"Why the Shoe Pinches" (pt. 2)
The pursuit for healthy footwear continues
Poorly designed footwear has been the cause of a lot of pain and misery throughout history. In my previous article, I covered the texts of prominent anatomists Petrus Camper and Georg Hermann von Meyer and shoemaker James Dowie, who all pointed out the hazards of wearing narrow, restrictive footwear and called for reforms in the way shoes were made. We’ll pick up where we left off and explore the writings of a few more trailblazers whose efforts to promote healthy footwear also deserve recognition.
If you haven’t already, I highly recommend reading part one before continuing so you have some frame of reference for the works discussed here.
John Lord Peck
There isn’t much info out there on John Lord Peck, but his bibliography suggests that he was some sort of philosopher. In addition to his philosophical essays, he also wrote “Dress and Care of the Feet” in 1872. Barefoot shoe wearers might be especially interested in what Peck had to say on the topic.
In his book, Peck claimed that deformed feet were pretty much the norm and anyone with healthy feet was the exception, noting how the feet of children1 looked vastly different from the feet of most adults. He believed conventionally shaped lasts were to blame for this.
He provided an anecdote in which a shoemaker who had been in the trade for twenty years never questioned whether it might be unnatural for the big toe to point toward the others. In Peck’s opinion, the only appropriate form of footwear is one that leaves the shape of the natural foot intact.
Peck intended his book to be a direct follow-up to the works of Camper, Meyer, and Dowie. He praised Meyer for his insights, but took issue with the sole shape Meyer proposed for its lack of space for the pinky toe. Peck tried his hand at designing a few sole shapes, and the one he favored is fairly similar to many modern-day barefoot shoes. He dubbed this last design “Eureka.”
Because the shape was so different from what people were used to, Peck thought it would take a lot of time and education before they’d be willing to try shoes made on the Eureka last.
“If a requirement were made that [the Eureka last] should agree with the present popular taste, this pattern would signally fail. But though it does not do this, still, if it corresponds with the true form of the foot, and possesses the merits claimed, its excellence will, in time, be acknowledged, and public taste will come to see its elegance also.”
For this reason, he designed another sole shape he thought would be easier for people to accept, which he called the “Excelsior” last. He acknowledged that it didn’t provide quite enough room for the pinky toe, but thought it was at least better than most other contemporary options. He hoped the Excelsior would serve as a transitional shape to help people acclimate to the idea of wearing more anatomically shaped shoes over time.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Peck’s book was his foretelling that a type of shoe might be invented that had separate compartments for the toes, which he described this way:
“There will still remain to be discovered a mode of covering the foot which will secure to it all its natural freedom. What this will be it is not easy, just now, to tell. Possibly it may take the peculiarity of the glove, and provide separate apartments for each of the toes, becoming thus a kind of foot-glove, with a flexible sole, separated between the toes, and which will allow them to bend or spread, and the whole foot to lengthen or contract without hindrance whenever occasion may require.”
While he may not be the first person in history to ever come up with the idea of having flexible shoes that were essentially foot-gloves, he’s certainly the earliest I’ve come across so far. If Peck’s writings had gained more traction, we might even be tempted to call him as the “Grandfather of Toe Shoes.”
Peter Kahler
Peter Kahler was a German shoemaker who emigrated to Pennsylvania. He came from humble beginnings and started making shoes in a small workshop below a hardware store in the mid-1800’s. Having studied anatomy in Germany, he was aghast at the severe foot deformities of his customers. He decided to design a boot that provided much more room for the toes. He referred to these as “Broad-Soled” boots and offered them in multiple widths.
“The system is modeled upon the shape of the natural—not the deformed—foot, broad soles and low heels giving room for the five toes and allowing every muscle perfect freedom of action.”
A common practice in bespoke shoemaking is to “fit what’s there,” meaning the shoemaker makes tracings of the customer’s feet and uses this as the basis for the sole shape. Kahler greatly disapproved of this method. If a customer already has a foot deformity like severe bunions and the shoemaker makes a shoe that matches the shape of their foot, the tapering of the toe box will prevent the toes from spreading out and could make the issue worse. Kahler’s theory was that if people switched to broad-soled shoes, their toes would resume their natural position over time.
“Here I must register my protest against those pretenders who undertake to give ease by making shoes the exact shape of the distortion.… The effect generally is to increase and perpetuate the variation from health. Many deformities will disappear without treatment if the sole be properly made. I cannot urge too strongly the importance of having sufficient width of sole.”
Kahler made it clear that shoemakers weren’t solely to blame here. He said customers often demanded shoes with insufficient space for even two or three toes, and what’s a shoemaker to do if they want to stay in business? Although he stressed the importance of having enough toe room, he did not think the shoes had to be ugly:
“To give health and comfort to the feet it is by no means necessary, as some unwisely think, to make an ugly boot or shoe; I seek to combine taste and neatness with comfort.”
