Interesting, I did not know they were old-fashioned. I buy cedar shoe trees for my husband's expensive leather dress shoes. The shoe trees are great - they absorb sweat and odor and keep the shape of the shoe nice, so when he tosses them into the closet all willy-nilly, they don't get mashed.

we used to have some like that. You adjust the length, and "snap " them in place by straightening them out in the shoe. There should be some tension, you might have to fiddle with it to find the right length.

i have some wooden ones that are split in the middle. you twist the handle to widen them.

Shoe trees - when your shoes get wet from rain or snow these will keep the shape until they dry.

These are shoe stretchers.

They are shoe trees, I used them on my military oxfords back in the 60-70's.

They look like shoe stretchers :).

The little pegs coming out of the holes can be depressed and moved to shorten or lengthen the stretcher. They're great when you get shoes wet in snow or rain, these let the shoes dry out without shriveling up (back when all shoes were leather).

Funny that someone put shoe stretchers in a sewing cabinet.

They look like some shoe stretchers I got in Germany, when I was a student in Heidelberg. My shoes really took a beating on those brick-paved streets, so I thought they'd help to preserve the shape of the shoes. No such luck.