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    Sneaker Century: A History of Athletic Shoes
    Sneaker Century: A History of Athletic Shoes
    Sneaker Century: A History of Athletic Shoes
    Ebook89 pages53 minutes

    Sneaker Century: A History of Athletic Shoes

    By Beth Bracken

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    About this ebook

    Whether you call them kicks or sneakers, runners or gutties, you probably have a pair of athletic shoes in your closet. The earliest sneakers debuted in the 1800s and weren't much more than a canvas upper and a flexible sole made of a crazy new material—rubber. The stuff might have been new to Americans then, but for thousands of years, the indigenous peoples of the Amazon Basin of South America had been using latex made from the milky sap of hevea trees to protect their feet from rocks, sticks, and biting insects. Once Charles Goodyear figured out how to make the stuff more durable, sneakers were here to stay.

    Early sneakers were initially designed for elite athletes, but kids and teens quickly adopted them. Some of the first brands included Converse, Brooks, and Saucony. German companies Adidas and Puma started up during World War II. The Nike shoe debuted in the 1970s (with a bit of inspiration from a waffle iron). As fitness crazes took off in the 1980s, people all over the world started buying the shoes for workouts and everyday wear. At about the same time, companies began hiring high-profile athletes and pop stars for big-dollar endorsements, and shoe sales soared into the stratosphere to the tune of billions of dollars each year.

    In Sneaker Century, follow sneaker fashions and the larger-than-life personalities behind the best known athletic shoe brands in history. Learn how teen sneakerheads became important style makers and drove the success of NIKE, Inc., and other shoe companies. Look behind the scenes at the labor-intensive process of manufacturing sneakers. Explore the sneaker frontier of the future—recycled shoes, earth-friendly initiatives, and high-fashion statements. Get ready to speed through the Sneaker Century!

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLerner Publishing
    Release dateJan 1, 2017
    ISBN9781512456400
    Sneaker Century: A History of Athletic Shoes
    Author

    Beth Bracken

    Evolutionary biologist-turned-author Amber J. Keyser has a MS in zoology and a PhD in genetics. She writes both fiction and non-fiction for tweens and teens. Her young adult novels include Pointe, Claw (Carolrhoda Lab, 2017), an explosive story about two girls claiming the territory of their own bodies, and The Way Back from Broken (Carolrhoda Lab, 2015), a heart-wrenching novel of loss and survival (and a finalist for the Oregon Book Award). She is the co-author with Kiersi Burkhart of the middle grade series Quartz Creek Ranch (Darby Creek, 2017). Her nonfiction titles include The V-Word (Beyond Words/SimonTeen, 2016), an anthology of personal essays by women about first-time sexual experiences (Rainbow List, Amelia Bloomer list, New York Public Library Best Book for Teens and Chicago Public Library Best Nonfiction for Teens) and Sneaker Century: A History of Athletic Shoes (Twenty-First Century Books, 2015), among numerous other titles. Her forthcoming books include Tying the Knot: A World History of Marriage (Twenty-First Century Books, 2018) and Underneath It All: The History of Women's Underwear (Twenty-First Century Books, 2018). More information at www.amberjkeyser.com. Connect with Amber on Twitter @amberjkeyser.

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      Book preview

      Sneaker Century - Beth Bracken

      This book is dedicated to my dad, John Keyser, who always shares his love of sports, and to my grandfather, Joe Keyser, who watched Jesse Owens run at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. I want to thank D’Wayne Edwards and Eric Graham, for sharing their sneaker expertise, and my writing group, Viva Scriva, for helping me find the story.

      A note to readers about capitalization in this book: For the educational market, the publisher has chosen to capitalize Adidas when referring to the company and its shoes. The official name of the company is adidas. Additionally, athletic shoes manufactured by the company NIKE, Inc., are officially designated as Nike shoes. This book makes that stylistic distinction.

      Copyright © 2015 by Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

      All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.

      Twenty-First Century Books

      A division of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

      241 First Avenue North

      Minneapolis, MN 55401 USA

      For reading levels and more information, look up this title at www.lernerbooks.com.

      Main body text set in Adrianna Regular 11/15.

      Typeface provided by Chank Fonts.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Keyser, Amber.

      Sneaker century : a history of athletic shoes / by Amber J. Keyser.

      pages cm.

      Includes bibliographical references and index.

      ISBN 978–1–4677–2640–5 (lib. bdg. : alk. paper)

      ISBN 978–1–4677–6309–7 (EB pdf)

      1. Sneakers. 2. Sneakers—Social aspects. I. Title.

      GV749.S64K49 2015

      685’.31—dc23 2014003214

      Manufactured in the United States of America

      3-42491-15247-7/12/2016

      9781512456417 mobi

      9781512456424 ePub

      9781512456400 ePub

      Table of Contents

      Prologue

      Flu Shoes

      Chapter 1

      The First Sneakers

      Chapter 2

      From Factories to Recreational Sports

      Chapter 3

      Running toward Gold

      Chapter 4

      Getting Off On the Right Foot

      Chapter 5

      Sneakers on the Streets

      Chapter 6

      Sneakers and the Global Economy

      Source Notes

      Selected Bibliography

      For More Information

      Index

      Prologue

      Flu Shoes

      Preston Truman’s mom had tried to clean the red-and-black basketball shoes, but he rescued them. Those scuffed size thirteens with the autograph scrawled across one toe were something special—a piece of history. They didn’t smell like sweat or the waxy polish of a basketball court. These sneakers smelled of victory. And Truman wasn’t the only one who thought so.

      In 2013 Truman pulled the shoes out of the safe-deposit box at a local bank where he had stored them for sixteen years. He contacted Grey Flannel Auctions, an auction house that specializes in sports memorabilia, and the bidding began. In the end, an anonymous collector bought them for $104,765.

      That’s a lot of money for a pair of sneakers, but those Nike Air Jordans weren’t just any shoes. They were superstar basketball player Michael Jordan’s famous flu shoes.

      When Truman first met Jordan, it was 1996, and Truman was a teenage ball boy at the Delta Center Arena in Salt Lake City, Utah. Jordan, the star player for the Chicago Bulls, was suiting up for a regular season basketball game against the Utah Jazz, and he wasn’t happy. The man wanted graham crackers and applesauce, but the sauce had gone AWOL. Jordan turned to Truman and teased, There will be no autographs for ball boys after the game if I don’t get my applesauce.

      Truman was off like a shot, casing the sports facility for the goods, finally hitting pay dirt in a food storage room. Jordan got his snack, and Truman had made a friend.

      Seven months later, the Bulls were back in Utah for the 1997 National Basketball Association (NBA) Finals.

      Michael Jordan (left) didn’t let a bout of the flu stop him from playing in a crucial game in the 1997 NBA Finals—with his beloved red-and-black Nike sneakers.

      Again, Truman was working in the visiting team’s locker room. This time, he had graham crackers and applesauce ready and waiting for Jordan, who remembered the teenager from before.

      After the fourth game in the series, the Jazz had won two games and the Bulls had won two games. Game 5 would be pivotal. The winner would need just one more victory

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