Jack Purcell - Rubber Company Sneaker History

A great article about the history sneakers versus tennis shoes, etc. Jack Purcell's were originally a tough utilitarian rubber company sneaker. Part of the article below and HERE at BrandlandUSA

The B.F. Goodrich rubber shoes were some of the great tire/rubber company shoe brands. But they weren’t the only ones. In fact, in consumers’ minds, there was a vast difference between sneakers and tennis shoes and regular shoes. Regular shoes were about style only; sneakers were about style AND performance, which hooked in with tire company brand heritage.
A few of the tire/rubber brand shoes.

B. F. Goodrich not only made Jack Purcell tennis shoes, but they made SeaVees, a sort of rubber soled canvas Top-Sider, and PF Flyers.

United States Rubber, later UniRoyal, made Keds. Keds is now part of Stride Rite, and they are doing fascinating things with the brand, including this recent photo shoot with a very 1970s Ford Country Squire station wagon. Quite strange to have a station wagon that was in my childhood be seen as vintage, but time does that.

Firestone had a whole line of its brand of shoes; the performance of the rubber in the shoes matched consumers’ ideals of the performance of the rubber in tires. Even in the 1920s, it was a major force in sportswear.

Dunlop Footwear, a spin off of well known Dunlop performance tires, is still a major sportswear brand, especially in former countries of the British Empire, including Australia, where Evonne Goolagong and Margaret Court wore the shoes, true tennis shoes. The tire company Dunlop is part of Goodyear. The roots of the company are in Dublin, Ireland with John Boyd Dunlop’s Dunlop Pneumatic Tire Company, which was originally about bike tires. It has a true Victorian feel, as Dunlop was founded in 1889 at the height of Victoria’s power.