This week’s “Museum Feature of the Week”, is a Child Wooden Shoe. At the end of WWII Europeans were desperate for necessities. The donor traded a pair of dungarees for the shoes with a woman on the beach in France in 1945.
Wooden Clogs can be dated back to Europe in the1300s. Most commonly worn by peasants and the lower class, the common assumption that they are uncomfortable is false. Made correctly and when used for the proper size, wooden clogs we actually a desired shoe by farmers for their comfort and durability. By the 1400s wooden clogs became, “in-fashion” and demand increased. Later, wooden shoes were resorted to only during times of limited supplies for leather shoes such as WWI and WWII.
