About Converse
Converse Inc. is the largest manufacturer of athletic footwear in the United States, producing approximately 8.4 million pairs of shoes domestically in 1998. It owns and operates a manufacturing facility in Lumberton, North Carolina, where it produces the majority of its athletic originals, and leases manufacturing plants in Mission, Texas and Reynosa, Mexico.
Along with apple pie, Converse and its shoes are as much a part of America as Coca-Cola. On the face of it, it’s hard to see why Converse misses the Big Players Chapter, but you need to remember that is a global tale. This is not to say that Converse is not a vitally important company in sneaker history. Its most famous shoes can be seen all over the world, and the All Star (the biggest selling sneaker of all time) and the Jack Purcell were the first sneakers to pass into the leisure and fashion worlds.
The story of this grand old company begins back in 1908 in the State of Massachusetts. It was in this year that the New Hamsphire-born Marquis Mills Converse founded the Converse Rubber Shoe Company. Mr Converse was quick to latch onto the potential of the rapidly growing rubber shoe industry after having worked at the local Beacon Falls Rubber Shoe store. Within two years of establishment, Converse had 350 employees producing tough, rubber-sole, protective footwear under brand names including 'Tuff-e-nuff rubbers'. It was at about this time that the company made the fatal mistake of diversifying into other rubber markets, when it branched into making rubber tryes.
Contrary to popular legend, Converse was not the founding father of the sneaker/trainer industry, even though it was involved in its infancy. The Converse Company was launched at a time when basketball was, although a minority interest, growing in popularity at an astonishing rate. Basketball players were beginning to utilize rubber-soled leisure or deck shoes, and so Converse diversified away from its main interest in industrial shoes and began to produce shoes for this relatively new sport.