This is an IHeart podcast.

This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people.

And to search for The Our American Stories podcast, go to the Iheart Radio app or wherever

you get your podcast.

Up next, we'll take a journey through American history through the sneaker.

Nicholas Smith, author of Kix,

the great American story of sneakers,

joins us with a story.

This isn't necessarily a story about,

it is a history about sneakers, of course,

but it's also a history about business, fashion,

the 20th century, all of these historical events, sports, of course, business, marketing,

all of that, you know, there's a way into it if you look at it through the lens of the sneaker.

Sneakers, as we know and recognize them today, they can be traced back almost to the beginning

of the Industrial Revolution.

So all throughout the 1800s, you kind of have these types of shoes that are very reminiscent

of what the sneaker will become.

You know, during the Industrial Revolution, this is when a lot of people in England, especially,

you know, went to work in factories.

And, you know, as anyone who probably worked in a factory knows, at some point you have to

rest the machines and repair them and, you know, do these types of things.

So this was kind of a very unique time in labor where the workers had, you know, do these types of things. So this was kind of a very unique time in labor where the

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