Very few boots, and even fewer shoes are still made in the US. The EPA has been death on tanneries, so there are only a tiny fraction of the ones around just 30 years ago, which means hides often have to be imported. Most of the manufacturing is in the far east, which means all the machinery and component makers are now there, which means even simple things like eyelets, linings, and specialty threads now have to be imported to the US. This is how the Red Wing recall came about - one of their overseas steel toe suppliers simply scaled up their design into larger sizes (the recall affects only size 13 and up) failing to take into account the engineering requirement that longer spans require greater strength.
Contrary to the assertion above, Red Wing does still make boots here in the US - most of them, in fact; but see the caveat below. Wolverine makes just a few (including some of the product under the Hytest and Bates labels), as does Justin, but not many, really. Carolina Boot has a fair number of US made styles, and all Chippawa label boots are US made. Mason shoe (remember them?) is still around, but has a different name. Oh, and Herman Survivors quality has not deteriorated, it has simply ceased to be: "Herman Survivors" is merely a label that belongs to Wal-Mart. They will be as good or bad as Wal-Mart chooses at any given time.
Here is where it gets tricky - a shoe can be labeled US made, but actually be stitched together elsewhere and merely assembled here. Virtually any work boot under $150 retail today labeled "Made in USA" is done that way.
I have been selling shoes since the 60's (oh my, can that be possible?), and can say from experience that quality has NOT gone downhill. What has changed are customer requirements. It is very difficult to sell solid, well made, heavy duty boots to customers raised on athletic footwear. They want no break-in, no stiffness, flexibility, light weight; and the manufacturers make what the customer wants. All desirable, of course, but not conducive to long wear in tough environments. You also give up the support that allows you to work for eight, ten, twelve hours without severe foot, ankle, and back strain. And years ago people were convinced they needed replaceable insoles, so now more and more boots have replaceable "footbeds", which have to be purchased at exorbitant markup every six months or so - and it was the customers that demanded this! I saw it happen in real time.
I was not familiar with Wesco. Looking at their site, their prices seem very reasonable for what they are offering. That is serious product.
.Welcome to the show, BTW...
