Why an industry moves from one area to another in the wake of developing markets, labor availability, or changes in technology is rarely seen more plainly than in the record of the leather and leather products industry. This is one of the "slow growth" industries whose regional changes over time are analyzed in a recently published RFF study.
Basically, the shifts of the leather and leather products industry since 1939 have gone in two divergent directions. Shoemaking has followed the common path westward. Even before this the stimulus of new pulls—the introduction of machinery to replace skilled labor, the advantage of closeness to terminal markets—had attracted a part of the industry out of New England to the Middle Atlantic states and then to the Great Lakes states. The trend west by now has continued into Texas and California.
But accompanying the westward trek of the shoemakers there has been a reverse shift eastward in leather tanning and light leather goods production. A large part of this type of production has moved back into areas which once were known for the volume of their tanning operations but which later were abandoned in favor of areas close to Middle Western stockyards.
"As there is substantial weight loss in the processing of hides, the tanning industry is oriented to the sources of leather inputs. This form of orientation has not always been prevalent. In earlier days the weight of the bark used in tanning was five times the weight of the product and two and a half times the weight of the hide. Production was carried on close to the forests in the East. The development of concentrated and inorganic tanning which diminished the importance of transporting bark, plus the development of large-scale meat packing in the Midwest, caused a widespread migration to the Great Lakes states. Only the light leathers based upon imported hides retained much activity on the Eastern Seaboard.
"In our current period the trend is reversing itself, and there is a shift back to the Eastern Seaboard. As before, the reason is a change in the access to materials. The demand for leather has come to exceed the supplies that develop as a by-product of meat packing. As a consequence, a larger share of the leather output is based upon imported hides; hence the decline in the Great Lakes states and the expansion in the Middle Atlantic states."
From Regions, Resources, and Economic Growth, by Harvey S. Perloff, Edgar S. Dunn, Jr., Eric E. Lampard, and Richard F. Muth, published for RFF by The Johns Hopkins Press, 1960.
One of the great scientific breakthroughs of my time has to do with an interrelated complex, with genetics, with nutrition, and with the related biochemical sciences which deal with plant and animal growth and health. These are agriculture's new multipliers, which make it possible for farmers to produce more and more end-use product with less and less labor and, relatively speaking, less and less land. —Oris V. Wells
A version of this article appeared in print in the June 1961 issue of Resources magazine.
