Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) a shoe, esp. a stout, coarse shoe (often as issued to US prisoners).

1821		N-Y Eve. Post 24 may 1/2: [advert] Spofford Tileston & Co [...] off for ale a alrge and general arrotment of Shoes and Boots, as follows, viz. — [...] 500 do stout brogans.
1843		‘Madison Tensas’ Louisiana ‘Swamp Doctor’ (1850) 52: She tuk off her shoe, and the way a number ten go-to-meetin’ brogan commenced givin’ a hoss particular Moses, were a caution to hoss-flesh.
1853		Bell’s Life in Sydney 29 Jan. 3/1: Heavy Wet [...] gave Denny a kick in the bread-basket with his left brogan.
1856		M. Griffith Autobiog. of a Female Slave 168: He gave me a violent kick in the side with his rough brogan.
1864		‘Edmund Kirke’ Down in Tennessee 18: The coarse brogans that encased his feet.
1883		Sweet & Knox On a Mexican Mustang, Through Texas 457: Sockless feet, incased in broken-down brogans.
1896		Regiment 12 Sept. 359/3: [A] civilian can engage the services of a cobbler to perform exactly the same reconstruction of brogans for 2s. 6d.
1898		J. Thorp ‘Little Joe, the Wrangler’ in G. Logsdon Whorehouse Bells Were Ringing (1995) 35: With his brogan shoes and overalls a tougher looking kid / You never in your life before had saw.
1903		J. London People of the Abyss 10: The brogans, or brogues, were quite a problem. [...] it was only after a prolonged pounding of the uppers with my fists that I was able to get my feet into them at all.
1912		D. Lowrie My Life in Prison 26: I found it difficult to walk confidently in the brogans.
1929		Hall & Niles One Man’s War 41: His feet swelled until he could hardly remove his brogans.
1931		W.N. Burns One-Way Ride 75: Paddy the Bear [...] beat him black and blue and wound up by lifting the Runt out into the street on the toe of a heavy brogan.
1949		N. Algren Man with the Golden Arm 112: Her eyes moved [...] to the battered army brogans.
1958		in H. Ellison Web of the City (1983) 7: Metal-toed barracks boots, reinforced motorcycle boots, sod brogans; they stomped him again and again.
1969		‘Iceberg Slim’ Pimp 46: Passing out faded pieces of our uniform from caps to brogans.
1977		T. Berger Who is Teddy Villanova? 159: These brogans [...] were also of a rugged, even brutal model.
1981		E. Bunker Little Boy Blue (1995) 234: State-issue brogans, high-top and low-cut.
1994		N. McCall Makes Me Wanna Holler (1995) 69: Most of them were wearing heavy brogans.
2005		J. Stahl I, Fatty 135: He kneeled and kissed my brogans.
2017		T. Pluck Bad Boy Boogie [ebook] [He] pointed his brogans toward the pickup area.
2021		T. Pluck Boy from County Hell 306: One older Black man waited in prison blues and brogans.