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Pair of silk shoes with two inch heels, oval toes, straight side seam, square tongue, and a floral design. Maker's label on shoe interior [see Inscriptions].
shoes (footwear)
brocade (textile)
leather
stitching
thread
metallic (color attribute)
silk (textile)
Shoe
Shoe
Shoemakers used to be called cordwainers. Winthrop Gray was the son and brother of cordwainers from Lynn, Massachusetts. His label includes a symbol of his membership in the Freemasons, a fraternal organization.
These elaborate metallic and silk brocade shoes once belonged to Martha Stevens, a wealthy Dorchester widow who died in 1785. She left them to Increase Sumner, in whose family they descended.
"Made by/Winthrp Gray/Near the Corn [illegible]/Boston" (on paper label pasted inside heel of one shoe, with Masonic compass symbol above text)
1949.130A-B
Gray, Winthrop (Maker)
Boston, MA, USA
4 1/4 x 3 1/4 (HxW) (inches)
1949.130AB
Massachusetts (United States)
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