Stacy and the HISTARCH users:
 
     I don't often do much more than scan the news on this bulletin board
     for snippets of info that might help me someday, but I think this time
     I might be able to be on the sending rather than the receiving end of
     some pretty esoteric stuff. I don't know whether this will help or
     not, but I did some excavations on a Russian-period site in Sitka,
     Alaska back in the early 1980's and we found a number of hand-made
     shoes in our trash pit. As many of the colonists in Sitka were
     Russian-born, and the Russian Orthodox mission there taught
     shoe-making to the native children, it is possible that our shoes
     might be kinda' like your shoes. The pit dated to about 1860, if I
     remember right. I did not do the analysis on the shoes, and the report
     is buried in some unknown box in my garage, so I can't photocopy the
     pertinent pages and send them off to you immediately. However, if you
     would like to see and read about what we came up with, you might try
     to get a copy of the following report from your interlibrary loan
     service (it was sent to all US federal depository libraries when it
     was published by the US Government Printing Service).
 
     Catherine Holder Blee, Marianne Musitelli, Linda J. Scott, D. Kate Aasen,
        and Stephen A. Chomko
 
     1986  _Wine, Yaman and Stone: The Archeology of a Russian Hospital Trash
           Pit, Sitka National Historical Park, Sitka, Alaska._ US Government
           Printing Office, Denver, Colorado.
 
     If you're adventurous and willing to spend a little money, the National
Park Service's Technical Information Center in Denver, Colorado, can copy the
whole report for you for about 5 cents a page (its about 300 pages long, if I
remember right, but we avoided photographs and did drawings so that they would
reproduce better...we DID do some drawings of the shoes). Call (303)969-2130 for
ordering information. The report was reviewed some years back by Glenn Farris
and published in _Historical Archaeology_ if you want an overview of the
project. (Sorry, HA's in the garage, too, and I don't remember exactly when the
review was done. It was probably in 1987 or 1988).
 
If you want to see the section we had on shoes, but can't seem to get a copy
through those channels, drop me a line at [log in to unmask] and I'll start
going through those boxes in my garage (hell, I have to do that some time
anyway!).
 
Good luck, and I hope that helps!!
 
Cathy
 
______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Footwear query.
Author:  Stacy Kozakavich <[log in to unmask]> at NP--INTERNET
Date:    7/9/97 12:08 AM
 
 
To all Histarch subscribers:
 
I am presently working with a small collection of leather footwear from a
ca.1900-1920 agricultural village site in Saskatchewan, Canada.  There is a
possibility that some of the items were hand made by craftsmen on site,
while others were likely purchased in nearby centres.  The residents of the
site were of rural Russian origin.
 
Would anyone be willing to share their experiences in, or useful references
on, the analysis of this kind of artifact?  I'm interested in finding out
ways to identify on-site manufacture vs. purchase of commercially
manufactured shoes and boots.
 
I apologize for the repetition if this topic has been discussed previously.
You can reply to me off-list at [log in to unmask]
 
 
Thanks in advance!
 
Stacy Kozakavich
Graduate Student
Department of Anthropology and Archaeology
University of Saskatchewan