His big break came after making a pair of boots for Abraham Lincoln. As the story goes, Kahler learned that Lincoln often complained “that it seemed impossible for him to get a shoe which he could wear with any degree of comfort.” A quick glance at the toes on Lincoln’s foot tracings (as seen at the beginning of this article) makes it easy to guess why he might’ve complained.
Kahler offered to make Lincoln a pair of boots based on his broad-sole principles and the president readily accepted. Lincoln must have been happy with the results, as he became a lifelong customer and was in fact buried in boots made by Kahler.
After this, Kahler began referring to himself as the “official bootmaker to the President.” He became so successful that at one point he was able to employ 200 workmen and had to deal with people trying to sell counterfeit boots. It was said that “no boots were ever better made, nor more sure to be a good fit.”
He wrote a short boot in 1882 to hand out to his customers and called it "Dress and Care of the Feet: 'Tis a Great Feat to Fit Feet." In the book he briefly outlined his shoemaking philosophy and the different foot ailments his boots were intended to fix, going on to say:
“The effect of pain or uneasiness in any part of the system, continued day after day, upon the mind, is very great. This passes away when these troublesome ailments are removed.”
Comfortable shoes might not be the key to happiness, but painful footwear can make you quite unhappy indeed.
Ada H. M. Kepley
The first American woman to graduate from law school, Ada Kepley, wrote a piercing article on unhealthy footwear that was published by Popular Science Monthly in 1884. Kepley was well versed in the writings of Petrus Camper and James Dowie and referenced them frequently in her article. She included a quote from Lord Palmerston, former Prime Minister of the UK, who had this to say to Dowie regarding his fellow shoemakers:
"Shoemakers should all be treated like pirates, put to death without trial or mercy, as they had inflicted more suffering on mankind than any class he knew."
While that’s a bit harsh, it does support the idea that poorly designed, damaging footwear has long been a pervasive problem. In Kepley’s words, “The ‘corn-crop’ is one that never fails, and the prevalent fashion will certainly assure a yield of unusual abundance.”
Like those before her, Kepley described the various ways restrictive footwear can damage the feet. She believed that the high rate of foot deformities was cause for serious investigation, but up to that point, no comprehensive study on the link between foot disorders and improper footwear had ever been done. When medical books did touch on the subject it was usually only in passing.
According to Kepley, physicians of the day either deemed the matter of little importance or feared repercussions if they spoke too harshly about their patients’ footwear choices, focusing instead on treating the secondary symptoms of foot ailments. But as Kepley put it,
“One can not treat of the deformities of the feet without considering the nature of their covering, the boots and shoes, for it is these which cramp, distort, and disable them.”
She endorsed the idea that shoes should correspond with the shape of a healthy foot, adding in a footnote that the traditional moccasin was probably one of the most comfortable types of footwear out there—which are flat-soled, lightweight and flexible shoes typically made of soft leather.
“The feet demand a covering which shall conform to their shape, allow them free play, and afford protection from injuries.… It is difficult to understand how shoemakers can be so careless of the shape of the feet and their needs as to cut shoes that in the toe are the very reverse of what toes demand; but it is more difficult to conceive how any one can endure the suffering they inflict.”
In addition to deforming the feet, Kepley pointed out how tight shoes restrict blood flow, which interferes with the foot’s ability to stay warm and can lead to a host of issues on its own. She also disagreed with the common sentiment that high heels assist in walking, noting how raised heels shift the body’s center of gravity and place the foot in an unstable position that’s essentially like walking downhill or “down the roof of a house.”
Kepley considered the ability to walk to be vitally important for a person’s overall health and wellbeing, but stated that few women in her day could endure it because their shoes were so uncomfortable, causing them to develop all sorts of health issues and become “half-invalids.”
“Walking is the exercise that, more than any other, brings every portion of the system into healthful activity. Many complaints would disappear under a thorough and careful course of pedestrianism; but who can walk if the feet are sore or diseased?”
Shoes have immense influence over the welfare of our feet, and modern research on the benefits of walking supports Kepley’s view. If walking is essential for your health and becomes difficult when your feet are in constant pain, then your footwear choices have a direct impact not only on your foot health, but also on your overall physical and mental wellbeing.
For whatever reason, people have long had a strong attachment to narrow, cramping footwear, prioritizing fashion over everything else. We don’t have to follow in their footsteps.
Stay tuned for the next installment where we’ll continue to trace the discoveries others have made on the subject.
“[L]et any one notice the shape and natural position of a child’s foot, before it has been altered by forcing into a falsely-shaped shoe. The toes will be found lying straight forward in the line of the foot’s length, with plenty of room for them to touch the ground without pressing against each other. This is plainly the case with every barefoot boy who is running about the streets or over the farm. There are no cramped toes; on the contrary, they sometimes appear to be separated more than necessary, and the great toe, instead of inclining toward the outside of the foot, seems to be almost turning to the opposite direction.”
—John Lord Peck, Dress and Care of the Feet (1872)
Hi, commenting to say I love your blog and contributions to the reddit community. Your Shoes don't need to look like feet to be healthy article is a gem, unfortunately comments are turned off but thank you so much for doing the research and I loved the diagrams as well.