Collections

Ideal Baby Shoes

Baby Boots, Pink
ca. 1920, purchase possibly in Omaha, Nebraska
Dimensions: 5”x 2 ½” x 4 ¼”
Accession #: 2021.5a and 5b

Baby Shoes, Sample # 449, Last 44
1945, purchased in Pittsburgh, PA
Dimensions: 5 ½” x 2 ½”, Size 5 ½”
Accession #: 2020.11.2A and 2B

Moccasin Baby Shoes, Sample # 47
1942, Danvers, Massachusetts
Dimensions:4 ½” x 2 ½”, Size 3
Accession #: 2000.4.1 A and 1B

Boots, Baby Shoes, Sample # 2548
c. 1940s, Danvers, Massachusetts
Dimensions: 5” x 2”, Size 4
Accession #: 81.2026A and B

Baby Shoes, (white with pink flowers)
Dimensions: 3 ½” x 1 ¾”
Accession #: 2005.2.2A and 2B

Baby Shoes (Gold satin )
Dimensions: 4 ¼” x 1 ¾”
Accession#: 2005.2.1A and 1B

Baby shoes (Yellow with pink flowers)
Dimensions: 4 ⅜” x 1 ¾”, Size 1
Accession #: 2020.32.7A and 7B

Baby Shoes, (New born infant size- blue part of collection of Frances Pendleton)
1950s, Danvers, Massachusetts
Dimensions: 3” x 1 ⅗”
Accession#: 2020.8.2B and 2C

These baby shoes made in the 1940s and 1950s illustrate the variety of styles and sizes of baby shoes designed and made at Mrs. Day’s Ideal Baby Shoe Company, Danvers, Massachusetts. Mrs. Adra Day began making baby shoes from leather scraps in the early 1900s. By the 1920s Mrs. Day’s Ideal Baby Shoes were sold all over the United States. Her business grew from a ten-footer shoe shop with a small group of women making the shoes to a huge factory built by the 1940s.