American Leather Manufacturing and the Motorcycle Gear Industry: A Production History

Introduction

At the peak of the American tanning industry in the 1880s, the United States operated over 4,000 tanneries — concentrated in Pennsylvania's hemlock forests, the Hudson Valley of New York, the Cincinnati area, and pockets of New England — and produced more leather annually than any other nation on earth. The leather goods that equipped American soldiers in two World Wars, protected American workers in every industrial trade, and dressed American riders on every motorcycle produced from the 1900s through the 1960s flowed from this industrial system. By 2020, fewer than 50 commercially significant tanneries remained in operation in the United States.

Conclusion

The history of American leather manufacturing is, in its most important dimension, the history of an industrial capacity that was built over a century, sustained through two World Wars, and dismantled over fifty years by the combined forces of environmental regulation compliance costs and global manufacturing competition.