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GLOVES, PAST AND PRESENT 
 
GLOVES 
 
 PAST AND PRESENT 
 
 By 
 
 WILLARD M. SMITH 
 
 NEW YORK 
 THE SHERWOOD PRESS, Inc. 
 
 1917 
 
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 COPYRIGHT, 1917 
 
 BY WILLARD M. SMITH 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 
 SEP 15 1917 
 
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 ©G1,A476089 
 
PREFACE 
 
 TVyfOST MEN, apparently, take their gloves 
 ^^•*' for granted. In tliese days the little re- 
 finements of civilization are accepted among 
 us without a thought; but in so doing 
 we lose a great deal of enjoyment which we 
 never were intended to overlook. Least of all 
 are our gloves commonplace. Mr. Chesterton 
 has something to say about Tremendous 
 Trifles. To my mind, he might have been talk- 
 ing about gloves. If you choose to think of 
 them as trifles, then they are tremendous. 
 
 For thirty years I have devoted myself to 
 the practical problems of the glove industry, 
 and my connection with one of the substantial 
 firms of master-merchant-glovers in the world 
 has taught me how little gloves are known or 
 appreciated by the millions of persons who buy 
 them and wear them. The pursuit of glove lore 
 — the historic romance of the glove — has long 
 since been with me a selfish recreation. Now 
 I desire to share it, as well as the practical 
 knowledge, with all men and women who have 
 missed seizing upon the real relation which 
 gloves bear to life. 
 
 In the work of gathering together and ar- 
 ranging the material in this book, I wish to 
 acknowledge my gratitude to Miss Marion 
 Savage, who has collaborated faithfully with 
 me, and has shared in no small degree my own 
 enthusiasm for gloves, past and present. 
 
 WILLAED M. SMITH. 
 June, 1917. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTEB PAGE 
 
 I. Why Gloves 1 
 
 II. Ancient History of Gloves - - 9 
 
 III. The Language of Gloves - - - 18 
 
 IV. How Gloves Came to Grenoble - 30 
 V. Glovers in the Eighteenth Century 41 
 
 VI. Gloves in Many Marts - - - 52 
 
 VII. From Artist to Artisan - - - 67 
 
 VIII. Annonay and Its Industry - - 79 
 
 IX. The Gloves We Buy .... 90 
 
 X. Gloves of the Hour - - - 107 
 
GLOVES, PAST AND PRESENT 
 
 Chapter I. 
 WHY GLOVES? 
 
 "None other symbol — the cross excepted — has so entered 
 into the feelings and the affections of men, or so ruled and 
 bound in integrity and right the transactions of life, as 
 the glove." — William 8. Beck. 
 
 IT is no unusual tiling to meet American 
 women who are connoisseurs of the hand- 
 made laces brought to this country from 
 abroad. Laces, like painting or sculpture, 
 are an object of stud}^; they have been raised 
 to the level of the fine arts. But how often 
 do we come across a woman — it matters not 
 how intelligent she ma}^ be — who has any real 
 standards to guide her in the selection of 
 gloves? Whether we have need, in a business 
 sense, of expert knowledge on this subject 
 or not, nearly everybody spends enough 
 money yearly on this single detail of dress 
 to be interested to know just what he is 
 getting. Yet, there is scarcely any other 
 department of merchandise with which the 
 average person has so hasty and superficial 
 an acquaintance. Nor is this by any means 
 the layman's own fault entirely. 
 
 Let us look for a moment at the fabrics 
 which go into the making of women's suits 
 and gowns; shoes, men's shirts, carpets and 
 furs: we recognize that all these long have 
 been a matter of public education. Where is 
 the woman who does not know the leading 
 materials for coats and dresses? She maj^ 
 live far from the great commercial centres. 
 
2 Gloves^ Past and Present 
 
 but her women's magazine, published in New 
 York, Philadelphia or Chicago, brings her 
 descriptions by an expert, with colored, photo- 
 graphic reproductions, of the fashionable 
 novelties. As for the experienced city 
 shopper, if she were tested with her eyes shut, 
 simply by touching the fabric she could 
 identify it in most cases and could readily 
 distinguish between goods of fine and inferior 
 quality. 
 
 In the carpet department not infrequently 
 a customer talks intelligently of "three 
 frame" and "six frame" Brussels, or insists 
 upon being shown "hand-cut" Wilton. Even 
 the male shopper is not so indifferent in these 
 days as not to know the names of the several 
 varieties of fine cottons of which his shirts 
 are made. He is aware of the difference 
 between plain woven madras and crepe 
 madras ; he may prefer cotton cheviot, and 
 will stipulate whether it shall be the Oxford 
 or the "basket" weave. But if he be really 
 fastidious, the chances are that he will 
 demand "soisette." In the last few years an 
 amazing amount of style and seasonal variety 
 have been introduced into shoes and furs. 
 The result is that in these lines we feel 
 obliged to be informed up to the minute. But, 
 while fabrics and fashions in gloves con- 
 stantly are changing, how much discrimina- 
 tion do most persons display in the selecting 
 of this equally important item of apparel? 
 
 A well-dressed woman enters the glove 
 department of a large shop on Fifth Avenue, 
 New York. She may be an independent pro- 
 fessional woman or she may be the wife or 
 daughter of a man of means. In either case 
 
Why Gloves 3 
 
 she should be concerned to know what value 
 she receives for the money she spends. She 
 asks for mocha gloves; but finding these 
 rather more expensive than she had sup- 
 posed, she may be persuaded to accept a 
 sueded sheepskin under the misnomer of 
 mocha, which substitute — could she but know 
 it — is a fraud, as even the finest suedes in 
 point of durability are invariably inferior 
 to, while they strikingly resemble, the 
 Arabian mocha. The fallacy consists in her 
 not being educated to know that it is the 
 genuine mocha which she requires and for 
 which she should be perfectly willing to pay. 
 The unqualified superiority of real mocha to 
 sueded sheepskin is worth every cent of the 
 difference she would put into the purchase. 
 On the other hand, a man has been told 
 that the only serviceable heavy glove for com- 
 mon wear is the cape glove. He insists, there- 
 fore, upon having the genuine cape — a name 
 originally and properly used to designate 
 gloves made of superior skins from the Cape 
 district of South Africa. As a matter of fact, 
 the soft, pliable, widely-worn glove in 
 various weights, now commercially known 
 as cape, is made from skins grown in many 
 lands — principally lamb, tanned and dressed 
 by the "napa dipped" method. In conse- 
 quence of having wool hide, these skins are 
 not so tough as the Cape Hope goat with the 
 hair hide. One pays less for them than for 
 the real cape, but, for ordinary appear- 
 ance, they are a fair substitute, and their 
 wearing qualities undoubtedly meet the 
 average requirement. A practical saving of 
 this sort the public should be taught to 
 appreciate. 
 
4 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 But not for material reasons alone should 
 gloves be given a prominent place in the cur- 
 riculum of popular "uplift." In the most 
 obvious sense they are too little known, too 
 vaguely appreciated, to be sure ; and yet, the 
 satisfaction of being well-gloved consists in 
 something more than merely the delightful 
 sensation of having one's hands neatly, 
 warmly and substantially covered. We think 
 of gloves first, no doubt, as a daily necessity. 
 But we also value the finer qualities as a 
 mark of elegance. Beautiful gloves impart 
 the coup cle grace to the formal costume of 
 either man or woman. At the same time, 
 clinging to this luxury, like a perfume of 
 old, we are dimly conscious of an aura of 
 half-forgotten associations, linking the glove 
 with royalty, chivalry and romance; with 
 famous affairs of honor, with the pomp and 
 ceremonial of the Church, with countless 
 dramatic episodes in history and literature. 
 
 How does it happen that, instinctively, we 
 invest this trifle with so much meaning? Can 
 it be that we are the repository of memories 
 of past splendors, invoked by a familiar 
 object which has all but lost its symbolic and 
 poetic significance of ancient times? Even 
 to-day the wearing of gloves lends to the 
 individual a sense of dignity and personal 
 distinction. Like Mrs. Wilfer, of Dickens 
 fame, our grandeur is increased by our gloves. 
 
 In the pages which follow we shall dis- 
 cover that the background of our subject is 
 one of the richest and most picturesque we 
 could desire to explore. Cloves have deeply 
 affected the lives of human beings from the 
 very earliest periods. They have descended 
 
Why Gloves 5 
 
 to us from a remote antiquity, and are in very 
 fact our inherited title to nobility, for they 
 were bequeathed to us by the princely prel- 
 ates, the kings and over-lords of the past, 
 whose chief insignia and most treasured 
 badge of honor was the glove. To compre- 
 hend all that they have brought with them 
 down through the centuries we must retrace 
 a vast deal of history, and let our imagina- 
 tions play over scenes and customs far 
 removed from our own day. 
 
 We shall find the glove intimately bound 
 up with the development of social usages in 
 every land. To solemn observances in which 
 the glove filled a special role, much of the 
 impressiveness of the stately rites of the 
 mediaeval church was due. The white linen 
 glove on the hand of a bishop literally repre- 
 sented to the people the stainless purity of 
 the revered palm raised in benediction. The 
 glove itself was holy. No layman dared to 
 clothe his hands in the presence of the clergy. 
 Kings and the military, however, wore gloves 
 with quite a different meaning. In appear- 
 ance, also, their gloves were utterly unlike 
 those consecrated for religious use. Of heavy 
 leather, elaborately tooled or decorated, or 
 the mailed gauntlet which formed part of a 
 warrior's armor, they signified authority, 
 power, and were often conveyed from one 
 prince to another as an expression of hos- 
 tility, or as a promise of good faith. 
 
 Princely etiquette, indeed, revolved about 
 the glove to such a degree that the latter 
 became, as it were, the proxy of its master, 
 his embassador, the mute herald of the royal 
 will. TVTiat a high ethical bond and pledge 
 
6 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 of honor that leathern e^gy of a ruler's hand 
 actually constituted! And as the glove 
 descended with the customs of feudal tenure 
 from sovereign to liege lord, and became 
 gradually the regalia of a growing landed 
 aristocracy, how the manners of semi-har- 
 harous Europe were moulded and softened 
 by the glove! At first we find it the jealous 
 device of the royal few. Then it becomes the 
 badge of superiority among the over-lords. 
 Their followers receive it; and, slowly, 
 through the centuries, this fascinating bit of 
 personal apparel works like leaven until it 
 at last is recognized as the mark of gentlefolk 
 everywhere. It spreads in proportion as 
 liberty and culture are diffused among the 
 people. Follow the progress of the glove, and 
 you trace the growth in enlightenment and 
 refinement of the nations. One of the true 
 forerunners of democracy — as democracy 
 means the elevating, not the levelling, of man- 
 kind — the glove takes its place among the 
 civilizing forces of the world. 
 
 No small part of the importance which 
 attaches to the subject of these investigations 
 lies in the relation gloves bear to the history 
 of modern industry. We shall find that the 
 position of the glove-makers among the 
 mediaeval craftsmen was unique, and of the 
 utmost consequence to the industrial evolu- 
 tion of Europe. The life of a French city has 
 depended for many centuries upon the 
 development of the glove drama. And, in 
 their turn, what have not the glove-makers 
 of Grenoble meant to the wealth and artistic 
 prestige of France? In the annals of the 
 world's trade — from the early days of barter 
 
Why Gloves 7 
 
 and exchange down to the present methods 
 of international commerce — gloves have 
 always been conspicuous. The product in 
 itself is worthy of our wonder. We may 
 marvel at 'the beautiful finish, that anything 
 so delicate can also be so strong; we may 
 admire the style, the cut, the fit of the glove 
 of to-day. And yet, the perfection of the glove 
 art has by no means been reached. 
 
 To the simple prototype of four fingers, 
 thumb, palm, back and wrist, the glove- 
 makers of our time have added all that makes 
 the present glove elegant beyond any which 
 has preceded it. Here we have, perhaps, the 
 most interesting article of personal apparel 
 regardless of the wearer's sex. For a glove 
 is' a glove, whether it graces a woman's 
 slender hand or a man's stouter member. 
 The same cannot be claimed for the shoe — 
 at least, not since the passing of the mannish 
 girl. The high-arched, French-heeled, parti- 
 colored footgear which to-day is patronized 
 by the feminine species has little in common 
 with the broad-built, low-last article in which 
 the male walks comfortably about his busi- 
 ness. The tradition of the glove, however, is 
 less erratic, and equally applicable to man 
 or woman. 
 
