Are Clogs a Foot Healthy Choice? Please Suggest

Alan Gloud here (those name generators are hilarious) has started another clog spam thread, since this one didn't pan out.

Oh well....he's missing out on a good bit of informative chit chat.

My Nan, as a girl, worked in one of the Lancashire Cotton Mills and every one of the factory girls wore clogs.
The factory clog had a wooden sole, as opposed to the "irons" worn by outdoor workers.

Wooden soles didn't spark. Some of those old Cotton Mills were full of fibrous dust, and a simple spark could cause a major fire.

Here is a photo of a factory in Burnley at around that time......if you look closely at the women in the front, you can just about make out their clogs.


Also, in the background, there are some paper Christmas decorations. That big fold out origami type bell (just behind the tall lad in the middle with the flat cap) is identical to the Christmas decs from my childhood.

Like my Nan used to say "If things don't change, they'll remain the same."

When I was about eleven and we lived in Evanston, Illinois, some fellow from (I think) the Netherlands showed up in our local department store, Wieboldt's, carving wooden clogs at a display table. I watched for a while. A fairly large photo of me watching him and the clogs showed up soon in the Evanston Review weekly newspaper. Alas, I didn't save the photo since I thought it was an awful one of me. Probably a bad hair day.

That reminds me of a Jumble Sale at my Dad's Fire Station once, when I was eleven.
Even though it was a Saturday, my Mum insisted I wore my brand new school uniform, as I was the first in my family to make it to a Grammar School. I argued and huffed, but in the end she won and I spent the morning mortified and hiding myself away from the world as much as possible.
Suddenly, I was dragged out and made to stand by a pile of toys while a local paper took my picture.
I didn't show my face in the neighbourhood for a few days after that edition came out. Never been so embarrassed.


Years later, when sorting out my Mum's stuff after she'd died, I found the page with my photo on, neatly folded up in the bottom compartment of her jewellery box.

Aw...

Re my situation, I forgot to mention I was wearing the horrible plaid winter coat.

I love stuff like that. We had a photograph of my maternal grandmother from 1917, and she was truly a beautiful woman. I was supposed to get that as my only legacy from her (she raised me), but my sister, the domineering control-freak, took it, saying she knew nothing about it. I can still clearly see the image in my mind, though.

She and my grandfather met in 1919, both of them working in an impromptu hospital for victims of the Spanish flu epidemic.

Clogs were for poor people.
Historically first mentioned clogs are from 1496 and were made by a Danish clog maker.
Probably existed in the Netherlands since around 1250.

And now for another clog dance interlude, this time from America.

What I love about this video is the way it so easily captures a more innocent time.

thats why you dont see floors in any old Appalachian farmhouses, they all been stomped into the basement.

I love the way that the hat was swinging on the peg. The whole house must have been swaying.

In 19th century France, workers used to throw their "sabots" (clogs) in the machines to break them = sabotage.
This and more @ Europen Wooden Shoes - Their history and diversity (pdf)

Here, in Westphalia, was a similar large wooden shoes 'industry' as in the Netherlands. (As a child, I remember that there were still about 10 wooden shoemakers in my native town and surrounding villages.)
The oldest (known) picture of a Westpahlian wooden shoe is on the altar triptych (1475) in the Propsteikirche in Dortmund (by Derick Baegert [ca. 1440 - after 1515] a German late Gothic painter).

This is one of the variations of clog dance from here (Westphalia)

How do I get this video to show?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqVYHmlWW8A

From Sigrid Rudebecks school in Gothenburg where they also teach the young people folk dancing.

You mean this one?

Lasses from Cheshire......

You put [youtube]

right in front of it and

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right in back of it

yes thank you

Thank you - I have copied from the wrong place.

Not always and/or not everywhere.

In the ruins of this noble house ...

Pesch in the Codex Welser, 1723

... archaeologists found these nice clogs (dated around 1600)

All this reminds me of my Evanston years. That's adjacent to Chicago; I was in a Catholic elementary school. We learned to square dance. Square dance?

Let me guess - it was fairly safe to teach eleven or twelve year olds, in contraindication to slow dancing.