which is the biggest shoe manufacturing / importing/ exporting country in the world?

Answer 1

The Endicott Johnson Shoe Company ("E-J") was a prosperous manufacturer of shoes based in New York's Southern Tier, with factories mostly located in the area's Triple Cities of Binghamton, Johnson City, and Endicott. An estimated 20,000 people worked in the company's factories by the 1920s, and an even greated number worked there during the war-aided boom years of the mid-1940s when it was producing 52 million pairs of shoes a year. During the early 1950s the work force was still approximately 17,000 to 18,000. Today, EJ Footwear, LLC operates as a unit of Nelsonville, Ohio-based Rocky Shoes & Boots, Inc.

History

[edit] Founding

The Endicott Johnson Corporation grew out of the Lester Brothers Boot and Shoe Company which began in Binghamton in 1854. In 1890 the Lester Brothers moved their business west to a nearby rural area which in 1892 was incorporated as the Village of Lestershire and in 1916 became Johnson City. Financial problems in 1890 forced the sale of the company to a creditor and fellow shoemaker, Henry B. Endicott of Massachusetts, who in 1899 made factory foreman George F. Johnson his partner.

[edit] George F. and the Square Deal

The E-J story is dominated by George F. Johnson (1857–1948), or George F as he was popularly called, who rose through the shoe factory ranks to become the half-owner of E-J, and its highest executive until his death in 1948.

George F's reign was dominated by his Square Deal version of welfare capitalism that, like progressive movements of the early twentieth century advocated providing parades and churches and libraries to "uplift" workers. George F's Square Deal consisted of worker benefits even in harsh economic times that were generous and innovative for their time, but also meant to engender worker loyalty and discourage unionizing.

For workers, the Square Deal consisted of a chance to buy E-J built and E-J financed homes, a profit sharing program, health care from factory-funded medical facilities and later (built in 1949) two worker recreational facilities. But the Square Deal was more than an employee benefit program. E-J and the Johnson family also provided or helped to finance two libraries, theaters, a golf course, swimming pools, carousels, parks and food markets, many of which were available to the community without charge. Reminders of the source of that generosity were inescapable. For example:

* Endicott, a planned community incorporated in 1906, was named after Henry B. Endicott who owned the business that became E-J, and Lestershire was renamed Johnson City, New York in honor of George F.
* The entrance to Johnson City on Main Street from Binghamton is marked with a stone arch embossed with Home of the Square Deal. There is a corresponding arch on the other end of Main Street that serves as the entrance to Endicott. E-J workers paid for and erected these arches. Both arches were dedicated on September 6, 1920.
* One of the E-J swimming pools was shaped in the outline of a gigantic shoe sole.
* The Triple Cities contain a number of statues of the Johnson family, including Johnson City's statute of Harry L. Johnson (the youngest brother to George F.), and Binghamton's statute of George F. Johnson in the George F. Johnson Recreation Park, and, also in Recreation Park, the Harry L. Johnson memorial.
* Endicott had En-Joie Park (with E and the J capitalized to invoke E-J)
* Various roads and bridges refer to the Johnsons, including CFJ Boulevard in Johnson City, and the C. Fred Johnson Bridge over the Susquehanna River (part of Expressway Route 201) which was named in honor of Charles F. Johnson (the youngest brother of George F.)
* The word Ideal appeared in many places, and among other things referred to E-J's first (1901) factory in Endicott, Endicott's Ideal Home Library (contributed to Endicott by George F) and Endicott's Ideal Race Track Park Stables (maintained by E-J, according to a period postcard).

The use of repetitions and iterations of "ideal," "En-Joie," and other words (such as "Endwell" used for both a line of E-J shoes, and later in the renaming of the hamlet of Hooper to Endwell, New York) were part of E-J's ongoing public relations campaign to discourage unionizing by convincing workers that E-J's Square Deal was the "ideal" relationship between capital and labor. But the campaign also created a cult of personality about Johnson family which is reflected, as examples:

* in the inscription in the Harry L. Johnson memorial which states "This Fountain Was Given By The School Children In Memory Of Their Friend Harry L. Johnson MCMXXII;" and
* in the inscription accompanying a statute of George F. Johnson which states "Have Faith In The People. George F. Johnson. Erected By An Appreciative Community To The Nobility Of His Character And His Great Benefactions To The People. 1923. Labor Is Honorable."

Answer 2

China for sure.

Answer 3

My guess is China.

Answer 4

bata