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American Machinery and European Footwear: Technology Transfer and International Trade, 1860–1939

This article analyses technology transfer in the shoe industry from the United States to Europe from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, with a particular emphasis on the influence of this transfer on international trade. The article aims to show that the foreign expansion of American footwear at the end of the nineteenth century was directly linked to the technological gap between the American and European industries. The improvement in the competitiveness of the European footwear industry was mainly a result of the technology transfer from the US. This transfer was carried out mainly by one American multinational company, the United Shoe Machinery Company, and the adoption of the new technologies was not due as much to the ‘technological capabilities’ of each country as to the profitability that the companies managed to gain from these innovations.