high button shoe

English

A woman putting on high button shoes (1901).

Noun

high button shoe (plural high button shoes)

1. (historical) An ankle boot fastened by a row of buttons (in fashion from the late 19th to mid-20th century).
   • 1939, John Steinbeck, chapter 6, in The Grapes of Wrath‎^[1], New York: Viking, published 1958, page 56:

     A bed slat leaning against the wall, and in one corner a woman’s high button shoe, curled up at the toe and broken over the instep.

   • 1971, Mordecai Richler, St. Urbain’s Horseman‎^[2], New York: Knopf, Part 4, Chapter 19, p. 429:

     She protested she could not read for a part which obliged her to appear in no more than a bra, a corset, and high-button shoes.