Stuff You Missed in History Class

The evolution from leather-soled shoes of the 19th century to the sneakers people wear today started slowly, then built momentum. Many of the big names in sneakers today got their start surprisingly early in the process.
Research:

“A Column for the Girls.” Brooklyn Eagle. July 28, 1895. https://www.newspapers.com/image/50411759/?match=1&terms=%22sand%20shoes%22
Barrett, Jennifer. “The History of Adidas and Puma.” Newsweek. March 13, 2008. https://www.newsweek.com/history-adidas-and-puma-86373
Bisno, Adam. “The search for lost X-patents.” USPTO. July 13, 2022. https://www.uspto.gov/blog/the-search-for-lost-x
“Brand Story.” Dunlop. https://www.dunlopboots.com/why-dunlop/brand-story
Carpenter, Julia. “Adidas vs. Puma: The Family Rift That Shaped the Sportswear Industry.” History. May 6, 2026. https://www.history.com/articles/adidas-puma-rivalry-dassler
“Chuck Taylor Converse All Star: The Man Who Made the Shoe.” Indiana Historical Society. https://indianahistory.org/events/chuck-taylor-converse-all-star-the-man-who-made-the-shoe-2/
“The Company.” New Balance. https://www.newbalance.gr/en/etaireia/profil/?__cf_chl_f_tk=TZRFzU2s58Jw3z.lFjWqe.bQmjADyBkIMMpMI4v.Cuk-1783279660-1.0.1.1-sWRq2n.zJUdoWCA6sKXCjtDKIRGvxztpX5Rhq4MRJ4s
Cousens, Nico. “Inventions that made the modern running shoe.” Kilburn & Strode. April 17, 2018.
Cunliffe, Paul and Lauren Hirst. “Co-founder of £2.5bn brand started out as factory help.” BBC. Oct. 1, 2025. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp8jdlndg0xo
Department of Nike Archives. “From Waffle Iron to World Stage: The True Story of the Nike Moon Shoe.” Nike. Sept. 15, 2025. https://about.nike.com/en/magazine/nike-moon-shoe-waffle-iron-true-history
“Fashion Notes.” The Times-Union. July 22, 1882. https://www.newspapers.com/image/1275226621/?match=1&terms=%22lawn-tennis%20shoe%22
“The History of the Sneaker.” The Washington Post. May 14, 2002. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2002/05/14/the-history-of-the-sneaker/aa2096d1-a7e2-4427-a324-cb603512722d/
Hunt, Kristin. “11 Comfy Facts About Keds.” Mental Floss. March 26, 2022. https://www.mentalfloss.com/culture/fashion-beauty/11-comfy-facts-about-keds
“The Invention of the Iconic Vans Skateboarding Shoe.” The Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation.” https://invention.si.edu/invention-stories/invention-iconic-vans-skateboarding-shoe
“Journey of an Icon: The History of the Chuck Taylor All Star.” Nike. https://about.nike.com/en/magazine/converse-chuck-taylor-all-star-iconic-sneaker-true-history
Keller, Kate. “A Brief History of America’s Obsession With Sneakers.” Smithsonian. May 18, 2018. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/brief-history-americas-obsession-sneakers-180969116/
Lorge, Barry Steven, Aberdare, Morys George Lyndhurst Bruce, 4th Baron. "tennis". Encyclopedia Britannica, 16 Jun. 2026, https://www.britannica.com/sports/tennis
Lou, Michelle. “Nike’s rare ‘Moon Shoe’ is sold for $437,500, shattering the auction record for sneakers.” CNN. July 23, 2019. https://www.cnn.com/style/article/nike-moon-shoe-sold-auction-trnd
“Notice! Tennis Players!” Des Moines Register. June 8, 1888. https://www.newspapers.com/image/127760140/?match=1&terms=%22lawn-tennis%20shoe%22
“Off The Wall- Since 1966. The Story Of Vans.” Vans. https://www.vans.com/en-us/about#early-1970s
“Patent India Rubber or Gum Elastic Shoes.” Monmouth Democrat. January 22, 1835. https://www.newspapers.com/image/496911351/?match=2&terms=Wait%20Webster
“Peachtree Through the Years 1970-2021.” Atlanta Track Club. https://www.atlantatrackclub.org/event-information-history
“Plaint of an Old Shoe.” The Boston Globe. Aug. 23, 1894. https://www.newspapers.com/image/430680218/?match=1&terms=sneaker
“Plimsoll Draws the Line.” Nautilus International. April 24, 2026. https://www.nautilusint.org/en/news-insight/telegraph/plimsoll-draws-the-line/
“Puma and Adidas' rivalry has divided a small German town for 70 years — here's what it looks like now.” Business Insider. October 2018. https://www.businessinsider.com/how-puma-and-adidas-rivalry-divided-their-founding-town-for-70-years-2018-10
Rickey, Melanie. “Flash of Genius.” The Independent. June 28, 1996. https://www.the-independent.com/life-style/flash-of-genius-1339404.html
