Tanneries formed one of the principal foundations of Machghara’s economic and social history. Leather processing was not an isolated craft; it employed many residents, sustained an active local market, and helped create a visible working class within the town.
Nasri Sayegh recounts that Machghara’s tanning industry reached a level that attracted attention in the French press and was not confined to the town itself. Its branches or commercial reach extended to Damascus, Palestine before the occupation, Iraq, and Jordan, giving the industry a cross-border dimension.
The tanneries required inherited skills, organised labour, raw-material management, and trade networks. Families, workshop owners, and workers built professional experience around them, while the industry helped Machghara attract labour and commerce rather than depend exclusively on outward migration.
Industrial activity also produced a working-class culture and demands concerning wages and conditions. Forms of political and labour organisation emerged from this environment, while May Day became part of the remembered relationship between workers and tannery owners.
The source does not identify one precise foundation or peak year, so 1940 is used as an approximate marker for a mid-twentieth-century period of prosperity. The names of individual tanneries, their owners, factory photographs, and surviving products deserve a dedicated archival project.