ABSTRACT
By 1914, a great change had occurred both in the size and the character of the American leather business. The central feature was now the Surpass Leather Company, with its headquarters located in the offices of Booth and Company, New York, and its allied concerns in glue and felt. When the War broke out in 1914, however, the Booth Steamship Company owned one of Liverpool's biggest lines and was a major element in the shipping trade to South America; at the same date, the other subsidiary, the Surpass Leather Company, had become an important unit in the American leather industry. With Alfred Booth's withdrawal from active participation in the business, and the death of Thomas Fletcher in 1896, the period is closely associated with the leadership of Charles Booth. The decline in the older aspects of the business was more than counter-balanced by the enormous expansion of Alfred Booth and Company's interest in the production of kid leather.
