Boot and Shoe Recorder Vol. XXXI, No. 23, September 8 1897

Printed wraps, quarto, 12.5 x 9.75 inches. A special issue of “The Largest Weekly Trade Journal in the World,” expanded to 314 pages (“The record beaten”!). Running pagination to 286, with a number of supplements and special sections that are sometimes, but not always, included into the total page count. Absurdly collated: (I)-II, 1-44, 44a-44d, 1-40, 85-100, 1-27, 128-148, “148-1”-“148-8”, (8), 153-188, 1-16, 205-220, (2), 223-254, “254-1”-“254-16”, 255-286, III-IV. A hefty volume in Good to Very Good condition, light soil and several small chips and snags around the edges of the wraps, no spine covering, small abrasion to first page. Subscriber sticker to front wrap, "DC Hurd & Fitzgerald," a prominent shoe company based in Utica, NY. Contents clean and fresh.

Full of emphatic, sometimes glorious advertising employing varied paper stocks and inks, with several ads and sections printed in different colors. Advertisers range from finished products, materials suppliers, and associated needs like retail displays. The journal content addresses trade reform, with perspectives from New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis, Rochester, Haverhill and Brockton (“A consensus of valuable leading opinions from every shoe center”).

The extra pages are largely accounted for by, ”The Men of 1897 who have placed Brockton, MA at the head in producing men’s shoes” and “Haverhill Mass in 1897, the Leading Manufacturing Center for Women’s Shoes”—both comprised almost exclusively of photo portraits of the local “men of industry” (whose subscriptions probably kept this behemoth of trade journal going). There is a feature section on Rochester, NY and its “growing importance as a shoe manufacturing city”, and more local reporting in separate Western and Southern Departments, including news from Nashville, New Orleans, Charleston, Atlanta, Tacoma, Omaha, San Francisco, among others.