 It is perfectly possible to out-countenance 
 boredom by turning to our simplest, our most 
 casually accepted, possessions. Even our 
 gloves may kindle in us delight by their 
 beauty, or may plunge us into the mysteries 
 of the past. Gloves are history. Gloves are 
 an art. Far from being the humble member 
 of our wardrobe we sometimes have care- 
 lessly supposed them to be, they are of exceed- 
 
8 GrLovES, Past and Present 
 
 ingly ancient lineage, and have retained mucli 
 of their original regal and aristocratic 
 character. Though once a symbol and a cult, 
 gloves have been adapted to our Twentieth 
 Century needs, and the subtleties of a new 
 age are finding expression in the tireless 
 multiplying of the finest gloves to suit every 
 conceivable occasion. 
 
 The glove which encases your hand— no 
 matter how much a part of yourself through 
 daily familiarity it may seem — ^never can be 
 anything but a stranger to you and unappre- 
 ciated, until you know gloves. Even the sense 
 of politeness and prestige which you enjoy 
 is not enough; the glove legend also should 
 be yours. Not without good reason are we 
 inspired to live up to our gloves. 
 
Chapter II. 
 ANCIENT HISTOEY OF GLOVES 
 
 "A man plucked off his glove and gave it to his neighbor: 
 and this was for a testimony in Israel." — Old Testament, 
 Chaldaic Version: Ruth: ch. iv., vs. 7. 
 
 GLOVES are so ancient that the first 
 mention of them in literature is to be 
 found in a great classic of three thousand 
 years ago — the Bible. Zealous disputants in 
 all kinds of causes have had a trick of twist- 
 ing Holy Writ to serve the purpose of their 
 arguments. But in appropriating the above 
 lines from the Book of Kuth, the writer has 
 not been guilty of taking liberties with the 
 Scriptures — even though the passage does 
 not read as he has quoted it in the King 
 James Version. 
 
 Turning to the authorized text, we find: 
 "Now this was the manner in former times 
 in Israel concerning redeeming and concern- 
 ing changing, for to confirm all things; 
 a man plucked off his shoe, and gave it to 
 his neighbor, and this was for a testimony 
 in Israel. Therefore the kinsman said unto 
 Boaz, Buy it for thee. So he drew off his shoe." 
 
 A certain learned Hebrew of high literary 
 attainments, M. Josephs, a noted authority 
 in the early part of the nineteenth century, 
 in dealing with this passage bids us follow 
 the Targum, or Chaldaic version of the Old 
 Testament, which renders, instead of shoe, 
 the word glove. He reminds us that the men 
 who w^rote the Targum lived fifteen hundred 
 years before the translators of our English 
 Bible; that their rendition grew directly out 
 
10 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 of the oral interpretations and paraphrases 
 of the Scriptures read in the synagogues — a 
 custom which began, probably, soon after the 
 return of the Jews from captivity. The 
 Targumists, of course, were much closer to 
 the original Hebrew usages than the mediaeval 
 scribes. The disputed phrase in their ver- 
 sion, narthek yad, means "the covering of 
 the right hand." It is derived from the 
 Hebrew text, nangal, which, employed 
 verbally, means to close or enclose. The 
 expression, nangal regel, is, literally, "to 
 enclose the foot" and signifies a shoe. The 
 use of nangal alone, however, as a noun, 
 always implied an article enclosing the 
 hand — in other words, a glove. There can 
 be no doubt that the writer of the Chaldaic 
 version accepted the term as a hand-covering, 
 not a foot-covering — even specifying that the 
 glove given as a testimony in Israel was 
 drawn off the right hand. 
 
 Both ancient and modern rabbinical 
 scholars, we are told, agree in rendering the 
 word from the original as "glove," not shoe. 
 And Joel Levy, a distinguished German 
 translator, gave, instead of shoe, his pic- 
 turesque, native idiom of hand-schuh (hand- 
 shoe) , by which gloves are known in Germany 
 to this day. 
 
 Added to etymological testimony, more- 
 over, is the evidence of ancient custom. 
 Gloves, in the symbolical sense, have been 
 employed as a token of good faith as far 
 back as history can be traced. The shoe, on 
 the other hand, never is used figuratively in 
 Holy Writ except to express humility or 
 supine obedience. The man who wished to 
 
Ancient History of Gloves 11 
 
 make a compact with Ms neighbor, as Boaz 
 when he bought the lands of Kuth, must offer 
 his glove as pledge in the transaction. The 
 very same practice is common in the Orient 
 to-day. 
 
 Challenge by the glove also appears to 
 have been customary from antiquity. In the 
 one hundredth and eighth Psalm, the prophet 
 in an ecstacy of triumph cries: "Over Edom 
 will I cast out my glove I" Had this warrior 
 of the spirit merely thrown a shoe over the 
 city he had vowed to reclaim to Jehovah, 
 what boastful promise would there have 
 been in that? 
 
 Among the Jews, however, three thou- 
 sand years ago, gloves were by no means in 
 common use. Probably they were worn only 
 by men of high rank, and then solely on 
 ceremonial occasions. We have reason to 
 suppose that kings wore them, for in the 
 mural paintings of Thebes ambassadors are 
 depicted bearing from some far country* 
 gifts of gloves. The women certainly did not 
 wear them, for they are not mentioned in the 
 exhaustive list of "bravery," enumerated by 
 Isaiah (Chapter III.), the vainglorious fal- 
 lals of which the daughters of Zion in their 
 pride were to be despoiled on the Day of 
 Doom. "Feet-rings, neck chains, thin veils, 
 tires or bonnets, zones or girdles, jewels for 
 the nostrils, embroidered robes, tunics, trans- 
 parent garments, fine linen vests, armlets" — 
 all such fineries as these must the fair Israel- 
 ites relinquish at the sound of the last trump. 
 Surely, had gloves been among their vanities, 
 these also must have been confiscated by the 
 Inexorable Judge ! 
 
12 GrLOVES, Past and Present 
 
 Nearly a century after tlie Book of Ruth 
 was written, Homer relates how he came 
 upon Laertes, the father of Ulysses, working 
 in his garden (for he was a farmer) "while 
 gloves secured his hands to shield them from 
 the thorns." So, we know that the early 
 Greeks wore gloves. It is striking to note 
 that they employed them, too, for humble 
 and useful purposes. They were not monopo- 
 lized by priests and kings. However, we are 
 given no hint how Laertes' gloves were shaped 
 nor of what materials they were made. 
 Probably they resembled the modern mitten, 
 for it is not until under the Roman emperors 
 that we actually learn that gloves were made 
 with fingers. These were called, specially, 
 digitalia, to distinguish them from the 
 cMrothocae, or fingerless variety. 
 
 Virgil makes reference to gauntlets worn 
 at the Trojan contests, as "the gloves of 
 death"; and he describes gloves worn by 
 Eryx, "composed of seven folds of the thickest 
 bull's hide, sewn and stiffened with knots of 
 lead and iron." 
 
 The gloves of the Persians, we may sus- 
 pect, were not of the warlike type, but were 
 sported simply for luxury and display. Zeno- 
 phon who, somebody has remarked, "had the 
 courage of his dislikes," despised the ancient 
 Persians and stigmatized them as effeminate 
 because they gloried in their gloves. In his 
 Cyropaedia he lays stress on the fact that on 
 one occasion Cyrus was actually known to 
 go forth "without his gloves"! 
 
 Varro, contemporary of Cicero, observes 
 in his De Be Rustica that "olives gathered 
 by the naked hand are preferable to those 
 
Ancient History of Gloves 13 
 
 pulled witli gloves on." The Epicureans evi- 
 dently had adopted the theory that fruit, to 
 be fully enjoyed, should not even be handled 
 in the plucking. Again, among the Eomans, 
 we find gloves an article of utility, worn by 
 agriculturists — though it is likely that these 
 hand-coverings were in the shape of mittens 
 and not of the digitalia style. To the latter 
 appear to have been attached far greater 
 prestige. 
 
 At the same time, the fingered gloves also 
 had come to be used for a practical protec- 
 tion. Pliny, the younger, speaking of the 
 private secretary of his illustrious uncle, 
 writes: "His amanuensis" (who accom- 
 panied him on his notable journey to Mount 
 Vesuvius) "wore gloves upon his hands that 
 winter, lest the severity of the weather should 
 make him lose any time" (from his duties as 
 scribe). It is to gloves, then, that we are 
 indebted in part for some of the most remark- 
 able passages in the works of the celebrated 
 Roman naturalist, whose scientific enthu- 
 siasm eventually cost him his life in the 
 eruption of Vesuvius, 79 a.d. 
 
 Not until the age of Musonious, the philoso- 
 pher, who lived near the close of the first 
 century of the Christian era, do we find 
 gloves among the Romans falling into dis- 
 repute. Musonious ejaculates: "It is shame- 
 ful that persons in perfect health should 
 clothe their hands with soft and hairy cover- 
 ings!" The denunciation of the dress- 
 reformers of those days, however, seems to 
 have had as little effect in stemming the tide 
 of fashion as in our times. 
 
14 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 A truly revolting use to whicli gloves are 
 said to have put — if we may believe certain 
 tales of the famous story-teller, Athenseus 
 (200 A.D.) — is described in a bit of ancient 
 fiction in which he relates that "a well-known 
 glutton," one of his own contemporaries, 
 "always came to the table with gloves upon 
 his hands, that he might be able to handle 
 and eat the meat while it was hot, and devour 
 more than the rest of the company." No 
 wonder the early Fathers of the Church 
 looked upon gloves as vicious and corrupting ! 
 But their biting invective was directed prin- 
 cipally against the effeminancy of those who 
 fell victim to the pleasurable practice, and 
 about the beginning of the ninth century 
 ecclesiastical authority forbade the monks 
 from wearing any gloves save those made 
 of the tough, unyielding sheep-skin. Such, it 
 was thought, could not possibly afford the 
 brethren any sensuous enjoyment, nor tempt 
 them into love of luxuries. 
 
 There is an ancient story of Saint Gudula, 
 patroness of Brussels, which well illustrates 
 the early Christian distrust of gloves. In 
 Butler's Legends of the Saints, it is related 
 of this holy woman — who died in 712 a.d. — 
 that one day, kneeling at prayers barefooted, 
 one of the monks, moved to compassion, "put 
 his gloves upon her feet" to protect them 
 from the cold stones of the floor. St. Gu- 
 dula, however, snatched off the offending ar- 
 ticles and contemptuously tossed them ceiling 
 high. And there they remained, says the 
 the legend, miraculously suspended in mid- 
 air for one hour. 
 
 The first legal enactment concerning gloves 
 
Ancient History of Gloves 15 
 
 occurs in tlie records of France. About 790, 
 Emperor Charlemagne granted unlimited 
 rights of hunting to the abbots and monks 
 of Sithin for the purpose of procuring deer 
 skins for making covers for their books, and 
 also for gloves and girdles. The bishops, 
 however, grew to feel that theirs should be 
 the exclusive privilege of wearing gloves of 
 such fine quality; and by the Council of Aix, 
 in the reign of Louis, Le Debonnaire, the 
 inferior clergy were ordered to abstain from 
 deer skin and to wear only sheep skin, as 
 was formerly deemed fitting for monks. 
 
 In England gloves virtually "came over 
 with the Conqueror." The French importa- 
 tion — which several centuries later was to 
 be the cause of such intense commercial 
 rivalry between the two countries- — was the 
 mailed glove of stout deer or sheep skin, with 
 joined plates of metal affixed to the back and 
 fingers. The early Saxons, however, wore 
 gloves of a rude sort, for the derivation of 
 the word from gluf is distinctly Saxon, and 
 they are mentioned in the epic of Beowulf, 
 composed in the seventh century, a.d. 
 William S. Beck thinks that the early Britons 
 may have been quick to appreciate the com- 
 fort afforded by the gloves worn by their 
 Koman conquerors. It is known for a fact 
 that the Britons of that age wore boots of 
 untanned leather, and it should be no tax 
 upon the imagination to suppose that if they 
 protected one extremity they probably did 
 the other. 
 
