Reebok (Background)

In 1890 in Holcombe Brook, a small village in England, Joseph William Foster was making a living producing regular running shoes when he came up with the idea to create a novelty spiked running shoe. After his ideas progressed he joined with his sons, and founded a shoe company named J.W. Foster and Sons in 1895.

In 1960, two of the founder's grandsons named the company Reebok. The name comes from the African word rhebok a type of antelope. They continued to manufacture shoes and eventually in 1979, Paul Fireman, a US sporting goods distributor, saw a pair of Reeboks at an international trade show and negotiated to sell them in North America.