The Original Sock Monkey was a 1930's toy made from socks with a red heel called "Rockfords". Moms would fashion and stuff these socks in the likeness of a monkey. During the Great Depression, American mothers first made sock monkeys out of worn-out Rockford Red Heel Socks. Sock Monkeys are a fixture of folk art and kitsch in America.
John Nelson, a Swedish immigrant to the United States, patented the sock-knitting machine in 1869, and began manufacturing work socks in Rockford, Illinois in 1890.
The iconic sock monkeys made from red-heeled socks emerged at the earliest in 1932, the year the Nelson Knitting Company added the trademarked red heel to its product. In the early years. Nelson Knitting was an innovator in the mass market work sock field, creating a loom that enabled socks to be manufactured without seams in the heel.
These seamless work socks were so popular that the market was soon flooded with imitators, and socks of this type were known under the generic term "Rockfords". Nelson Knitting added the red heel to assure its customers that they were buying "original Rockfords".
This red heel gave the monkeys their distinctive mouth.
Original Sock Monkey 3609121