 But Professor Boyd Dawkins, without a 
 doubt, has pushed the history of the glove 
 farthest back of any antiquarian. Profes- 
 
16 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 sor Dawkins assures us that the cavemen 
 wore gloves. He actually defines their style; 
 they were "not of ordinary size," he tells us, 
 "but reaching even to the elbows, anticipat- 
 ing by untold ages the multi-button gloves 
 of the Victorian era." Now just when did 
 these pre-historic, glove-wearing men live? 
 Another eminent geologist holds that they 
 inhabited the south of France before they 
 were driven forth by the excruciating cold of 
 the glacial period. It is impossible accurately 
 to fix the date of the great ice age ; Dr. CroU, 
 however, and other celebrated scientists, 
 appear to agree that it began about 240,000 
 years ago, that it lasted about 160,000 years 
 and ended somewhat over 80,000 years since. 
 
 Here, then, is an antiquity for gloves 
 which should satisfy our fondest ambitions! 
 This theory also restores to France with a 
 vengeance the original prestige for glove- 
 making of which that country is so jealous. 
 Theory, should we say? The cavemen's 
 gloves, as we are distinctly told, were made 
 of roughly dressed skins, sewn with elaborate 
 bone needles; and an unmistakable drawing 
 of such a glove was discovered by Professor 
 Dawkins, rudely etched upon a bone, found 
 among pre-glacial relics. 
 
 The glove, accordingly, dates from the 
 twilight of mankind. The ancient peoples 
 wore gloves; and by the tenth century in 
 Europe we find them in fairly general use — 
 to some degree as a practical protection and 
 hand-covering, but, more strikingly, as the 
 badge of royal or ecclesiastical authority 
 and dignity. 
 
 The gentler sex, however, at that time had 
 
Ancient History of Gloves 17 
 
 by no means come into their own, so far as 
 gloves were concerned. Among tlie earlj^ 
 nations men seem to liave enjoyed the 
 monopoly of this article of dress, and the 
 reason is plain to see, when we remember 
 that gloves, in those days, were worn almost 
 exclusively as part of the regalia of public 
 office. The daughters of Israel, and the ladies 
 of Persia, Greece, Eome and mediaeval 
 Europe, adopted the voluminous sleeve which 
 came down over the hand and rendered 
 gloves, for practical purposes, unnecessary. 
 A manuscript of the tenth century, however, 
 describes a hand-covering worn by an Anglo- 
 Saxon lady which resembled a muffler pro- 
 vided with a separate division for the thumb. 
 This was reproduced by Planche in his His- 
 tory of British Costume, and is colored blue. 
 But the long, flowing sleeves were customary, 
 and were eA^en worn by both sexes — men in 
 the ordinary walks of life, apparently, being 
 compelled to content themselves with sharing 
 the feminine expediency for keeping the 
 hands warmly covered. For a man to be 
 gloveless at that period certainlj^ spelled 
 humiliation ! 
 
 It was not until the thirteenth century that 
 the ladies of Europe blossomed forth in 
 gloves — not of the mitten variety, but boast- 
 ing four fingers as well as a thumb. The first 
 to be introduced for the fair sex were made 
 of linen, of simple design, and reached to the 
 elbows to accommodate the short-sleeved 
 gowns of the period. Not before Queen 
 Elizabeth's time, however, did the elaborately 
 embroidered, be jeweled and perfumed glove 
 captivate woman's fancy and satisfy her 
 feminine dreams of beauty and extravagance. 
 
Chapter III. 
 THE LANGUAGE OF GLOVES 
 
 "Right, Caxon, right as my glove! By-the-by, I fancy that 
 phrase comes from the custom of pledging a glove as a sign 
 of irrefragable faith." — The Antiquary: Sir Walter Scott. 
 
 WE are so matter of fact in these days 
 that, rarely, if ever, do we speak in 
 symbols. The elaborate code of the glove 
 has almost entirely dropped out of use. "And 
 speaks all languages the rose," the poet 
 reminds us, but it is doubtful whether the 
 most romantic of flowers ever conveyed such 
 wealth of meaning, even between tongue-tied 
 lovers, as the glove. Certainly, in addition, 
 the latter has expressed a far greater variety 
 of lofty sentiments not connected with affairs 
 of the heart. In the Church, on the throne, 
 in civil law, on the bench, in private breaches 
 of honor, at festivals of rejoicing and in the 
 last solemn rites accorded to the dead, gloves 
 for many centuries were an important part 
 of the ceremonial, and still, to-day, are not 
 without meaning. 
 
 Sometimes it is claimed that gloves became 
 a symbol in the Church long before kings 
 singled them out to embody a monarch's good 
 faith or the royal consent. Of course kings 
 wore gloves before the Christian Church 
 came into being. But, as we have seen, the 
 ancients seem to have attached less alle- 
 gorical significance to gloves and to have 
 regarded them more as a personal luxury. In 
 the Orient, however, as the Bible shows, 
 challenge by the glove was a recognized 
 institution. Also, in the sales of lands, the 
 
The Language of Gloves 19 
 
 purchaser was given a glove to symbolize 
 delivery or investiture — of wliicli tlie passage 
 from Ruth which heads the previous chapter 
 is, probably, the most famous instance. 
 From the Oriental custom Mediaeval Europe 
 derived the challenge, so picturesquely em- 
 ployed in history and in literature. A 
 certain charter of the thirteenth century 
 also names a case of re-investiture, or resti- 
 tution of property, symbolically expressed 
 by the person restoring the lands casting his 
 glove upon the ground. 
 
 If the Greeks and the Romans were some- 
 what literal and coldly materialistic in their 
 attitude toward gloves, it remained for 
 mediaeval Europe to raise them to a cult. In 
 the Middle Ages men had a passion for 
 glorifying the common utensils of life. 
 Whether it was the clergy or royalty which 
 first seized upon gloves to exalt them into the 
 realm of the mysterious, causing them to be 
 scarcely less revered than the king's or the 
 bishop's own person, it would be difficult to 
 say. But, as the gloves bestowed upon the 
 kings of olden France at their coronations 
 were blessed and presented by the arch- 
 bishop of the realm — ^who, in this act, was 
 simply following the ancient Eastern practice 
 of performing investiture — it would appear 
 that gloves were granted by the Church to 
 the thrones; and that thus the monarch 
 received this sign of his sovereignty as the 
 gracious gift of the Spiritual Power, which 
 enjoyed precedence in honoring the glove. 
 
 Certainly gloves were a mark of religious 
 dignity at an extremely early period, and 
 played a distinctive part in the rites and 
 
20 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 services of the ancient Cliurcli. Officiating 
 priests invariably consecrated tlie Holy 
 Sacrament witli gloves on their hands. 
 This custom still obtains in the Church of 
 England. Moreover, the laity always drew 
 off their gloA^es within the sacred portals, 
 where it was sacrilege to cover worldly hands 
 even as the Fathers covered theirs. 
 
 To teach truth by sight was one of the 
 great endeavors of the mediaeval Church. We 
 should not forget that the masses of the peo- 
 ple in those days were untaught and child- 
 like in their mental processes. The clergy 
 were profound scholars, but they understood 
 how to appeal to the minds of their com- 
 municants; they knew that their imagina- 
 tions should be impressed, that sacred 
 imagery should be indelibly stamped upon 
 the sensitive-plate of the soul. Not lip- 
 parables only, but allegories for the eye— 
 visible sjnnbols — conveyed sacred meanings 
 where words could not. Thus art became 
 the handmaiden of religion, and familiar 
 objects were invested with hidden sig- 
 nificance. In this catalogue gloves were by 
 no means forgotten. 
 
 Bruno, Bishop of Segni, tells us that the 
 gloves of the clergy were originally made of 
 linen to denote that the hands they covered 
 were chaste, pure, without blame. In 1287, 
 Durandus, Bishop of Mende, went to great 
 pains to prove that the sacred chirothecae — 
 for the old Latin name had been kept — 
 were white. He says : "It was specified 
 that by these gloves the hands would be 
 preserved chaste, clean during work, and 
 free from every stain." The gloves which 
 
The Lajq^guage of Gloves 21 
 
 encased tlie hands of Pope Boniface VIII., at 
 the time of his burial, were of white silk, 
 beautifully worked with the needle, and 
 ornamented with a rich border, studded with 
 pearls. 
 
 Considerably later — exactly when is not 
 known — ecclesiastical gloves ceased to be 
 invariably white, but changed their hue, like 
 the other vestments, according to the cur- 
 rent church seasons. Then the gloves of the 
 church bcame glorious indeed in color, 
 texture and design! St. Charles Borromeo 
 prescribes that "they shall be woven through- 
 out, and adorned with a golden circle on 
 the outside." 
 
 The most famous gloves of this type 
 which have been preserved — though the 
 circle is of red silk, not of gold — are those 
 of William of Wykeham, Bishop of Win- 
 chester, treasured to this day at Oxford. 
 These gloves are at least five hundred and 
 thirty years old. William of Wykeham was 
 the founder of New College, Oxford, in 1379, 
 and the gloves were probably worn by him 
 at the opening religious ceremonial, April 14, 
 1386. It is extremely likely that they were 
 made especially for that great occasion. They 
 are still in a wonderful state of preservation, 
 and some idea of their magnificance may be 
 had even from their present appearance. 
 They are made of crimson purl knitted silk, 
 embroidered on the back and cuffs with 
 gold, now faded and tarnished. The octag- 
 onal designs around the cuffs are separated 
 by squares of emerald green silk; the cuffs 
 are lined with crimson silk; and a double 
 band of gold adorns each finger and thumb. 
 
22 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 The circles are on tlie back of the hand, and 
 with their sixteen flame-pointed arms, worked 
 in gold, surround the sacred monogram. 
 
 In inventories of church furniture in the 
 Middle Ages, gloves, elaborately decorated, 
 frequently appear. These usually were 
 encrusted with precious jewels and were 
 so valuable that they were left as legacies. 
 A pair of gloves was among the bequests of 
 Bishop Eiculfus who died in 915 a.d. Even 
 Thomas a Becket — though it is reported that 
 he never bathed — was buried in immaculate 
 gloves. And we have proof that old mother 
 Becket had to be handled with gloves, for at 
 her baptism, pictured in an ancient illumina- 
 tion, the officiating bishop is represented in 
 long, white chirothecae reaching clear above 
 his venerable elbows. 
 
 Gloves in the Church symbolized purity 
 of heart and deed. In an olden missal, 
 ascribed to the seventh century, the officiating 
 bishop, just before offering mass, draws on 
 his snowy linen gloves with this prayer: "O 
 Creator of all creatures, grant me, un- 
 worthiest of Thy servants, to put on the 
 clothing of justice and joy, that I may be 
 found with pure hands in Thy sight." 
 
 The royal glove, with which the king 
 received his authority from earliest times, 
 was usually purple, ornamented with pearls 
 and precious stones. Such "were anciently 
 deemed ensigns of imperial dignity," as 
 Pachymenera records. Previous to the French 
 Kevolution, at the crowning of the Kings of 
 France, it was customary for the archbishop 
 to bless a pair of gloves and present them to 
 the sovereign as an emblem of secure posses- 
 
The Language of Gloves 23 
 
 sion. In tlie English coronation ceremonies 
 the glove plays a double role. His Majesty 
 being seated in Westminster Hall, the cham- 
 pion enters, caparisoned as an ancient knight, 
 and the herald-at-arms proclaims the chal- 
 lenge. The champion then throws down his 
 gauntlet which, after it has lain a short time, 
 is taken up by the herald and returned to 
 him. The herald make a proclamation of 
 some length, and the gauntlet is again thrown 
 down by the champion of the realm. His 
 Majesty next drinks to the champion's health 
 and presents him with the cup. The cham- 
 pion then takes up his gauntlet and retires. 
 At the installation in the Abbey, the Duke 
 of Norfolk presents the king with a right- 
 hand glove of elaborate and beautiful design, 
 and the monar^^, putti^ig it on, receives from 
 the Archbishop of Caitterbury the sceptre 
 with the dove. 
 
 That gloves were actually synonymous with 
 kingly power is shown by an instance which 
 occurred in the year 1294, when the Earl of 
 Flanders by the delivery of a glove into the 
 hands of Philip the Fair, "granted him pos- 
 session of the good towne of Flanders." The 
 wealth of sentiment they enshrined is further 
 manifested by the act of a woman of royal 
 blood. After the coronation of Louis XIIL, 
 we are told, Mary de Medicis, his mother, 
 "had the piety to desire the king's shirt and 
 gloves, in order to preserve them carefully in 
 her cabinet." 
 
