The Leatherworker
in Eighteenth-Century Williamsburg
Illustrated capital
Once upon a time there lived in France a poet-bureaucrat by the name of Charles Perrault, who wrote fairy tales. He called one of them Cendrillon ou la Petite Pantoufle de Verre, and ever since 1697, for that was the date of Cinderella’s appearance in modern literature, her glass slippers have been a puzzle.
Not to children, of course. Generations of youngsters have matter-of-factly accepted as the most natural thing in the world that magic slippers should be of glass (verre). Their elders, however, being less sophisticated about such things, have learnedly quibbled over whether the slippers weren’t really supposed to be of vair, the costly white squirrel fur once worn only by royalty.
After all, logic and reason and custom and tradition say that footwear has been made of leather since time unknown. And who ever heard of making shoes out of glass?
Well, who ever heard of making bottles out of leather, for that matter? Or of fire hose made of leather? Or of leather cannons?
Yet leather has been put to these and many other uses over the centuries of recorded history. A list of them would be almost endless, and so would a list of the sources of leather. The following compilation, doubtless far from complete, could have been (it was not) drawn up by an English eighteenth-century or colonial American leatherworker:
cow
ox
calf
horse
sheep
lamb
goat
kid
pig
dog
wolf
deer
elk
antelope
moose
buffalo
bear
wildcat
rabbit
muskrat
beaver
alligator
rattlesnake
Clothing
shoes, boots, moccasins, galoshes
leggings, breeches, aprons
shirts, coats, caps, hats, gloves
belts, suspenders, points and laces
fur items, fur trim
Shelter and furnishings
tents, tepees
wall hangings, door curtains
chair seats and backs, beds
upholstery, cushion covers
fur rugs, fur bedding
Transportation
saddles, bridles, harness (including that for human porters)
carriage upholstery, wagon covers
scupper leathers, antichafing binding on sailing gear
Containers, liquid
wineskins, waterbags, bottles
jugs, mugs, buckets
inkwells and inkhorns
hoses, pipes
Containers, dry
bags, purses, food pouches
trunks, boxes, caskets, coffers
snuff boxes, dice cups
Military items
shields, scabbards, sheaths
bowcases, quivers, gun buckets
helmets, cartridge boxes
powder horns and buckets
Other
bookbinding, parchment, vellum
hornbooks, bellows, hinges
pump washers, airtight floats
spinning-wheel belts
cricket balls, drumheads, banjos
surgical trusses
Leather differs not only according to the species of creature it comes from but according to the age and sometimes the sex of the animal, and also the part of the animal’s body it once covered. Its characteristics vary depending on the type of processing it undergoes—whether by liming, tanning, tawing (mineral tanning), or shamoying (oil tanning)—and depending on how these processes are varied and combined.
Leather can be stiff as bone or supple as silk, nearly as waterproof as rubber or capable of sopping up water like a sponge, tough and unyielding or resilient and stretchy, smooth and translucent as paper, deeply grained in many patterns, or softly napped. It may be snowwhite or range through hues of tan and red to dark brown. It may be molded, carved, and colored in endless array. As leatherworkers for many centuries have been fond of reminding the world, “There’s nothing like leather.”
