The Armies of Industry II, Our Nation’s Manufacture of Arms 1917-1918, by Benedict Crowell and Robert Forrest Wilson, 1921, Yale University Press, pp. 635-36
The procurement of leather for the Army, both in raw material and the finished products of leather, was one of the most important undertakings, the principal war uses for leather being in shoes for the soldiers and in harness for the horses and mules. When the Government entered the leather market it found a high level of prices, due to the large quantities of leather and leather equipment which America had been exporting to the European nations at war. The tanners were called together, and they came to an agreement with the Government as to the prices of all grades of equipment which the Army expected to buy. The packers next agreed on a maximum price for hides suitable for army leathers. The Government took an option on 750,000 hides then in the hands of the packers. By consulting with the industry at all times, the government officers were able to stabilize prices of leather. The price of harness leather, which was originally fixed at 66 cents a pound, was advanced only 4 cents during the eighteen months of the war period, and russet leather never advanced more than 4 cents a pound above the $1.03 fixed at the beginning of the war.
As the stocks of leather on hand diminished it became necessary to stimulate its production, and there was formed a hide and leather control board, with a representative on it from each branch of the trade, one for harness, one for sole leather, one for upper leather, and one for the sheepskin trade. This board also inspected leather at all the tanneries and the finished leather in the various factories, a course which resulted in great improvement in the quality of leather, particularly that used in shoemaking.
At the outset the Quartermaster Corps, the Ordnance Department, the Signal Corps, the Engineering Department, the Medical Department, the Navy, and the Marine Corps were all buying leather or leather equipment, and the Y. M. C. A. and the Red Cross were also in the market for large amounts of leather materials. These activities, except those of the Navy and Marine Corps, were all eventually brought under the administration of the Clothing and Equipage Division, thus virtually eliminating competition in the leather market.
It is safe to say that at the signing of the armistice there was enough leather equipment, either in the United States and France or in process of manufacture here, to meet the needs of 5,000,000 men. Leather equipment was available at all times. The principal military articles of leather were harnesses, shoes, jerkins, gloves, and mittens.
In all, $75,000,000 was spent for harness and leather equipment. The procurement of saddles was a hard problem in itself, for there were only three or four makers of saddletrees in the United States, and only one of these could get the ash or basswood required. The division induced various furniture factories to install the special lathes required for turning saddletrees, and in this way built up eight factories, which gave us sufficient capacity. Belting manufacturers and manufacturers of shoes were educated in the art of producing the leather for the saddles. The army harness is of russet leather, and russet leather harnesses are a product for which there is no commercial demand. The result is that the surpluses of army harness could not be disposed of to advantage after the armistice.
The former American army shoe built on the Munson last and known as the russet marching shoe was machine sewed, had an upper of calfskin with the rough side turned in, and was lined with duck. This shoe proved to be short-lived when subjected to the severe service in France. At the beginning of the war a new shoe was designed for trench service. This was a much heavier shoe, with the calfskin of the upper turned rough side out. There was no lining in the shoe. It had two heavy soles, the outer one hobnailed. Yet this shoe, too, proved to be unsatisfactory. The uppers wore fairly well, but the soles could not stand the constant submerging in mud and water.
The demands of trench service eventually led to the design of what was called the Pershing shoe. This was a shoe with three heavy soles, stitched, screwed, and nailed together. It had steel reinforcements on toe and heel. The outer sole was studded with hobnails. The original requisitions from France for this shoe called for leather tanned with bark. As bark tanning is almost obsolete in the United States to-day, it was necessary to go into the tanneries and build up what was virtually a new industry. It should be mentioned that the design for the Pershing shoe was completed in thirty days. The culmination of the shoe development was the model known as the Victory shoe. This model corrected certain defects in the Pershing shoe. The Pershing shoe was prone to rip along the back stays, and the upper did not fit snugly. In the Victory shoe the entire back of the upper was one piece.