 One of the most dramatic episodes of its 
 kind — when a glove under romantic cir- 
 cumstances was taken as the very embodi- 
 ment of royal authority — is related in some 
 
24 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 papers of D'Israeli. Young Conraddin, the 
 last of the Hohenstaufer male line, having 
 fallen into the hands of Mainfroy, who had 
 usurped the crown in 1282, was brought up 
 for execution. On the scaffold the young 
 prince raised his voice in lamentation and 
 declared his right to the succession. In proof 
 of this he cast his glove among the assembled 
 crowd, beseeching that it might be carried to 
 his kinsmen who would avenge his death. It 
 was taken up by a knight and brought to 
 Peter, King of Aragon, who, in virtue of the 
 same glove, was afterwards crowned at 
 Palermo. 
 
 The kings of France on the point of death 
 religiously gave their gloves to their sons as 
 a token that they were to be invested with 
 the kingdom. That such should have been 
 almost their last thought and act shows how 
 real to them was the ^ power symbolically 
 invested in the glove. 
 
 Gloves, royalty, feudalism — these three 
 are inseparable in history. The granting of 
 lands hj the king was the root of the feudal 
 system, in which modern society had its rise, 
 and the lein of the monarch over all lands 
 was the first doctrine of Divine Eight. Thus, 
 the glove, by which tenure was given, became 
 also the pledge of the service by virtue of 
 which tenure was held; and on the hand of 
 him who could both bestow the one and de- 
 mand the other, it was indeed a symbol of 
 supreme authority. In the attire of Eng- 
 lish monarchs, gloves were especially con- 
 spicuous under the Norman and the Plantag- 
 enet dynasties when the feudal system was 
 yet young. One would infer that as the 
 
The Language of Gloves 25 
 
 emblematical embodiment of tbe new order, 
 kings found them indispensable to tbeir 
 dignity. 
 
 Kings were even buried with, gloves on 
 their hands, when "arrayed in ghostly state, 
 they were gathered to their fathers." 
 Eichard I. and John in their tombs wear 
 richly jeweled gloves. It is said that 
 Richard's are the identical ones by which he 
 was recognized in Austria on his return from 
 the Crusades. In Canterbury Cathedral the 
 gloves of Edward, the Black Prince, are hung 
 above his last resting place. 
 
 The Bench inherited gloves direct from 
 the Church. On the judge's hands they 
 symbolized incorruptibility, uprightness. In 
 England a maiden assize — that is, a county 
 session in which no malefactor is put to 
 death — is commemorated by a gift of white 
 gloves, even to-day. White gloves here typify 
 a clean record, an absence of felony in the 
 judge's precinct. "They represent the zero of 
 crime," says Beck, "the antithesis of the 
 black cap. They afford a foretaste of the 
 millennium. The occasion of their presenta- 
 tion is held to reflect credit on any town or 
 neighborhood, and is widely noticed in the 
 newspapers." The recorder of Cambridge 
 was the happy recipient of this honor, we are 
 told, three times in succession. 
 
 Pardoned outlaws, restored from a living 
 death to all the pleasures of home, the 
 privileges of citizenship and the protection 
 of their king, were accustomed to thank their 
 judges by presenting them with gifts of 
 gloves. Later, however, this practice was 
 abused. The offender was compelled to 
 
26 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 appear in person, and by a present of 
 gloves filled witk coins to implore and obtain 
 the judges' favor. Thus, by degrees, the 
 glove fell away from its original significance 
 and came to be synonymous virith the bribe. 
 
 Sir Thom'as More once received in grate- 
 ful appreciation of a case won for a lady, a 
 pair of gloves "lined" with forty angels. As 
 was the custom, this delicate acknowledg- 
 ment was conveyed to him on the first dsij of 
 January. "Mistress," wrote the honorable 
 judge in reply, "since it were against good 
 manners to refuse your New Year's gift, I 
 am content to take your gloves; but as for 
 the lining, I utterly refuse it." 
 
 So, gloves, like most of the good things of 
 life, were exalted and degraded by turns, and 
 made to contradict themselves. Persons tak- 
 ing legal oath are required to-day to do so 
 bare-handed; and a Portuguese proverb 
 expressive of private integrity, is, "He does 
 not wear gloves." 
 
 Keeping the hands covered in the pres- 
 ence of superiors was one of the worst social 
 breaches one could commit in former times. 
 No doubt, the practice of presenting gloves 
 to visitors by universities meant that they 
 recognized their guests to be of such personal 
 standing and learning as to make them 
 worthy of remaining with hands clothed even 
 before the highest collegiate dignitaries. In 
 addition to symbolizing religious, kingly and 
 judicial eminence, therefore, gloves typified 
 also a university honor and were the insignia 
 of the scholar. 
 
 At the Trojan games, nearly one thousand 
 years before the Christian era, the gauntlet 
 
The Language of Gloves 27 
 
 was used botli as a defensive weapon and as 
 a symbol of defiance. Warlike challenge by 
 the glove, accordingly, had a very ancient 
 origin, and in the days of knightly adventure 
 may have been deliberately imitated from 
 the early epics by a more consciously 
 romantic race of heroes. Challenge by the 
 glove frequently is described by Sir Walter 
 Scott — who, by the wslj, has more to say 
 about gloves than any other writer, even 
 excepting Shakespeare — but nowhere more 
 eloquently, perhaps, than in Ivanlioe, when 
 the Jewish maiden demands a champion. 
 
 "'I am unskilled to dispute for my relig- 
 ion' (says Kebecca), ^but I can die for it, if 
 it be God's will ! Let me pray for your answer 
 to my demand for a champion.' 
 
 "'Give me her glove!' said Beaumanoir. 
 'This is indeed a slight and fragile gage for a 
 purpose so deadly! See'st thou, Eebecca, as 
 this slight glove of thine is to one of our 
 heavy steel gauntlets, so is thy cause to that 
 of the Temple, for it is our order which thou 
 hast defied.'" 
 
 In the life of Sir Bernard Gilpin, relative 
 to customs of the Scottish-English borders 
 it is recorded, that in the year 1560, the rev- 
 erend gentleman observed in one of the 
 churches in which he was preaching, a glove, 
 hung high against the raftered roof. On 
 making inquiries he learned that it was 
 placed there in consequence of a "deadly 
 feud" prevailing in the district, and that the 
 owner had suspended it in defiance, daring 
 to mortal combat anyone who took it down. 
 
 The last instance of defiance by the glove 
 occurred in 1818 in a wager of battle. The 
 
28 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 battle, however, never came off; and tlie 
 instance was the occasion of the repeal of the 
 law permitting the ancient trial by battle 
 and ordeal which existed in England for more 
 than eight centuries. 
 
 Gifts of gloves at funerals is a relic of 
 ancient times, as was also their presentation 
 at marriage festivals. In Ben Jonson's play, 
 The Silent Woman, we learn that a wedding 
 without this token was suspiciously regarded, 
 and passed for a jest. Cries one of the guests : 
 
 "We see no ensigns of a wedding here, 
 No character of a bridal! 
 Where be our starves and gloves?'^ 
 
 In Italy and Spain the glove was cherished 
 with the most romantic feeling ever accorded 
 it throughout all its long and impressive 
 history. No king of olden days exercised 
 more despotic rule over his feudal depend- 
 ents than the Spanish and Italian ladies 
 over their "cavaliers," to whom even to be 
 allowed to touch the fair one's glove was a 
 favor which sent the aspiring lover into 
 ecstacies. Many a yearning Eomeo of that 
 chivalric age must have exclaimed : 
 
 "Would that I were a glove upon that hand. 
 That I might touch that cheek !" 
 
 Coquetry by the glove seems to have per- 
 sisted down to a fairly recent period. The 
 Spectator observes that "Ned Courtly pre- 
 senting Flavia with her glove (which she had 
 dropped on purpose), she received it, and 
 took away his life with a courtesy." Charles 
 IV. of Spain appears to have been in Ned 
 Courtly's class, for His Majesty was so 
 
The Language of Gloves 29 
 
 extremely susceptible, we are told, to any 
 lady wlio wore white kid gloves, that the use 
 of them at court was strictly prohibited. A 
 charming picture is called to mind also by 
 the recollection of a novel by William Black, 
 in which the guileless heroine all uncon- 
 sciously captivates the hero the first time he 
 sets eyes on her, by the graceful, ladylike 
 manner in which she draws on and fastens 
 her gloves. 
 
 But if the symbolism of gloves and their 
 old, romantic usages largely have fallen 
 away, leaving us an article of familiar, 
 practical, everyday concern, the language of 
 gloves for us is not dead. When we take 
 pains to be fittingly costumed for an im- 
 portant occasion, there is no detail of our 
 dress which we are more anxious should be 
 in perfect keeping, than our gloves. To them 
 still clings a halo of sentiment, part and 
 parcel of our own dignity. In view of their 
 history we are justified in our feeling. 
 "Gloves," says Beck, "outweigh all other 
 articles of apparel which have been the out- 
 ward and visible signs of hidden things." 
 
Chapter IV. 
 HOW GLOVES CAME TO GEENOBLE 
 
 "A French town ... in which the product of successive 
 ages, not without lively touches of the present, are blended 
 together harmoniously, with a beauty specific — a beauty cis- 
 alpine and northern — and of which Turner has found the ideal 
 in certain of his studies of the rivers of France, a perfectly 
 happy conjunction of river and town being of the essence of 
 its physiognomy." — Deny U Auxerrois: Walter Pater. 
 
 IV/f ANY centuries ago, certain chieftains 
 ■*-^-*- of the AUobroges were inspired to 
 plant their little village of Cnlaro at the 
 supremely strategic point of all southern 
 Gaul. They built it a trifle to the East of the 
 meeting place of two rivers, the Isere and 
 the torrent of the Drac; north of them 
 stretched the high, unbroken wall of the 
 lower Alps. And there in the sheltered valley 
 they lived and were protected against incur- 
 sions of other more warlike tribes — until the 
 great conqueror of the world poured its 
 invincible legions over the mountain bar- 
 riers, and Eome seized the little AUobrogian 
 defence town to be a colonial outpost of con- 
 siderable military importance. On the site 
 of Cularo sprang up the strongly fortified 
 Gratianopolis, thus called in honor of the 
 Emperor Gratian who reinforced the walls 
 begun by Diocletian and Maximian. Later, 
 with the decline of the Koman power and the 
 development of the Frankish nation, the 
 Latin name was abbreviated to Grenoble — 
 by which the modern city is known to-day as 
 the chef-lieu of the department of the Isere 
 in France. 
 
How Gloves Came to Grenoble 31 
 
 The town, from its birth to the end of the 
 sixteenth century, was familiarly styled "la 
 ville du j)ont/^ the city of the bridge. For 
 more than a thousand years it commanded 
 the only point where it was possible to cross 
 the river Isere. It was also designated "the 
 old Eoman route town," for it lay on the 
 natural highroad which linked Italy on the 
 north with the country of France, the valley 
 of the Po with that of the Khone. The quaint, 
 turreted bridge which spanned the river in 
 mediaeval days provided passage to the Alps 
 from French soil, and was the gateway to 
 France for strangers approaching over the 
 mountains. While its strategic position in 
 time of war must be apparent, the site of the 
 city was no less vital to trade and to later 
 industrial development. As early as 1615 
 Grenoble was known, far and wide, as "the 
 city of glovers." 
 
 The earliest records of the consuls of 
 Grenoble, which have been preserved almost 
 intact since 1244, tell us only of "drapers, 
 tailors, apothecaries and shoeing-smiths" in 
 the city; and in 1489 they mention in addi- 
 tion sailors, pastry cooks, carpenters, bar- 
 bers — ^but not glovers. Only the weavers, 
 tanners and curriers of wool and hemp 
 presage the industrial future. There seems 
 to be some question of a lone glover in 1328 
 who gave his services to the dauphin. But 
 probably this workman made numerous 
 things for his fellow-citizens, gloves included, 
 and at the same time was a dealer in furs and 
 perfumes. In the statutes of the glovers of 
 Paris, dating from 1190, they are styled "mar- 
 cJiands-fnaitres-gantiers-parfumeurs/^ master- 
 
32 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 merchants-of-gloves-and-perfumes, and are 
 accorded the exclusive right to prepare and 
 sell these luxuries. Furs were usually added 
 to their stock in trade. But the solitary 
 glove-maker of 1328 was in no sense a pioneer 
 of the glove guild in Grrenoble, else had he 
 apprenticed to himself other workmen, and 
 the town been filled with glovers fully a 
 hundred years earlier than it was. 
 
