Manchesters Shoe Industry

Famous for its dominance in textile production, Manchester was also affectionately called "Shoe City." More than seventy different shoe companies once called Manchester home, and thousands of area residents worked tirelessly to produce some of the best-known shoes in America and throughout the world. The largest manufacturers were the F.M. Hoyt Shoe Company, maker of Beacon Shoes, and the granddaddy of them all, the McElwain Company, known for its popular brands, including the iconic Thom McAn shoes. Authors Kelly Kilcrease and Yvette Lazdowski reveal how these and other Manchester-based shoe shops were vital to the area's economic and employment prosperity, especially among the immigrant population, as well as how the McElwain Company was an integral part of the Melville Corporation, known today as CVS.

Here, for the first time exclusively through the medium of vintage postcards, the people, streets, businesses, institutions, and recreational areas of bygone Manchester return to life. Manchester presents images of the world's largest producer of textiles, which attracted a patchwork of cultures from many lands. It tells where the first telephone conversation by a U.S. president occurred. It evokes the city that colorful individuals such as a nearly lifelong hermit, the smallest married couple in the world, a famous comic strip cartoonist, a best-selling novelist, the founders of cosmetics and fast-food empires, and a comedic superstar all called home.