There’s a saying that tells us we should walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. It’s a reminder we should practice empathy and try to understand people before we cast judgement.

As it happens, this expression is right on the mark because it seems when we use shoes as historical objects, we can learn a LOT about people and their everyday lives and actions.

Kimberly Alexander, museum specialist, lecturer at the University of New Hampshire, and author of Treasures Afoot: Shoe Stories from the Georgian Era, joins us to help us better understand shoes and what they can tell us about the everyday lives of early Americans.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/244

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Complementary Episodes

• Episode 024: Kimberly Alexander: Eighteenth-Century Fashion & Material Culture
• Episode 084: Zara Anishanslin, How Historians Read Historical Sources
• Episode 153: Committees and Congresses: Governments of the American Revolution
• Episode 160: The Politics of Tea
• Episode 201: Catherine E. Kelly, Art, Politics, and Everyday Life in Early America
• Episode 209: Considering Biography

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