The author, William H. Dooley, the Principal of the Lowell Industrial School, was asked in 1908 by the Lynn Commission on Industrial Education to make an investigation of European shoe schools and to assist the Commission in preparing a course of study for the proposed shoe school in the American city of Lynn. A close investigation showed that there were several textbooks on shoemaking published in Europe, but that no general textbook on shoemaking had been issued in this country adapted to meet the needs of industrial, trade, and commercial schools or those who have just entered the rubber, shoe, and leather trades. This book was thus written to serve this need.