David Nelson

David Nelson and his family have a lot of deep ties to the shoe industry here in Lewiston-Auburn. He was born in Lewiston and has lived in Auburn for his entire life, during which he recounts the urban renewal of the 1960s and the changes to the town that came with it. He also has a lot of details on the shoe industry thanks to the family business of the die machinery. The business was reliant on the presence of the shoe manufacturers, which used the dies created by his business to create patterns for shoes. The die functions as a ‘cookie cutter’ piece for the patterns used by shoes, but in later years he also mentions selling dies to glove manufacturers as well as handbags, puzzles and others. David goes into a lot of details about what the die process involved, as well as the impact the machines changing over the years had on both his business and the shoe businesses that he used to work with.