 The latter part of the sixteenth century 
 was a period of war and domestic upheaval 
 for Grenoble, during which the city govern- 
 ment was tossed back and forth among 
 predatory barons until, in 1590, Lesdiguieres, 
 "the King of the Mountains," took the town 
 by seige in the name of Henry IV. Under 
 Lesdiguieres' remarkably public-spirited gov- 
 ernorship, peace returned, commerce was 
 resumed, and natural resources, scarcely 
 recognized before, were drawn upon for 
 the development of new crafts, whose prod- 
 ucts, now for the first time, were to be 
 exported to all parts of France and even 
 into other countries. Among these new 
 crafts glove-making instantly sprang into 
 prominence. 
 
 For the raw materials were everywhere 
 at hand. On the slopes of the mountains, 
 enclosing like the tiers of a vast amphitheatre 
 the city seemingly chosen by Nature to 
 become the mis-en-scene of the glove drama, 
 millions of wild goats fed. Already the 
 tanners and tawers had tested the admirable 
 quality of their skins, and those of the 
 females in particular were found to be of 
 the fine, soft variety, peculiarly free from 
 flaws, so admirably adapted to the making 
 
How Gloves Came to Grenoble 33 
 
 of gloves. For the process of tawing tlie , 
 skins, moreover, tlie waters of the Isere, 
 because of their singular purity, were incom- 
 parable. And in the city itself — its popula- 
 tion now greatly increased by prosperity and 
 peace — lived scores of skilled artisans and 
 their sons, well fitted for the careful cutting 
 and shaping of gloves; while the women, 
 equipped with three-cornered needles, quickly 
 became adepts in sewing gloves by hand. 
 
 Other occupations, which now received 
 special impetus in mediaeval Grenoble, were 
 the weaving of hemp textiles — ^for hemp was 
 the most prolific crop of the alluvial river 
 valleys — paper-making, and the manufacture 
 of playing-cards ; about 1630, the fruit of the 
 vineyards on the mountain slopes, was turned 
 into wine for exportation, and beautiful pot- 
 tery and tiles were made of the rich clsij de- 
 posits of the Drac. But of all these crafts, 
 the one taking first rank from the ver}^ start, 
 and the one which quickly identified itself with 
 the town, was gloves. In the municipal acts, 
 glovers often appear after 1606. In 1619 
 Claude Honore, a master glover, was elected 
 consul. And in 1664 a certain skilled work- 
 man, Jean Charpel, an artist in his line, pro- 
 claims himself glover to the king. 
 
 "One sees the glovers," observes a noted 
 traveller of those times, "filling all the streets 
 after 1610, and especially the rues Saint- 
 Laurent, Perriere, Tres-Cloitre, and the 
 suburb, together with the curriers, tanners 
 and tawers, and the combers of hemp." 
 
 Although most historians date the close 
 of the Middle Ages and the beginnings of 
 modern Europe from the era of the Prot- 
 
34 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 estant Eeformation, spanning tlie period from 
 1517 to about 1560, Grenoble remained for a 
 hundred years longer a mediaeval city in 
 every sense of the word. France continued 
 a Catholic country, and Grenoble, sequestered 
 in a southern province, scarcely felt the 
 disquieting breath of the great religious 
 revolution which was sweeping mid-Europe. 
 Its ideas and its civilization changed little, 
 even while fresh consciousness of its natural 
 powers and material resources was im- 
 pregnanting the city with new industries. 
 The spirit of craftsmanship — that joyous 
 love of perfection, not only in the fine but 
 also in the useful arts, which characterized 
 the Eenaissance — was still the ruling temper 
 of its citizens; and the guild of glovers, the 
 most numerous and influential of all the 
 artisans, particularly personified this civic 
 character. If we would gain some notion of 
 the part glove-making actually played in the 
 lives of these people, and the status of the 
 glove-craft as it first appeared in mediaeval 
 Europe, we have only to journey in imagina- 
 tion to Grenoble in the middle of the seven- 
 teenth century, on the occasion of the great 
 annual festival of the glovers. 
 
 It is a clear, tranquil morning in the latter 
 part of July, 1650, and the sun, scarcely an 
 hour's march above the mountains, is flooding 
 with almost tropic brilliancy the matchless 
 paradise of the Dauphine. In its confluence 
 of rivers and fair valleys, the ancient capital 
 city, Grenoble, shines in the midst of the 
 green plain of Gresivaudan. Impossible to 
 describe the ever-changing charm of the 
 horizons! — as, from the city itself, the eye 
 
How Gloves Came to Grenoble 35 
 
 sweeps eastward, northward, westward, over 
 range upon range of snow-crowned moun- 
 tains, under a sky so pure, so glowing, tliat 
 distant peaks apparently loom near, and the 
 cool breath of Alpine heights gently smites 
 the cheek. 
 
 Eastward, the prongs, the pinnacles, the 
 clear-cut outlines of a sierra; it is the chain 
 of Belledonne. From the devastation of its 
 summits and terraced slopes, one divines 
 beneath its summer cloak of verdure con- 
 cealing only its lower descent, the adamantine 
 rock moulded for all time by the glaciers of 
 the ice age. It is indeed the advance guard 
 of those massive crystal formations, the 
 veritable backbone of the Alps, which pene- 
 trate into France from Mont Blanc. On a 
 morning like this, the Swiss peak itself can 
 be seen, cleaving the far-away heavens which 
 overhang Savoy. 
 
 In the west the spectacle changes. Beyond 
 the vast plain of the Drac appears a long, 
 white cliff, little carved out — a rigid line of 
 limestone falling sheer to the valley where 
 lies Grenoble. This is the compact mass of 
 Vercors, almost impassable. Yet, suddenly, 
 the cliff makes way; the vale of Furon leaps 
 through the chasm in the mountain wall. An 
 ancient road, winding ribbonwise to west- 
 ward, puts into communication the valley 
 of the Isere with the wooded brows, the vast 
 grassy hollows, of the Vercors countryside. 
 
 Northward, the limestone reappears in the 
 Chartreuse. But these mountains, unlike 
 Vercors, are twisted and broken, resembling 
 a haK demolished castle with great apertures 
 and rents in its once impregnable sides. 
 
36 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 Their countless little vales and fertile levels 
 glow with stream-fed pasturage and with 
 billowy forests. And everywhere, among the 
 foothills of the encircling ranges, roam herds 
 of goats and cattle, without suspicion of the 
 fate which awaits them with the coming of 
 the great Fair of the autumn at Grenoble. 
 
 On this July morning the old town gleams 
 like a strange jewel, set in the spacious, lush 
 meadow lands, stretching league on league, 
 to the mountains. Vast gardens of hemp 
 wave to its very walls. Vineyards veil the 
 nearer hills, and the mulberry dots the 
 plains of the southeast. The Isere, restless, 
 ever seeking new outlet, interlaces with a 
 network of sparkling tributaries the great 
 expanse of Gresivaudan. All the richness of 
 the region, all the amazing variety and 
 beauty with which nature has surrounded 
 this ancient city, seems concentrated, in the 
 early hush and radiance, in an act of worship. 
 
 Now the sun has penetrated the shadows 
 below the city walls, and is stealing through 
 the sinuous, crowded streets, peculiar to 
 towns which long have been cramped within 
 the precincts of strong fortifications. The 
 tiled eaves lean so close one upon another, as 
 in some places actually to shut out the sky. 
 If we might fly up like a bird and look down 
 over the Grenoble of 1650, we would be gaz- 
 ing upon a confusion of multi-colored roofs, 
 set at every conceivable angle of picturesque- 
 ness, and upon a bewildering congregation of 
 chimneys and chimney-pots. Also, we would 
 note that the town lay on both banks of the 
 Isere, connected by a tower bridge, and pro- 
 
How Gloves Came to Grenoble 37 
 
 tected on the nortli by the fortress of the 
 Bastille. 
 
 Down in the roughly paved rue Saint- 
 Laurent the clatter of sabots on the stones 
 announces that the townspeople are astir. 
 Shutters are thrown open. Bursts of song 
 herald the holiday. Crowds of goats, driven 
 through the streets, are being milked at the 
 house doors. Then, from the Cathedral of 
 Notre Dame — ^whose foundations, it is said, 
 were laid by Charlemagne — the bells pro- 
 claim with sweet solemnity the call to early 
 mass. Out of the houses pour the people in 
 gaily embroidered holiday dress, group join- 
 ing group with merry exchange of saluta- 
 tions, until, trooping through the narrow 
 streets, the colorful procession appears like a 
 wandering rainbow threading the grey mazes 
 of the old town. 
 
 House after house they pass and shop after 
 shop, each bearing above the portal a shield 
 emblazened with the selfsame coat-of-arms — 
 the heraldic device of the guild of the glovers. 
 Their occupants, gayest of the gay, fast swell 
 the throng, with masters and their families 
 and apprentices — the young boys in the 
 retinues stealing shy a^lances at the pretty 
 daughters of their masters, the maidens 
 covertly returning their admirers' bash- 
 ful looks. 
 
 And now the multitude melts into the 
 tender gloom of the ancient cathedral; their 
 voices are hushed in the sweet fluting of the 
 choir. Above the heads of the kneeling 
 populace glows the shrine of Saint Anne, 
 lit with innumerable candles and smothered 
 in exotic, summer flowers. For this is the 
 
38 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 annual fete-dayjof the motlier of tlie Virgin, 
 the patron saint of les gantiers. revered by 
 all good glovers throughout France. At 
 Grenoble, however, the feast is observed 
 with greater magnificence than anywhere 
 else, for the glovers constitute by far the 
 most numerous body, and the most pros- 
 perous, of its citizens, and theirs is the crown- 
 ing festivity of the whole year. 
 
 According to monkish legend, the good 
 Saint Anne made a livelihood while on earth 
 by knitting gloves. "The knitting saint," in 
 homely terms of affection the people liked 
 to call her. They were wont to regard her 
 as one like themselves — only holier far, for 
 the great honor God saw fit to confer upon 
 her — fulfilling her simple task from day to 
 day, the needles always busy in her fingers. 
 Their love for her was so strong, indeed, and 
 so enduring, that early in the nineteenth 
 centurj^ the glovers ordered a statue of 
 their saint set up in a public square of 
 Grenoble, where it may be seen to-day. It 
 represents the mother of Mary, knitting, 
 with a half -finished glove in her hand and a 
 basket of gloves at her feet. 
 
 Mass celebrated, the long summer day is 
 given over to street festivities, to feasting, 
 dancing and pageantry. The doors of the 
 glovers' guild-hall, converted into a flower- 
 adorned banqueting room, stand wide open. 
 The glovers' shops and houses overflow with 
 hospitality. As at a great fair, popular 
 arts and pastimes occupy the squares and 
 spaces before the public buildings; several 
 such distractions begin at once and continue 
 simultaneously. Mountebanks and musi- 
 
How Gloves Came to Grenoble 39 
 
 cians, folk dances, Columbines and Pierrots, 
 flower-girls, venders of bon-bons and petits 
 joujoux of every description, all commingle 
 in a laughing, jabbering, singing, whirl- 
 ing, shimmering, merry-making throng. A 
 wheeled street-stage, drawn by donkej^s, with 
 bells jingling about their necks and on their 
 trappings, makes the rounds of the to\NTi. 
 Wherever it stops, the gay curtains of the 
 miniature theatre are parted to disclose the 
 play-actors who give a mediaeval burlesque 
 of Don Juan, amid the noisy applause and 
 high-pitched laughter of the onlookers. 
 
 But the great feature of the daj^ is the 
 pageant of the glovers, in which each master, 
 with his apprentices and family, has his 
 special part. This takes the form of a pro- 
 cession of carnival vans, or floats, drawn by 
 gorgeously caparisoned horses, and followed 
 by crowds of young apprentices and work- 
 men and workmaidens on foot, who enact in 
 pantomime the various processes of glove- 
 making as it was practiced in mediaeval days. 
 Beautiful kids and chamois from the moun- 
 tains, wreathed with blossoms as though for 
 sacrifice, are led by troops of peasant garcons 
 in blue smocks. The cutters advance, rhyth- 
 mically jingling their shears ; and the needle- 
 women move by more slowly, drawing their 
 shining implements in perfect unison through 
 the unfinished gloves they carry in their 
 hands. A spice of rivalry enlivens the exhibi- 
 tion, for every master-glover has taken pains 
 that his own personal retinue shall be as 
 large and as brilliant as possible. Every 
 apprentice is fired with the desire to so com- 
 port himself as to be an honor to his master 
 
40 . Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 — and, incidentally, to attract tlie admira- 
 tion of the maiden of the house he hopes 
 to win. 
 
