18
ème – 19 ème
Walking stick in Paris
The main production of luxury items is based
in Paris. The manufacture ( like the knives’ ) is divided in different
trade associations. Manufacturers of walking sticks do not really exist.
In the 18th century, the wood turners supply shafts and sticks
that manufactures, goldsmiths, porcelain makers embellish with ivory,
gold, silver knobs. Haberdashers sell the walking sticks. It is only in
the 19th century that this instrument knows a real infatuation,
spread over middle class where it became an essential accessory in the
men’s suit.
1.
Thus appeared "living a stick in hand", a upper class expression, that means somebody having a walk and no use in earning his living. Its carriage and its nature tell a lot about its owner: there is the "farmer", the "coachman" , the "ruthless", the "harmonic", the "rustic"…2
"The smart sets stones on it, the noisy a foil, the old man a crow crutch, the investor a black horn and a leader hat to stun whoever would brush up his moustache." 3
The Golden Age of the Walking Stick, usually situated between 1830 to 1920, obviously created an industrial development. Paris remains one of the biggest centre of production and commercialisation.
C. DYKE mentions for 1817, 165 stick producers in Paris , employing 962 workers.4 However it is extremely difficult to make allowance for so-called merchants and manufactures. Most of epoch books gather them under same headings.
From the 19th century, the walking stick, like the umbrella used more commonly, is sold in specialised shop (VERDIER firm, Richelieu street, ANTOINE firm Palais Royal)
Around 1860, there was nearly 250 merchants of all kinds of sticks, from luxury to whip sticks. Some wholesalers, mainly gathered in Saint Martin, Saint Denis and Saint Sauver areas, manufacture or prepare raw materials.
In 1848, 78 names of "manufacturers and merchants of sticks" are referenced into Didot Boti pages. 14 of them are manufacturers of sticks and/or umbrellas. To this number, we may add 7 "embellishers of sticks": producers of gold and silver knobs, collar and al types of ornaments 50 years later, numbers have not a lot evolved, but more and more manufactures put up a speciality of system walking sticks such as umbrella, armed sticks without forgetting gun-sticks which belong to a special section. Thirty suppliers stock manufacturers with a variety of wood ( rush, rattan, bamboo, woods from islands ), varnish, acorns…
The Universal Exhibition of 1878 reports 1200 workers, men, women, children working in Paris in the manufacture of sticks, whips and riding whips.
Paris exports to the whole world, mainly to Southern America and in the West Indies. However the manufacturers from Paris have suffered from English and German competitors ( London, Hamburg, Vienna, Berlin ) who supply cheapest products. Indeed these countries benefit from an exemption of rights on importation of bamboo, rush, rattan. Besides, they knew how to mechanise their production faster than in France.
In England, the steam engine is used to curve the wood in 1830. Mickael Thonet from Vienna, creator of the famous chair, as done his first tries on walking sticks in 1832. The mechanical machine to curve wood has been invented around 1844. Since 1878, a new French method was elaborated to put up, prepare the wood for walking sticks and umbrella sticks from the plantation. It consists in giving, on the tree itself, to the branches meant to this use, all the wanted shapes, lines and curves. This phase is carried out during the rising of the sap. Thus the foresters of Maule, between Versailles and Mantes specialise themselves in the production of trees for walking sticks ( ashes, service trees, dogwoods, maple trees, oaks, chestnuts..) The fun and luxury walking stick remains the prerogative of inhabitants in Paris.
When does the manufacture of the walking stick settle in the provinces? 6Do we have to talk about the decade 1860-1870 when the umbrella field where cheaper labour force research for ordinary products leads to a transfer toward cities of provinces such as Aurillac, Toulouse, Nantes, Bordeaux.? The researches that we have been in charge of, could not answer to our question. If you have some elements to communicate us, please contact us by E-mail :jl@cannes-fayet.com
