The Leatherworker
in Eighteenth-Century Williamsburg

Once upon a time there lived in France apoet-bureaucrat by the name of CharlesPerrault, who wrote fairy tales. He calledone of them Cendrillon ou la Petite Pantouflede Verre, and ever since 1697, for that wasthe date of Cinderella’s appearance in modern literature,her glass slippers have been a puzzle.

Not to children, of course. Generations of youngsters havematter-of-factly accepted as the most natural thing in theworld that magic slippers should be of glass (verre). Theirelders, however, being less sophisticated about such things,have learnedly quibbled over whether the slippers weren’treally supposed to be of vair, the costly white squirrel furonce worn only by royalty.

After all, logic and reason and custom and tradition saythat 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 ofleather cannons?

Yet leather has been put to these and many other usesover the centuries of recorded history. A list of them wouldbe almost endless, and so would a list of the sources ofleather. The following compilation, doubtless far from complete,could have been (it was not) drawn up by an Englisheighteenth-century or colonial American leatherworker: