Brown Shoe Company

Lost Illinois Manufacturing posted

Lost's comment:
A special thank you to Sally Smith and Ken Smith for this photo of the old Brown Shoe factory in Salem, Illinois. In 1962 the Brown Shoe Company had seven factories in Illinois employing over 3,200 people.
Charleston (450 employees)
Litchfield (400 employees),
Mattoon (508 employees)
Murphysboro (650 employees)
Pittsfield (475 employees)
Salem (450 employees),
Sullivan (425 employees).





I assume all of the plants are closed now. I assume these plants were closed before the Mexico tarrif law was passed. Did we loose the jobs to the south or to Asia. From what I have heard of Nike, we lost the jobs to sweat/child shops in Asia.

Now you read an article in a town's newspaper where they are excited that a $250 million plant will be built that will employ 100 people. What I want to know is how many of the robots in that plant are made in America. Sure, some of that money pays construction workers. But that is temporary and many of them will be from out of town. I have a relative that lives in Michigan who has worked as far away as Kansas because that is where he could find a construction job. Long stays out of Michigan are hard on his family as well as on him.

Lost Illinois Manufacturing posted

Update:

The combined job loss of these three shoe companies since 1962 is 11,020 Illinois workers.
According to the 1962 Illinois Manufacturers Directory - Brown Shoe Company = 3,358 Illinois workers
Charleston (450 employees)
Litchfield (400 employees),
Mattoon (508 employees)
Murphysboro (650 employees)
Pittsfield (475 employees)
Salem (450 employees),
Sullivan (425 employees).
International Shoe Company = 6,512 Illinois workers(International Shoe plants were in the cities of Anna ( 400 employees)
Evansville ( 355 employees )
Flora ( 370 employees )
Hartford ( 320 employees )
Quincy ( 523 employees )
Springfield ( 450 employees )
Mt. Vernon ( 494 employees )
a subsidiary, the Florsheim Shoe Co. with two factories in Chicago ( 3,600 employees )
The Servus Rubber Company employed 1,150 Illinois workers in one shoe factory in Rock Island.

Fans of the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad posted
B&O in Vincennes Indiana looking towards the brown shoe factory

T.j. Evans posted
Brown shoe factory in Charleston
Michelle Reid Borland they turned the one in Litchfield into apartments.