 Angelus finds the merry-makers still 
 romping, singing, dancing; a little wearily 
 the couples break apart, and the townsfolk 
 once more flock through the streets, trans- 
 formed in the afterglow to running rivers 
 of gold, and are lost in the stilly dusk of the 
 cathedral. And now the tapers gleam like 
 stars upon the altar of Saint Anne, and the 
 fading flowers send forth a sweet, benumbing 
 perfume, as heads are bowed to receive the 
 evening benediction. On the rough, uneven 
 stones of the floor they kneel, imploring in 
 their hearts the good saint who protects and 
 prospers all devout glovers, that the craft 
 may w^ax stronger with every year in the 
 city of Grenoble. 
 
 So we see an entire community uniting in 
 a great religious, civic, industrial and social 
 festival to celebrate and re-consecrate the 
 craft of glove-making. The place of honor 
 this calling held in former times is unique and 
 striking. In the chapters which follow we 
 shall observe how gloves — and especially the 
 gloves of Grenoble— have sustained their early 
 tradition through three hundred years of 
 political vicissitude and commercial struggle. 
 
Chapter V. 
 
 THE GLOVERS IN THE EIGHTEENTH 
 CENTURY 
 
 "Lo, the old order changeth!" 
 
 TJTOW the glove craft of Grenoble spon- 
 -■- -^ taneously sprang up, took firm root and 
 grew until it controlled, to a great degree, 
 the fortunes of that city, has been shown in 
 the foregoing brief summary of events. The 
 many phases of life with which glove-making 
 was bound up in mediaeval, days, its social 
 and economic importance to the community 
 and its pre-eminence among the early indus- 
 tries, cannot have failed to be apparent. 
 From about 1600 the chief *city of the 
 Dauphine underwent an astonishingly rapid 
 development. 
 
 But, if the seventeenth century was little 
 short of phenomenal in glove history, glove- 
 making in Grenoble was not fated to become 
 one of the leading enterprises of the world 
 without a struggle. The hundred years that 
 followed were at once the most sterile and 
 the most fecund in the annals of the trade — 
 and, for that matter, the same is equally 
 true of the eighteenth century as regards its 
 bearing upon the destinies of Europe. 
 Destructive of immediate results and of con- 
 temporary prosperity, this era which endured 
 the birth throes of modern states and the 
 upheavals of the Revolution, was, neverthe- 
 less, big with prophetic good. And it is to 
 the everlasting honor of the glovers of 
 Grenoble that they bore their part in this 
 
42 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 vast social and political movement, wMch 
 temporarily threatened death to their per- 
 sonal interests, with their eyes fixed, not 
 upon gain, but upon those high ideals and 
 principles to which their faith clung, even in 
 the midst of business paralysis and social 
 chaos. 
 
 While the flame of the Eevolution did not 
 break forth until nearly the close of the 
 century, the spirit of modernity and unrest 
 attacked the French people fully a hundred 
 years before the fall of the Bastille. In 
 Grenoble the transition from the old order 
 to the new was anticipated as early as 1691, 
 in response to a proclamation of the king 
 that the business of the country be taxed to 
 refill the royal treasury. 
 
 After the brilliant victories of his early 
 reign, Louis XIV. had suffered severe re- 
 verses. He was gravely in need of money to 
 repair the military organization. New 
 resources must somehow be found, and that 
 immediately. The only adequate answer 
 which presented itself took the form of taxa- 
 tion imposed upon the business interests of 
 the realm. The glovers of Grenoble, accord- 
 ingly, in 1691, organized themselves into the 
 Corporation des Gantiers, or Corporation 
 of Glovers, to determine how heavily their 
 industry should be taxed in support of the 
 regime. While they felt loyally obliged to 
 contribute all they were able to the king's 
 cause, hj the very act of their organizing and 
 by virtue of the funds they furnished, they 
 became masters at home, respected by the 
 monarch, independent and self-governing. 
 Their sacrifice of money to the government 
 
The Glovers in The Eighteenth Century 43 
 
 had, in the same hour, bought them their 
 freedom in all that pertained to their local 
 affairs. 
 
 The importance of this initial association 
 for an economic purpose scarcely can be 
 overestimated. The Corporation later proved 
 the unit of strength which was to render the 
 glovers, as a body, invincible through the 
 endless chain of vicissitudes, political, moral 
 and industrial, which all but swept away, 
 in the next hundred years, the totality of 
 progress gained in the seventeenth century. 
 In 1590 Grenoble had not 10,000 inhabitants. 
 In 1692 Vauban values the population at 
 33,000. During the seventeenth century, then, 
 its numbers had more than tripled, and this 
 must needs strike one as the more remark- 
 able inasmuch as city life in that epoch was 
 little developed. Such growth, as we have 
 seen, went hand in hand with the evolution 
 of its industries. In 1692, Vauban wrote: 
 
 "The city contains a very numerous bour- 
 geoisie, and is filled with a high quality of 
 of artisans which furnish a great variety of 
 products to the largest part of the province. 
 Its increase has been such that it actually is 
 bursting out of its new ramparts. The city 
 has dire need of expansion; all ranks of peo- 
 ple demand it irresistibly." 
 
 In 1700 Vauban submitted a plan for 
 enlarging extensively the city proper. This 
 was not to be realized, however, until one 
 hundred and forty years later. Already the 
 tide had turned. The people were passing 
 out through the gates of Grenoble, never to 
 return. The eighteenth century was destined 
 to be such a period of sacrifice and retarda- 
 
44 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 tion, in a material sense, as the town liad 
 never known, even in the pestilence-ridden, 
 war-mad days which preceded the advent of 
 Lesdiguieres. 
 
 The explanation of the exodus which 
 ushered in the new century leads us back, 
 for a moment, to certain events which, until 
 now, we have not had occasion to mention. 
 A great blessing to Grenoble in the past had 
 been the Edict of Nantes, by which Henry lY., 
 in 1598, had put an end to the religious wars. 
 It had paved the way for the uninterrupted 
 peace of the seventeenth century, and thus 
 for the efflorescence of Grenoble's crafts and 
 industries. The Eevocation of the Edict of 
 Nantes by Louis XIV., in 1685, really marks 
 the turning point in that city's prosperity. 
 The testimony of contemporaries confirms 
 this opinion, and the verdict of those living 
 twenty years later in the famous glove town, 
 assigns to the same cause the steady shrink- 
 ing of the population during the second 
 decade after the Eevocation. 
 
 The sudden withdrawal of religious liberty 
 cost France three hundred thousand of her 
 people who emigrated to Germany, Holland, 
 and other Protestant countries. A large 
 element in these emigrations were the skilled 
 artisans. Grenoble alone was deprived of 
 nearly three thousand persons, among them 
 the family of the Lesdiguieres, many others 
 of the nobility and the gentlefolk, and a large 
 body of masters and apprentices. 
 
 In 1705 the city lost five hundred indi- 
 viduals of the religious profession and 
 seventy-three families of "gentilhommes," 
 whose disappearance was no triflmg matter, 
 
The Glovers in The Eighteenth Century 45 
 
 as these personages liad been liberal patrons 
 of the glovers, and it was their wealth which, 
 in great part, had made business move. 
 Industry in Grenoble, on every hand, was in 
 a grievous state — but especially glove-mak- 
 ing, the home demand being suddenly 
 removed, and foreign trade little developed 
 at that period. 
 
 Such was the deplorable effect of the 
 Kevocation. The glovers, however, proved 
 themselves possessed of almost unbelievable 
 powers of recuperation. In 1729 we find the 
 sale of Grenoble gloves spreading rapidly in 
 Germany, Switzerland, Savoy and Piedmont. 
 Foreign trade steadily increased, despite 
 the fact that the population of Grenoble 
 remained, virtually, at a standstill. But 
 trade abroad brought also foreign competi- 
 tion. While the Kevocation had actually 
 served Grenoble, indirectly, by causing the 
 ruin of her rivals in France — Blois; and 
 Vendome, which could not support the drain 
 of their emigrations; and especially Grasse, 
 which was seriously crippled by loss of its 
 master glovers and the departure of most of 
 its families of wealth — these selfsame emigra- 
 tions doubtless stimulated the manufacture 
 of gloves outside France. Many of those 
 who had served their apprenticeship in 
 Grenoble, and master glovers holding the 
 secrets of her arts, probably became rivals, in 
 other lands, of the city they once had called 
 their o^ti. 
 
 All this complicated subject of commer- 
 cial relations, the advantages and disad- 
 vantages of foreign trade, and the history 
 of the glove market, will be treated separately 
 
46 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 and in detail in the chapter which follows. 
 For the present, let us keep to onr main issue 
 — the vicissitudes in general of gloves and 
 glove-makers in the leading glove city of the 
 world during the stormy j^ears of the 
 eighteenth century. 
 
 From 1737 to 1746 we learn that the life 
 of the Grenoble glovers — on the surface, at 
 least — was comparatively monotonous. The 
 manufacture made some progress, but the 
 possibilities of expansion were not such as 
 to stimulate very keenly those at the head of 
 things. The masters and the workers lived 
 without disagreement, apparently; the time- 
 honored rules of the craft continued to be 
 observed on both sides. In the Corporation 
 a public magistrate managed the affairs of 
 the association; the glovers themselves, it 
 would seem, being too indifferent to take an 
 active part. Prosperity appears to have 
 been just about commensurate with the needs 
 of the Corporation. 
 
 And yet, beneath this evident torpor, a 
 vast inquietude was moving, like an earth- 
 quake under the sea. A fermentation of 
 social discontent — bred by the philosophy of 
 the times, by the glaring disparity between 
 the ruling class and the working people, the 
 latters' distrust of the morals and the 
 assumed authority of the former, by the 
 teachings of freemasonry and the trades 
 unions — was slowly gathering momentum. 
 In working centres — conspicuously in Gre- 
 noble and throughout the Dauphine — ^the 
 wealthy people were constantly framing re- 
 monstrances, begging the Royal Council to 
 curb the mutterings of the proletariat. 
 
The Glovers in The Eighteenth Century 47 
 
 Tlie outbreak of the Seven Years' War, in 
 1756, increased the industrial depression by 
 cutting off a part of the foreign demand, par- 
 ticularly for gloves, and by calling away 
 from France many men for the army. In 
 1759 a heavy tax was imposed by the crown 
 upon skins. This proved the last straw. It 
 meant that skins for tawing were hardly to 
 be had, and thus the glovers were without 
 materials for their manufacture. Their irri- 
 tation was acute, and the parliament of 
 Grenoble was obliged to carry before the 
 king the united protestations of the Corpora- 
 tion des Gantiers. 
 
 This defence in behalf of the Grenoble 
 glovers was at once an act of justice and an 
 achievement of admirable foresight. The 
 parliament did more than merely present 
 the honest grievances of the industry. With a 
 commendable vigor and pride it laid before 
 the king a constructive measure which was 
 to become the occasion in France of an 
 economic revolution in the skin and glove 
 trades. This was the beginning of the break- 
 ing down of custom duties on gloves between 
 provinces. After a few years the internal 
 taxes on this product were entirely abolished. 
 Thus vanished all unfair competition at 
 home, and neighboring glove cities ceased 
 to come under the title of "the foreigner." 
 At the same time, the selling of skins from 
 province to province became free and general. 
 Great fairs were held by the skin merchants, 
 the tawers and tanners, for the benefit of all 
 the surrounding region. Exportation of skins 
 decreased, while home manufacturers rejoiced 
 in the abundance of excellent materials. 
 
48 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 The Corporation of Glovers, however, suf- 
 fered meanwliile from the growing restlessness 
 and vague ambitions of its workers. The old 
 regulations were gradually and inevitably 
 giving way before the awakening conscious- 
 ness of a new race of wage-earners, grown 
 almost morbidly distrustful of vested au- 
 thority. The Dauphine was afflicted with the 
 bad example of many of its aristocrats. The 
 nobility was indeed unworthy of its rank. 
 The pervading restiveness and insubordina- 
 tion of the working class sprang out of a 
 deep, instinctive resentment against the pre- 
 vailing order. Of course, the first point of 
 friction lay between the apprentices and the 
 masters. 
 
