Jan Matzeliger was a nineteenth-century inventor and machinist who revolutionized the shoemaking industry and made a fortune for his financial backers. Over a period of several years, during which he sacrificed everything for the sake of his invention, Jan Matzeliger conceived, patented, built working models, and factory-tested a machine known as a shoe-lasting machine, and he eventually became a stockholder in the company that manufactured it. As revolutionary and beneficial as Eli Whitney's cotton gin or Elias Howe's sewing machine, Matzeliger's shoe-lasting machine could produce 150 to 700 pairs of shoes a day--compared with 50 pairs of shoes per day by hand-lasting methods.

By the 1870s, most of the steps in manufacturing shoes were already automated. In 1790, Thomas Saint, a London cabinetmaker, had invented the first sewing machine designed for use on shoe leather. In 1810, Marc Isambard Brunel, a Frenchman working in London, set up machines to mass produce nailed army...