The United Shoe Machinery Company was founded upon the 1899 merger of the Goodyear Machinery Company, Consolidated and McKay Lasting Machine Company, and McKay Shoe Machinery Company. The company grew quickly from its inception. In its heyday, the company employed 9,000 people and manufactured eighty-five percent of shoe making machinery in the United States. Of these two prints, one shows an assembly line using United Shoe Machinery Corporation equipment, while the other shows a worker demonstrating a United Shoe Machinery Company machine.