also conspicuously exhibited in the manufacture of sawed and planed lumber, in which the United States stands altogether unrivalled, as well for the extent and perfection of the mechanism employed as the amount of the product. This reached, in 1850, the value of $58,521,976, and, in 1860, $95,912,286, an increase of 64 per cent. in the last decade. The western States alone, in the latter year, produced lumber to the value of $33,274,793, an increase of $18,697,543, or 128 per cent. over their manufacture in 1850. The Pacific States and Territories produced to the value of $6,171,431, and the southern $17,941,162, a respective increase of $3,841,826 and $9,094,686 in those sections, being a ratio of 162.7 and 102.3 per centum.

Several branches of manufacture have an intimate relation to agriculture and the landed interests, and by their extension powerfully promote those interests as well as that of commerce. Surpassing all others of this or any other class in the value of products and of the raw material consumed, is the manufacture of flour and meal. The product of flour and grist mills in 1850 reached a value of nearly one hundred and thirty-six millions of dollars, while in 1860 the returns

exhibit a value of $223,144,369 - an increase of $87,246,563, or 64.2 per cent. in the last ten years. The production and increase of the several sections were as follows:

The largest mill is in Oswego, New York, which in 1860 produced 300,000 barrels of flour; the next two, in Richmond, Virginia, made 190,000 and 160,000, respectively; and the fourth, in New York City, returned 146,000 barrels. The value of annual production of each ranged from one million and a half to one million dollars.

...

The manufacture of Linen Goods has made but little progress in this country. A few mills, chiefly in Massachusetts, make crash and other coarse fabrics; the largest two in that State produced six million yards in 1860. Others are extensively engaged in making twines, shoe and other threads. It is to be regretted that the manufacture of flax has not attained greater magnitude in a country where the raw material is so easily and cheaply grown. Farmers throughout the west have raised the crop simply for the seed, and thrown out the fibre as valueless.

The manufacture of fabrics from Flax Cotton has been commenced, and success in a new branch of industry is confidently expected. The inventive genius of our countrymen has perfected machinery for the preparation of flax for spinning, which can be furnished, it is alleged, at as low a rate as the product of southern cotton fields.

The manufacture of Sewing Silks is extensively carried on in this country. Including tram, organzine, &c., the production exceeded five million dollars in the States of Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New York their relative values being in the order mentioned. Ribbons are made to a small extent, but the chief manufactures of silk consist of ladies dress trimmings, coach lace, &c., of which the cities of Philadelphia and New York produce to the value of $1,260,725 and $796,682, respectively. .

India Rubber Goods were made chiefly in Connecticut, New York,