The Future of Footwear

First it was red. Then tan, yellow and brown. It will only get worse.

Looking back over recent posts, I realized the subject matter has been remorselessly grim. So, as they said on Monty Python, now for something completely different.

The following was published in Lincoln, Nebraska, on June 6, 1897. It bemoans an evil. And forecasts worst. And this forecast, unlike so many, proved accurate.

This newsletter is now one month old. If you’ve found it at all interesting, please do consider upgrading to a paid subscription. The money is not spent on footwear of various absurd shades, I assure you. Mostly it flows to my research sources, notably the used bookstores I handsomely support with my Medici-like patronage, as well as the digital archives where I find penetrating historical insights like that time in 1897 when a man in Nebraska was upset that not all shoes were black.

And please, if you have suggestions for sources, features, threads, interviews, podcasts, whatever — let me know.

Now, in honour of that anonymous Nebraska Nostradamus, I’ll leave you with the cultural high-water mark of the 1970s, a pair of Elton John’s best.