Sholem History

These boots are from the Sholem Shoe Store in Champaign, Illinois. The first Sholem shoe store opened in Paris, Illinois in 1872. William Sholem, the store's founder, wasn't anything like what you'd expect a shoe salesman to be. William Sholem was an orphan who joined the circus when he was only a teenager. He later drove a stagecoach for Wells Fargo, then worked as a cowboy and later owned a Texas cattle ranch. He married a girl from Paris and opened his first store in 1872 with an investment of $2500. The store was later run by William's sons Jerome and David, who closed the Paris store and managed stores in Champaign and Urbana. Jerome Sholem's sons, Myron and Stanford, became the third generation to manage the stores. William Sholem's shoe store was a pretty impressive thing in 1872, and a lot has changed in the shoe business since the first Sholem store was founded.

Shoe History

When William Sholem opened his store in 1872, factory made shoes were a pretty new thing. Before the Civil War (1861-1865) many shoes were made by cobblers who made each pair of shoes by hand for a specific person. When the Civil War began, soldiers could get factory made boots, but they fit very poorly and were intended to fit on either foot -- there was no left shoe or right shoe! After the war, standard shoe sizes were developed and it was possible to buy shoes from a store like William Sholem is. Another big change in the shoe industry came just after World War I (1914-1918). In the 1920s women's fashion changed almost overnight. Women began to bob their hair, wear shorter skirts (above the ankles!) and do daring things like drive cars. Now that skirts were shorter, shoes began to change too. Women no longer wanted to buy tall, high button or laced shoes, they wanted lower shoes with fewer laces. Suddenly store owners were stuck with a lot of out of date merchandise and some even went out of business! In Illinois, the Sholems changed with the times and began stocking the new shoes in their stores. Jerome Sholem was actually happy to see the change --- as a boy he had spent hours lacing and unlacing those tall shoes and he was sick of it!

 To learn how the shoes came to the museum, click here.

Image from The Book of Trades by Jost Amman and Hans Sachs, originally published in 1568, republished by Dover Publications in 1973.