The McKay sole-sewing machine, which they
produced, came into use, and for twenty-one years was used almost
universally both in the United States and Great Britain. But
this, like all the other useful inventions, was in time enlarged
and greatly improved, and hundreds of other inventions have been
made in the shoe industry. There are machines to split leather,
to make the thickness absolutely uniform, to sew the uppers, to
insert eyelets, to cut out heel tops, and many more. In fact,
division of labor has been carried farther in the making of shoes
than in most industries, for there are said to be about three
hundred separate operations in making a pair of shoes.
From small beginnings great industries have grown. It is a far
cry from the slow, clumsy machine of Elias Howe, less than
three-quarters of a century ago, to the great factories of today,
filled with special models, run at terrific speed by electric
current, and performing tasks which would seem to require more
than human intelligence and skill.
CHAPTER V. THE AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION
The Census of 1920 shows that hardly thirty per cent of the
people are today engaged in agriculture, the basic industry of
the United States, as compared with perhaps ninety per cent when
the nation began. Yet American farmers, though constantly
diminishing in proportion to the whole population, have always
been, and still are, able to feed themselves and all their fellow
Americans and a large part of the outside world as well.
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