Tough As Old Boots a History Of Leather

Preserving and treating animal hides for practical use is one of the oldest procedures known to man. From the days when animal skins from hunting were used as clothing or draped over branches to keep out the cold, the process of tanning has evolved through necessity. It was quickly discovered that untreated animal skins became stiff and brittle with the cold weather and purified during the warmer days with the heat. It may have been at this time that the first crude methods of tanning were applied by rubbing animal fats into the hides in an attempt to make them more supple, flexible and help delay the purification of the skins.

A tanning process that was probably discovered by accident was formaldehyde tanning. Found in the smoke of burning green leaves, this method of tanning was likely stumbled upon by sitting round the evening campfires wrapped in animal skins. It also became apparent that rotting could be stopped or slowed by removing as much moisture as possible, whether by exposure to the sun or by salting the skins. Evidence shows that the tannin contained in the bark of some plants (vegetable tanning) was also used long ago, though it is not clear how they came to discover this method. In fact the word tanning is derived from the Latin tannare/tannum (oak bark).

These and other methods, which gradually became more evolved, have been used for century after century up to the present day. Evidence of these techniques are widespread, in Mesopotamia between 5000 BC. and 2000 BC., for example, the Sumerians used skins for dresses as well as to line chariot wheels, carrying water and for footwear. The Egyptians and Romans were also skillful leatherworkers, making clothes, shoes, tools, hardened leather for amour, leather harnesses, weapons or intricate ornaments. Further evidence of ancient leather tanning was the discovery of a tannery amid the ruins of Pompeii. By the fourteenth century, leather was being used decoratively with wood in chairs, chests, book bindings and furniture.     

The tanners of old were considered a dirty smelly lot, where they were most often relegated to the outskirts of towns amongst the poor, perhaps due to the common method of loosening the hair fibers by soaking the skin in urine. Off course large quantities of urine were sometimes required and it was not uncommon to see “piss pots” on street corners to be collected by locals for use by our esteemed tanners. After removing the hair, the skin was pounded with animal dung or soaked in mixture of animal brains. Children were often employed to collect dog or pigeon dung for use in this process. Scraps of hide leftover would be placed in a vat with water and left to rot for months. This putrefied mess would then be boiled down to reduce the water content to make glue!

With a combination of urine, putrefying flesh, dung and brains as tools of the trade, it’s understandable why the tanner’s profession was held in such low regard. The middle of the last century led to a huge improvement in the tanning procedure with the discovery of chrome salts and new types of tannins. These new materials dramatically shortened the time taken to produce leather from as long as 12 months to as little as a few days.

Modern tanning uses different methods during the tanning process yet the basic steps remain the same. From bullwhips to briefcases, leather armour to leather wallets, and everything in between, these and many other tanning methods have evolved over thousands of years, shifting from the practical uses of the past, to the modern day luxury leather market of high fashion.