Bench Made of Shoe Machinery

Photo and commentary by Kate Amiro

The image on the postcard is of a bench that is currently placed at the Cummings Center (formerly the United Shoe Machinery Corp.). The metal piece that looks like two wheels and a bar was part of pulley. This pulley would allow nails, hammers and other small tools to be pulled up from one floor of The Shoe to another. When the United Shoe was rebuilt and owned by The Black and Decker Company, they wanted to keep the history and memories of the people that devoted theirl lives to the United Shoe. The new owners simply took stone rectangles and placed them on the metal pulleys. These new benches are placed around the perimeter of the newly named Cummings Center. They are to be sat on; however, they are meant to serve a different purpose. The benches were to remind the people who sit on them about the hard work that was put in each and every day by the industrial workers.

Intersection is how and where a small part of history can connect with a larger part. Most people think of an intersection as two streets coming together. However, it can be how small points have to do with larger points of history. On the postcard, the image represents the industry of shoe making at the United Shoe. However, The Shoe was not literally a shoe factory; it was a factory that made the machines used to make the shoes. This is an example of intersection because it shows how the shoe factories didn’t just happen to have the machines needed. They needed another factory to make those machines. Then, they had to get the machines to the shoe making factories. Once they received the machines, then they would mass-produce shoes. This shows intersection by connecting the small, which would be The Shoe, to the large, which is the mass production of shoes.