This reconstruction of a cobbler’s workshop emphasises the advent of
increasing mechanisation in a traditionally labour-intense craft. A timeserved
craftsman needed an entire day to make a pair of shoes. The life
of a cobbler was in sharp contrast to that of his rich customers. The shoemaking
process was very time-consuming; the cobbler was a traditional
home worker who earned little (piece work). Shoes were made of fi ne
materials such as leather and silk, so only the better-off classes could
afford shoes. For poorer people, shoes were very rare goods until to the
mechanisation of the shoe-making process in the 1920s. Poor people
wore clogs from the clog maker, a craft which is addressed in room 3.
The cobbler’s knife was very sharp so it could cut through leather. To
protect himself from the sharp knife, the cobbler wore an apron with
a leather breast piece. The cobbler sat on a stitching chair, a low chair
placed on a wooden platform. In this way the cobbler’s feet kept warm,
but the leather to be worked did not hang on the fl oor either. The cobbler’s
tools such as a hammer, awls, last hook, rasps, whetstone, and
knives were hanging or lying in the tool box next to the boxes with nails.
In the display cases there is a selection of shoes from the 18thcentury to
the 1920s. More recent shoes can be seen in the next room.