“Sneakers.” Record-Journal. Aug. 8, 1898. https://www.newspapers.com/image/674954692/?match=6&terms=sneaker
“Sneakers Latest in Women’s Wear.” The Battle Creek Enquirer. May 18, 1913. https://www.newspapers.com/image/1044420723/?match=1&terms=sneaker
“’Sneakers’ the Things.” L'abeille De La Nouvelle-Orléans (New Orleans Bee). Nov. 11, 1904. https://www.newspapers.com/image/1323250586/?match=1&terms=sneaker
“Sneakers – Worldwide.” Statista. https://www.statista.com/outlook/cmo/footwear/sneakers/worldwide
Sun, Michael. “‘Everyone owns at least one pair’: $75bn sneaker industry unboxed in Gold Coast exhibition.” The Guardian. Nov. 25, 2023. https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2023/nov/26/sneakers-unboxed-hota-shoe-exhibition-gold-coast-queensland-australia
Tikkanen, Amy. "history of sneakers". Encyclopedia Britannica, 14 Oct. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/topic/history-of-sneakers
Turner, Thomas. “The Production and Consumption of Lawn-Tennis Shoes in Late-Victorian Britain.” Journal of British Studies. JULY 2016, Vol. 55, No. 3 (JULY 2016), pp. 474-500. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/26598891
Turner, Thomas. “The Sports Shoe: A History from Field to Fashion.” Bloomsbury. 2019.
Umoh, Ruth. “Here’s how much Nike’s billionaire founder paid for the infamous swoosh logo in 1971.” CNBC. Sept. 5, 2018. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/05/heres-how-much-nikes-billionaire-founder-paid-for-its-swoosh-logo.html
“Value of the sneakers market worldwide from 2018 to 2030.” Statista. https://www.statista.com/forecasts/1017918/sneakers-market-value-forecast-worldwide/
“Where Basketball was Invented: The History of Basketball.” Springfield College. https://springfield.edu/about/birthplace-of-basketball
“40. For a method of attaching leather soles to boots and shoes of India rubber; Wait Webster, city of New York, May 21.” Journal of the Franklin Institute. Volume 14, Issue 6. 1832. Page 391. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0016-0032(32)90275-0.
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Charles Goodyear's work is important to so many things we have in the 21st century. But his life and his work to create a stable rubber was full of problems -- many of them caused by Goodyear himself.
Research:
Britannica Editors. "Charles Goodyear". Encyclopedia Britannica, 25 Dec. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-Goodyear
“Charles Goodyear.” Who Made America? PBS. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/theymadeamerica/whomade/goodyear_hi.html
“Charles Goodyear - Vulcanization of Rubber.” National Inventors Hall of Fame. https://www.invent.org/inductees/charles-goodyear
“Charles Goodyear - Vulcanized Rubber.” Lemelson-MIT. https://lemelson.mit.edu/resources/charles-goodyear
“Charles Goodyear and the Vulcanization of Rubber.” ConnecticutHistory.org. https://connecticuthistory.org/charles-goodyear-and-the-vulcanization-of-rubber/
“Charles Goodyear’s Machine for Making Rubber Fabrics.” ConnecticutHistory.org. https://connecticuthistory.org/charles-goodyears-machine-for-making-rubber-fabrics/
“Death of Charles Goodyear.” Carbondale Advantage. July 21, 1860. https://www.newspapers.com/image/638799032/?match=2&terms=%22charles%20goodyear%22
Goodyear, Charles. “Gum-elastic and its varieties : with a detailed account of its applications and uses, and of the discovery of vulcanization.” New Haven. Published for the Author. 1853. https://archive.org/details/gumelasticitsva121853good/
Goodyear, Charles. “IMPROVEMENT IN INDIA-RUBBER FABRICS.” United States Patent Office. June 15, 1844. https://web.archive.org/web/20150714081931/http://www.dpma.de/docs/service/klassifikationen/ipc/auto_ipc/us3633a.pdf
“Goodyear’s Gum Elastic Drapery and Parchment.” The Washington Union. May 4, 1837. https://www.newspapers.com/image/1038143941/?match=3&terms=%22charles%20goodyear%22%20mail
Iles, George. “Leading American Inventors.” H. Holt 1912. Accessed online: https://books.google.com/books?id=Hn0_AAAAIAAJ&source=gbs_navlinks_s
“India Rubber Fabric.” Daily Cleveland herald. October 10, 1835. https://www.newspapers.com/image/1073496245/?match=1&terms=%22Charles%20Goodyear%22
Slack, Charles. “Noble Obsession: Charles Goodyear, Thomas Hancock, and the Race to Unlock the Greatest Industrial Secret of the Nineteenth Century.” Hyperion. 2003.
