Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 169, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 July 1915 — How Shoe Peg Was Invented. [ARTICLE]

How Shoe Peg Was Invented.

To a Massachusetts man, Joseph Walker, is due the credit of inventing the shoe peg. Previous to the year 1818 its use had not been known, and its inventor gave a new start to the manufacture of boots and shoes. Shortly after the introduction of this invention some unscrupulous parties are said to have tried to swindle the unsuspecting by endeavoring to sell shoe pegs as a new kind of oats. Up to 1818 boots and shoes had been sewed, and the peg, made first by hand, came in to revolutionize the trade. It was, however, the custom of shoemakers who lived away from the manufacturing centers to make their own pegs by hand even as late as 1880, but the machine-manufactured peg has nor superseded them. 1