Circa 1850 one branch of my family, who had been bootmakers for at least 4 generations in a small town in Scotland, in the course of a few years had all their c

Circa 1850 one branch of my family, who had been bootmakers for at least 4 generations in a small town in Scotland, in the course of a few years had all their children leave for the big city, with my ancestor running a coffee shop. This lines up with what I've read about mechanisation hitting the shoe industry. In the early 1900s, my great-great-grandfather's orange sorting machine was the talk of the town: there was an article in the local paper welcoming anyone interested to visit for a look.