Snow, Richard F. “Charles Goodyear.” American Heritage. April/May 1978. Vol. 29, Issue 3. https://www.americanheritage.com/charles-goodyear
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This 2022 episode covers the development of penicillin, which started – but definitely did not end – with the chance discovery of some mold in a petri dish.

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Tracy shares stories of her time in London. There is also a discussion of Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin’s marriage.
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After earning her first-class degree in chemistry from Oxford, Dorothy embarked on an impressive career in the new field of X-ray crystallography. She would ultimately earn many, many accolades for her work.
Research:
"Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin." Encyclopedia of World Biography Online, Gale, 1998. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints,
Biophysical Society. “Profiles in Biophysics: Dorothy Hodgkin.” 2016. https://www.biophysics.org/profiles/dorothy-hodgkin
Boon, Rachel. “Curator Rachel Boon celebrates the work of Dorothy Hodgkin.” Science Museum. 12/10/2014. https://blog.sciencemuseum.org.uk/celebrating-dorothy-hodgkin-britains-first-female-winner-of-a-nobel-science-prize/
Bragg, Sir William. “Concerning The Nature Of Things.” London. Bell & Sons. 1932. https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.222386/
Bud, Robert. "Discoverers and developers of penicillin (act. 1928–1950)." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. May 21, 2009. Oxford University Press. Date of access 22 Jun. 2026, https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-97279
Dodson, Guy. “Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin, O.M. 12 May 1910--29 July 1994.” Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society , Dec., 2002, Vol. 48 (Dec., 2002). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3650256
DOROTHY CROWFOOT HODGKIN. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach 2026. Wed. 24 Jun 2026. https://www.nobelprize.org/stories/women-who-changed-science/dorothy-hodgkin/
Ferry, Georgina. "Dorothy Hodgkin". Encyclopedia Britannica, 8 May. 2026, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Dorothy-Hodgkin. Accessed 24 June 2026.
Ferry, Georgina. "Hodgkin, Dorothy Mary Crowfoot (1910–1994), chemist and crystallographer." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. May 21, 2009. Oxford University Press. Date of access 22 Jun. 2026, https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-55028
Ferry, Georgina. “Dorothy Hodgkin: A Life.” Bloomsbury. 1998, 2014.
Ferry, Georgina. “Dorothy Hodgkin: on proteins and patterns.” The Lancet, 384, 1496-1497. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)61912-7/fulltext
Ferry, Georgina. “The making of an exceptional scientist.” Nature. Vol. 464. April 29, 2010.
Gamble, Jessa. “When Hodgkin met Thatcher.” Nature. Vol. 514. October 16, 2014.
Hodgkin, Dorothy Crowfoot. “The X-ray analysis of complicated molecules.” Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1964. https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/hodgkin-lecture-1.pdf
Hodgkin, Dorothy. “The Pugwash Movement.” India International Centre Quarterly. Vol. 13, No. 2. June 1986. Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23001474
Howard, Judith A.K. “Dorothy Hodgkin and her contributions to biochemistry.” Nature Reviews. Vol. 4. November 2003.
gale.com/apps/doc/K1631003072/GPS?u=mlin_n_melpub&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=8d7c4045. Accessed 23 June 2026.
Pearce, JMS. “Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin OM, FRS (1910-1994).” Hektoen International. https://hekint.org/2020/11/04/dorothy-crowfoot-hodgkin-om-frs-1910-1994/
Perutz, Max. “Dorothy Crowfoot ” The Independent. Via The Crystallographic Community. https://www.iucr.org/people/crystallographers/dorothy-crowfoot-hodgkin-by-m.f.-perutz
Pietzsch, Jochim. “Perspectives: Enhancing X-ray vision.” Nobel Prize. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/1964/perspectives/
Ramaseshan, S. “Dorothy Hodgkin and the Indian Connection.” Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London , Jan., 1996. http://www.jstor.com/stable/531845
Root-Bernstein, Robert. “Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin: Structure as Art.” Leonardo , 2007, Vol. 40, No. 3 (2007). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20206415
Science History Institute Museum and Library. “Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin.” https://www.sciencehistory.org/education/scientific-biographies/dorothy-crowfoot-hodgkin/
The Royal Society. “Dorothy Hodgkin FRS.” https://royalsociety.org/about-us/who-we-are/diversity-inclusion/case-studies/scientists-with-disabilities/dorothy-hodgkin/
“Science for peace Building cultures of cooperation and non-violence through scientific collaboration.” 2025. Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep73183.6
University of Oxford History of Science Museum. “Modelling the Structure of Penicillin.” https://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/backfromthedead/exhibition/the-structure-of-penicillin/index.html
Vijayan, M. “An outstanding scientist and great humanist: An obituary of Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin.” Current Science, 10 August 1994, Vol. 67, No. 3 (10 August 1994). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24095820
Wallace, Rob. “Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin: Captured by Crystals.” National World War II 3/16/2022. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/dorothy-hodgkin-penicillin-insulin
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