 Though the severities of apprenticeship 
 were modified, the former good faith between 
 these two was irretrievably lost. Fear of 
 foreign competition faded into insignificance 
 before this intimate situation — the suspicious 
 attitude toward one another of masters and 
 workmen. Such was bound to be the price of 
 a last, furious assault upon the mouldering 
 ramparts of long-decayed feudalism. 
 
 The master glovers, on their side, shared 
 in the social discontent, and participated in 
 the long drawn-out struggle between the 
 aristocracy and the bourgeoisie to determine 
 which of these should predominate in the 
 local tribunals. The glovers of Grenoble con- 
 tended that they, as an organized body of 
 people, no longer merely having a trade, but 
 enjoying also a social position encroaching 
 on the importance of the man of the robe, the 
 magistrate and the attorney, should have the 
 largest voice in the making of the laws. Their 
 
The Glovers in The Eighteenth Century 49 
 
 product, they argued, was bringing money 
 into France from England, Germany, Switzer- 
 land, and otlier northern countries, where 
 more than one-half of their gloves were 
 sold. In 1775, it is stated, out of 100,000 
 dozen pairs of gloves made in Grenoble, 
 60,000 were on commission for the foreigner. 
 Naturally enough these manufacturers and 
 merchants felt that over an idle, and even 
 vicious, aristocracy, their opinions and 
 practical needs should lead in shaping public 
 legislation. 
 
 Further, bitter contention involved the 
 business men of Grenoble with the lawyers 
 of that city, for the latter persisted in look- 
 ing down upon plain citizens not bred in their 
 profession, and in excluding them from pub- 
 lic affairs. In 1789 all glovers were shut out 
 of the city council. In view of the fact that 
 they "gave work daily to more than eight 
 thousand persons, and thus enabled to live 
 one-third of the population of Grenoble," the 
 glovers resented bitterly this deliberate in- 
 dignity from "les hommes du robe." It onl}^ 
 fired them the more to throw themselves into 
 the great conflict ahead; to j)rove that, even 
 if they could not discourse so eloquently upon 
 public matters as those who had insulted 
 them, "at least they knew how to talk less, 
 act more, and give all they possessed" to the 
 cause of justice. 
 
 Thus, with the greatest crisis, perhaps, of 
 modern times approaching, the glovers found 
 themselves, workmen and masters alike, 
 drawn almost before they knew it, into the 
 very heart of the maelstrom. Industry itself 
 was at a standstill. Nay, it was slipping 
 
50 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 backward; for in the midst of such internal 
 suppression of terrible passions, such scorch- 
 ing hatreds, and ideals to set the world on 
 fire, what footing could there be for the arts 
 of peace? 
 
 And then the black cloud burst. Grenoble 
 was drained of men whom the actual erup- 
 tion of the Eevolution forced to flee its walls. 
 It was emptied of soldiers departing for the 
 centre of action. The Eevolution put out of 
 business many of those following religious 
 vocations, whose offices now were enlisted in 
 grimmer callings; it wiped out of existence 
 the gentlemen of leisure. There had been 
 many of these latter in the beautiful, old city 
 of the Dauphine. 
 
 And who was there left to wear gloves, in 
 all the length and breadth of France? What 
 was to become, in such an hour, of an industry 
 which addressed itself to the pleasure-loving 
 rich, and to the privileged classes? The rich? 
 There were no more rich. Privilege — the 
 title, the robe, the gown? Lost off in the 
 wild scurry of fugitives! In the appalling 
 reaction, such a harmless mark of elegance 
 as the glove, became, so to speak, branded 
 with horror. To be seen in gloves in those 
 days was to be marked for a criminal against 
 mankind ; to be suspected of being a Eoyalist, 
 a lover of the king, a Judas to the People. 
 
 So we have the spectacle of the glovers, 
 "plain men of business," throwing over every 
 material advantage, to hurl themselves and 
 all they possessed into the French Eevolu- 
 tion. "The Eevolution!" cries M. Xavier 
 Eoux in his invaluable book, The Glovers of 
 Qrenohle, published for private circulation 
 
The Glovers in The Eighteenth Century 51 
 
 in tliat city in 1887, "they themselves desired 
 it. They sacrificed to it their money and their 
 effort." Again he says : 
 
 "It would seem as though, in their eyes, 
 there were no longer practical 'interests'; 
 there were only ideas. Never, perhaps, as 
 then, has a whole people forgotten its indus- 
 try, it business relations, and suffered itself 
 to be moved by principle alone." 
 
 And yet one spectacle more remains — the 
 silent factories on the Isere. For the first 
 time since the founding of its main industry 
 and source of prosperity in the past, we 
 behold the paradox of a gloveless Grenoble! 
 
Chapter VI. 
 GLOVES IN MANY MAETS 
 
 "She of the open soul and open door, 
 With room about her hearth for all mankind." 
 — Trade: James Russell Lowell. 
 
 THE first glove-makers in Europe, we may 
 suppose — certainly tlie first, skilled in 
 that art, to work together in brotherhoods — 
 were the monks of the early Middle Ages. In 
 common with many other old-established 
 handicrafts, the glove trade is deeply in- 
 debted to the Church. On this point, William 
 S. Beck, the leading English authority on 
 glove lore of thirty-five years ago, has 
 summed up the conditions most interestingly 
 and clearly. He says : 
 
 "Muscular Christianity is no new doctrine. 
 Faith and works were once literally united 
 in a secular sense. Before corruptions crept 
 in, and while monastic establishments main- 
 tained the simple lines on which they had 
 been founded, their inmates were the most 
 skillful and industrious of artisans. Weav- 
 ing, illuminating, gardening, embroidery, 
 woodwork — these and many other occupa- 
 tions were practiced sedulously by the holy 
 friars. The original idea of the founders of 
 these institutions was to bring together a 
 company of Christians who were workers. 
 Benedict enjoins his followers to fight 
 valiantly against idleness, the canker of truth. 
 
 " ^Therefore,' he prescribes, 'the brethren 
 must be occupied in the labor of the hands, 
 and again at certain times in divine study.' 
 
Gloves in Many Marts 53 
 
 "The brethren not only practiced," says 
 Beck, "but taught. The monastery became 
 as much the centre of industry as of intel- 
 lect ; and religion was made an active worker 
 with commerce in furthering national inter- 
 ests. The efforts of the brethren often 
 resulted in raising local manufactures to 
 great excellence, so that they obtained more 
 than local celebrity. To the monks of Bath, 
 for instance, is attributed much of the fame 
 which the stout, woolen cloths of the west 
 of England yet enjoy; and under their active 
 auspices, we are told, the manufacture was 
 introduced, established and brought to per- 
 fection. In their commercial curriculum 
 glove-making was certainly included, as well 
 as the dressing of leather." 
 
 As early as 790, as has been mentioned in 
 a preceding chapter, Charlemagne granted to 
 the abbots and monks of Sithin in ancient 
 France unlimited right of hunting the deer 
 for skins of which to make gloves, girdles 
 and covers for books. These gloves, made in 
 the monasteries, assuredly were worn, not 
 only by the higher orders of the clergy, but 
 by the king and his nobles. They may have 
 been a direct means of revenue among the 
 monks; in any case, they were a favor 
 exchanged for the patronage and support of 
 the feudal lords in maintaining monastic 
 property. 
 
 Needless to say, gloves were one of the 
 luxuries of early trade and barter, and it 
 was a late period before they became, to any 
 extent, an article of common exchange. As 
 gifts to kings and personages of high rank, 
 they were borne from country to country, and 
 
54 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 thus, to a limited degree, were put into circu- 
 lation. The Earl of Oxford, on one occasion, 
 curried favor with Queen Elizabeth by pre- 
 senting Her Majesty with beautiful, per- 
 fumed gloves which he, personally, had 
 brought to her from Italy. The Queen, we 
 are told, was so vain of this particular pair 
 of gloves that she had her portrait painted 
 in them. Little by little, as the privilege of 
 wearing gloves spread from sovereign to sub- 
 ject, their trade was popularized, and the 
 glove market, in the modern sense, grew up 
 in response to the increasing demand. 
 
 In France, glove-making as an industry, 
 independent of the monasteries, was certainly 
 well established in the twelfth century. In 
 1190 we find the Grlovers of Paris organized 
 under a settled code of statutes received 
 from the king. Across the channel, gloves 
 are first mentioned, as an incorporated trade, 
 in Scotland, where the glovers formed a com- 
 pany called "The Glovers of Perth" during 
 the reign of Robert III., who figures in 
 Scott's Fair Maid of Perth, and ruled between 
 1390 and 1406. This company was principally 
 employed in making buck and doe-skin gloves. 
 Thence the trade spread over Scotland, but 
 it did not long hold its importance. "Dundee" 
 gloves enjoyed a picturesque fame; but Hull 
 remarks, in 1834, that "they had little more 
 than the term to recommend them." Indeed, 
 the greater part of them were made in Wor- 
 cester, England, and were sewn cheaply, 
 with cotton, instead of silk. A few gloves 
 were also turned out in Montrose, Scotland; 
 the leather for these, however, was sent from 
 London. 
 
Gloves in Many Marts 55 
 
 In London, the glove trade had existed for 
 many centuries, and originally was carried 
 on in connection witli the making of leather 
 doublets and breeches. Deer and sheep skins 
 were used chiefly; but after the introduction 
 of kid gloves into England from France, the 
 former country began to make kid gloves 
 also, under the name of "London town-made 
 gloves," and thus to follow the more fas- 
 tidious fashions of the French. The glovers 
 of London were incorporated in the four- 
 teenth year of the reign of Charles I., who, 
 on the sixth of September, 1638, granted 
 them a charter, in which they were styled: 
 "The Masters, Wardens and Fellowship of 
 the Worshipful Company of Glovers of the 
 City of London." As early as 1464, however, 
 they had received their coat-of-arms. Even 
 so, the Paris glovers must be acceded ijrioritj^ 
 in importance, as their statutes date from 
 1190. Moreover, it has justly been said that 
 gloves "came over with the Conqueror," and 
 were really introduced into England from 
 France. Previous to 1066, the glove produced 
 hj the Saxons was a rude and shapeless thing, 
 while the Normans brought with them the 
 clever prototype on which the future glove of 
 England was destined to be modelled. 
 
 Very early in their history the English 
 began to experience commercial rivalrj'^ with 
 the French, and one of the first products to 
 be strongly affected, to England's detriment, 
 was gloves. As far back as the reign of 
 Edward IV., in 1462, we find the English 
 glove trade protected by prohibitory^ laws. 
 These laws, in later years, must have become 
 obsolete, as they do not appear ever to have 
 
56 GrLOVES, Past and Present 
 
 been repealed, and foreign gloves were 
 imported into the country soon after tlie 
 Reformation. In 1564, however, England 
 forbade any gloves from abroad to enter her 
 ports. Nothing was said about the raw 
 materials being brought from other lands; 
 but France saw fit to curtail the shipment of 
 kid skins outside her boundaries, and thus 
 the English were thrown entirely upon their 
 own resources. French kid gloves — whose 
 quality, after all, it has been impossible to 
 equal in other countries — continued to be 
 smuggled into the British realm to a greater 
 extent, we may believe, than the authorities 
 then realized. The titled people, accustomed 
 to having the best of everything, infinitely 
 preferred the French luxury to the home- 
 made article ; and so, it was secretly procured. 
 But, generally speaking, after 1564, the Eng- 
 lish manufactured their own gloves from 
 native skins, and the trade increased and 
 became prosperous. 
 
 On the occasion of the granting of the 
 charter in 1638, certain abuses had crept into 
 the industry, and it was to obviate these con- 
 ditions that the document was demanded anH 
 granted by the king. It reads : 
 
 "Whereas, by an humble petition presented 
 unto us by our loveing subjects, living in and 
 about our Cities of London and Westminster, 
 using the arte, trade or mistery of Glovers, 
 
 "We have been informed that their 
 families are about four hundred in num- 
 ber, and upon them depending about three 
 thousand of our subjects, who are much 
 decayed and impoverished by reason of the 
 great confluence of persons of the same arte. 
 
