This article examines how shoe leather—the primary material used in the shoe manufacturing industry—was supplied and distributed to shoemakers in eighteenth-century Istanbul, and what roles long-distance merchants and urban wholesalers played in that process. Based primarily on Istanbul court registers, it clarifies the following points: 1) the production areas and supply volume of shoe leather and the methods of supply and distribution; 2) the residential locations of long-distance merchants in Istanbul and their stock and goods; 3) the organization, institutions, and officers of the shoe leather merchants’ guild; and 4) shoe leather merchants’ relationships with long-distance merchants and shoemakers. In addition, the shoe leather shortage in the late eighteenth century and the anti-monopoly order of 1789 are examined.

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