This photograph is from 1880. Take a close look at the woman's right, unshod and unwrapped foot and compare it with her left foot. Notice the vast difference in heel-to-toe length. What is the shoe doing to the foot?

Source: Dorothy Ko, Every Step a Lotus: Shoes for Bound Feet (Toronto: The Bata Shoe Museum; distributed by the University of California Press, 2001), p. 68. Original source: Dennis G. Crow Ltd., Historic Photographs of Hong Kong, Canton, and Macao, p. 57.

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