Footwear Museum Jose María Amat Amer

Room No. 1

Machinery Room

Welcome to the living history of the machine that is and was used to create shoes

Description of the room

Room No. 1. Machinery Room.

Here we can find a large sample of old machinery related to footwear, although you can also find singular machines in the different distribution halls on each floor, between the communication corridors of the rooms or on the stairs and the ground floor.

In this room you can see the following:

"Aguado Collection". This is one of the unique collections in the world in terms of the manufacture of lasts and their manufacturing processes. Isidro Aguado Aravid was one of the first lasts makers who began his work in the last third of the 19th century. Some of the machines on display worked by animal traction or by the force of water, which is why the first installations were located near the river Vinalopó to take advantage of its flow. Other machines are simple "gadgets" created by Aguado before any type of machine appeared to do the specific job. We can also contemplate the semi-manual process of manufacturing a wooden last.

 

Machinery for the manufacture of footwear. It is made up of a group of machines, most of which belong to the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. In these collections we can distinguish the machines from what in the industry is called "shoe manufacturing mechanics", that is, the process of assembling and finishing the footwear.

Among the footwear manufacturing machinery exhibited in this room, we highlight the machinery that belonged to the company Luvi S.L. located in Petrel and which is made up of unique examples of those manufactured by the United Shoe Machinery Company which, at the beginning of the 20th century, leased them to industries, especially in the USA, Europe and Latin America, contributing to the rapid modernisation of the footwear industry.

 

Collection of sewing and mending machines. Although the first patent for a sewing machine was issued by the Englishman Thomas Saint, the machine was invented for practical purposes in the middle of the 19th century by the Frenchman Barthélemy Thimonnier, followed by the American Walter Hunt in 1934, who invented the closed-stitch machine; Later, the machine which was marketed was invented by Elias Howe in 1846, and it was in 1854 that Isaac Marritt Singer patented his first sewing machine; until then, all types of stitching or stitching were done by hand with needles and thimbles.

Since those years and with those machines, both fabric and leather were sewn, however and before the end of the 19th century, more resistant machines were manufactured, of an industrial type, which were exclusively dedicated to the sewing of furs and leathers.

The extensive collection of machines on display shows us a collection of the first manual sewing machines and the first Singer industrial sewing machines or sewing machines with a particularly beautiful modernist design.

 

This room is completed with works of art of different techniques and authors, highlighting part of the work of the most outstanding local painter to date, in works related to handmade footwear,

Tradition and Technology

SHOE MACHINERY ROOM

What can you find in the machinery room?