History of American Industries since Columbus - The Development of Shoes and Leather-Making Industry

Thus it was that leather became more and more an article of general use, and thus it was that by the time Columbus started on his hazardous voyages there had already grown up a considerable industry in England, France, Spain, Germany, and Russia. But despite all this growth the processes involved in the operation of tanning were not really understood until the close of the eighteenth century, when they became objects of scientific study.
Before that time the art was purely an empirical one. The immediate successors of Columbus brought with them to America such crude knowledge of it as was current at the time....