The Shoemaker of Yesterday. (Image from NYPL Digital Gallery.)

Interested in making your own shoes? Want to learn to cobble at home? Although we don’t often set out to make our own shoes today, there are still opportunities to do so, and artists who tackle the form. At NYPL there are a number of books on the industry of shoemaking. One of note, which might inspire you, is Every lady her own shoemaker, an 1856 publication written by “a lady” and printed here in New York. As for me, I’m thinking of knitting some slippers.