Gloves in Many Marts 57 
 
 trade or mistery into our said Cities of 
 London and Westminster, from all parts of 
 our kingdome and dominion of Wales, tliat, 
 for the most parte, have scarcely served any 
 time thereunto, vi^orking of gloves in cham- 
 bers and corners, and taking apprentices 
 under them, many in number, as well women 
 as men, that become burdensome to the 
 parishes wherein they inhabit, and are a 
 disordered multitude, living without proper 
 government, and making naughtie and de- 
 ceitful gloves: And that our subjects afore- 
 said, that lawfully and honestly use the 
 said arte, trade or mistery, are, by these 
 means, not only prejudiced at home, but the 
 reputation the English had in foreign parts, 
 where they were a great commoditie and 
 held in goode esteeme, is much impaired. And 
 also, that by the engrossing of leather into 
 a few men's hands, our said subjects are 
 forced to buye bad leather at excessive rates, 
 to their further impoverishment . . . ." etc. 
 . . . etc. 
 
 In view of such abuses as these, the 
 London Company was given very exclusive 
 powers, one of which was "to search for and 
 destroy bad or defective skins, leather or 
 gloves." 
 
 The name of the first Master of the 
 Glovers' Company has come down to us in 
 certain parish registers of the seventeenth 
 century, in which he is mentioned as "William 
 Smart, of the parish of St. Giles, Cripple- 
 gate, Glover^ In his parish the trade seems 
 to have been especially flourishing. 
 
 Perhaps the London industry labored 
 under greater difficulties, on the whole, than 
 
58 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 glove-making elsewhere. It liad constantly 
 to contend against tlie secret importation of 
 French gloves into the capital city, and also 
 to maintain its superiority over the imita- 
 tions of the country manufacturers; for, in 
 England, as in France, competition between 
 the various glove centres was intense. Many 
 London manufacturers, because they could 
 not make their ventures pay, actually became 
 importers and dealers in French gloves — 
 either underhandedly, or openly, as the laws 
 of the land would permit. Invariably they 
 found this greatly to their advantage, since 
 the price of French gloves was low, and the 
 manner in which the duty could be evaded, at 
 that date, ridiculously simple. 
 
 Despite the feelings and the best efforts 
 of those Englishmen who sought to foster 
 and strengthen the home glove trade, the 
 prohibitory laws remained always more or 
 less lax — chiefly because the aristocracy and 
 gentry preferred the French glove, and, for 
 the most part, were not interested in the 
 welfare of English glovers and artisans — 
 until, in 1825, the ban on imported gloves 
 was officially removed. The effect upon 
 France was electrical. The British ports 
 were flung open to her at a time when 
 Grenoble, Paris and her other glove cities 
 were swinging back on the crest of the new 
 wave of industrial prosperity and progress 
 which had received its momentum in the 
 days of the Empire — a period which wit- 
 nessed the revival of much of the former 
 elegance of France, so lately eclipsed by the 
 Revolution. In 1832, the legal importation 
 of French gloves into England was 1,516,663 
 
Gloves in Many Marts 59 
 
 pairs. As many more, in that same jesiY, we 
 may believe, were also smuggled into tlie 
 country by the old methods. To France — and 
 particularly to Grenoble — the English change 
 of policy was one of the greatest boons which 
 could have befallen a commercially ambitious 
 people. 
 
 To English glovers, on the contrary, the 
 results were anything but fortunate. A brief 
 survey of the vicissitudes of the English 
 glove towns may serve to show how dearly 
 the glove industry was forced to pay for the 
 new national system of Free Trade. 
 
 In Worcester, close rival of London, the 
 glove craft is known to have existed since 
 1571, and in 1661 the Glovers' Company of 
 that city was incorporated. Here an elabo- 
 rate manufacture w^as carried on, including 
 "Venetian" gloves, made in imitation of those 
 originally imported from Venice. As long as 
 French gloves were not freely admitted, the 
 beaver gloves of Worcester also enjoyed great 
 prosperity ; but with the re-importation of the 
 former, beaver gloves went out of fashion, 
 and the Worcester makers turned their atten- 
 tion to alum leather gloves which were pro- 
 duced in large quantities until 1825. 
 
 The complete removal of the prohibitory 
 regulations, however, was fatal to this last- 
 named article, which could not hope to com- 
 pete with the far finer product from abroad. 
 From that date, the English manufacture 
 rapidly decayed, despite every effort of the 
 masters and the work people to readjust their 
 difficulties. How hard Worcester itself was 
 hit, is shown by a statement given by the 
 Committee of Operative Glovers in 1832. It 
 reads : 
 
60 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 "There are in Worcester 120 master manu- 
 facturers, wlio have been in the habit of 
 making, upon an average, one hundred dozens 
 of gloves each, per week, which would be 
 12,000 per week for the whole; but they are 
 now making something under one-third of 
 that number. By this means, about ;^ 3,000 
 (or $15,000) per week is taken out of circula- 
 tion in wages alone ; which money used imme- 
 diately to find its way into the hands of the 
 retail trader in the purchase of articles of 
 consumption." 
 
 In the year 1825, immediately before the 
 introduction of French gloves, there were 
 few, if any, work people idle in Worcester, 
 and the trade was prosperous. On Janu 
 ary 10, 1832, out of one thousand men, the 
 state of employment stood as follows: 
 
 In full employ 113 
 
 Partial employ 465 
 
 Unemployed 422 
 
 Of the 465, many did not average more than 
 two shillings, sixpence, per week. The num- 
 ber of children totally dependent upon these 
 one thousand men was 1,748. The poor- 
 houses were overrun, and large sums for 
 relief were paid out of the public pocket. 
 Worcester, the chief glove city outside Lon- 
 don, continued to decline. 
 -In Woodstock the Glovers never were 
 incorporated, but the manufacture was pur- 
 sued from a remote period. Some of the 
 finest English craftsmen labored here to pro- 
 duce a very beautiful glove; and that they 
 attained to a high degree of perfection is 
 certified by the fact that the University of 
 
Gloves in Many Marts 61 
 
 Oxford, in 1616, presented James I. with, 
 "very riclie gloves" in Woodstock. Queen 
 Elizabeth also received gloves from the 
 Woodstock makers in one of her festal 
 "progresses." In those times only English 
 deer, sheep and lamb skins were used in the 
 Woodstock shops. Since 1825, however, and 
 the introduction of French kid skins, most 
 of their ancient prestige has been lost. 
 
 Hexham furnished a peculiar glove — so 
 long-established that we may regard it as 
 having descended unbrokenly from the old 
 Saxon gluf — called the "Hexham tan glove," 
 made from native sheep skins. The gaunt- 
 lets attached to suits of armor were made in 
 the same style; and many centuries ago it 
 was an important trade in that place. But 
 even its modern substitute fell into disuse 
 about 1830. 
 
 York "tans" were popular in the days of 
 protection. Beaver gloves occupied 3,000 
 persons in Hereford, until the sudden indus- 
 trial collapse of that town in 1825. Ludlow 
 turned out 70,000 dozen pairs of gloves 
 annually, and employed one-fifth of its i)opu- 
 lation in that trade, collecting the skins 
 from Scotland. In 1832, "not six men," we 
 read, were employed in glove-making there. 
 Kington was another glove centre which 
 failed before the middle of the nineteenth 
 century. The glove workmen of Leominster 
 numbered 900 in 1825; and on the eve of 
 legal re-importation its factories were among 
 the busiest in the kingdom. In 1831, its 
 shops were deserted by all but 163 artisans. 
 
 A community whose associations with 
 gloves are particularly interesting, was 
 
62 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 Yeovil, where tlie craft was established as 
 early as the middle of the sixteenth century, 
 giving employment for hundreds of years to 
 peasant workmen and workwomen living over 
 an area of some twenty miles. At one period 
 the number of its masters, cutters and sewers 
 was 20,000, and about 300,000 dozens of gloves 
 of all kinds were produced annually. An 
 ancient folk song of the Yeovil glove-women 
 has recently been revived by the Fuller sis- 
 ters, to simple harp accompaniment, just as 
 it used to be sung, as a "round" or "part 
 song," by the diligent sewers as they drew 
 their triangular needles in and out of their 
 work. It is very quaint and tuneful, mark- 
 ing the time of the motions in sewing ; and its 
 rhythm, no doubt, facilitated the speed and 
 ease with which the women plied their task. 
 
 Yeovil was famous for its military gloves 
 for many years. Later, a fine imitation of 
 kid gloves was made there; but these were 
 crushed out by the return of the genuine 
 foreign product. An idyllic industrial com- 
 munity was transformed almost over night 
 into a desperate and dangerous populace, 
 demanding by force the means of bread-win- 
 ning which so suddenly had been denied it. 
 Hull tells us that to quell these disturbances, 
 two troops of dragons were kept continually 
 in the town, where, a few years before, "a 
 horse-soldier would have been looked upon 
 as a sort of centaur by the lower orders of 
 the people." 
 
 A territory, not yet mentioned, which was 
 closely bound up with the prosperity of the 
 glove trade in England, was Ireland. 
 Limerick, Dublin and Cork formerly were 
 
Gloves in Many Marts 63 
 
 noted glove cities. The "Limericks" — a glove 
 named for its birthplace — were of exquisite 
 texture, and were greatly in favor among 
 the aristocratic English for their property 
 of rendering the hand of the wearer smooth 
 and soft. These gloves were made of "morts" 
 or "slinks," the skin of the abortive, or very 
 young, calf, lamb or kid. Some of them were 
 so beautifully delicate that they could be 
 enclosed in a walnut shell. "No glove ever 
 exceeded the Limerick in beauty," declares 
 Hull. Skin collectors went all over Ireland, 
 and the trade was a great boon to the peas- 
 antry. But after 1825, the skins were no 
 longer worth the trouble of collecting, and a 
 great resource of the country was lost. 
 
 To one who views these facts it must be 
 apparent that England never was intended 
 to compete with France in the skilled making 
 of the finest gloves. She could content her 
 people with the home product only by exclud- 
 ing all foreign gloves; and even then, the 
 privileged, who could bribe the government, 
 insisted upon the secret importation of gloves 
 from France. To be sure, the wave of protec- 
 tion rose high in 1462, in 167i5 and in 1744; 
 but, in every event there came a reaction, as 
 far as the complete prohibition of gloves was 
 concerned. Instead of supplying her own 
 colonies with the home product, England 
 even imported gloves from France, stored 
 them in her warehouses, and then shipped 
 them at an ad valorem duty to her East 
 Indian possessions! 
 
 The truth of the matter was, French glove- 
 makers early had won the first place in 
 Europe. Struggle as she might, it is exceed- 
 
64 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 ingly doubtful whether her rival across the 
 Channel ever could have equalled her pres- 
 tige. In the heavier varieties of leather 
 gloves, English makers did enjoy — and still 
 do to-day — an enviable reputation; but here 
 their fame stops. England had neither the 
 inventive skill nor the natural climate to pro- 
 duce the perfect kid glove, for which France 
 is so celebrated. 
 
 In France itself, we already have traced in 
 the course of other chapters, more or less 
 definitely, the development of the glove 
 market. Particularly we have followed the 
 fortunes of the trade in Grenoble, as being, 
 most distinctively, the glove city of the world. 
 We have seen Grenoble guarding her precious 
 art from "the foreigner"; holding herself on 
 the defensive against other French cities, of 
 which, under the old laws and internal 
 duties, she had no choice but to be jealous. 
 We have noted how the Revocation ruined 
 many of her neighbors, even while it stimu- 
 lated competition beyond the confines of 
 France. In the seventeenth century, Paris 
 and Grenoble enjoyed the monoply of the 
 glove markets of Europe. During the 
 eighteenth century, however, these cities 
 began to cope with Germany, Italy, Austria, 
 and even Russia, in glove-making. The vexed 
 question of the exportation of skins was 
 settled to the advantage of the manu- 
 facturers at home, and unnatural rivalry 
 between the different French cities was 
 smoothed away. 
 
 The Revolution saw the entire industry, 
 apparently, snuffed out. And yet, so deeply 
 had the glove trade taken root in French soil 
 
Gloves in Many Marts 65 
 
 that, at the first breatli of the revival of cul- 
 ture and refined manners, under the patron- 
 age of the Empress Josephine, this ancient 
 art again sprang into being; and, like a 
 miracle, the resurrection of the glovers was 
 complete. 'At this point the great clients of 
 to-day appeared — the United States, recon- 
 structing itself, and building up its com- 
 merce with the foremost marts of the world. 
 The Americans demanded, among other 
 things, the most beautiful gloves of Europe. 
 
 Grenoble, on recovering from the shock of 
 the Kevolution, the long, dark days of the 
 Terror, found, to her chagrin, that she had 
 a formidable rival in Paris. Naturally, the 
 capital city, the centre of the court, was the 
 first place to feel the effects of the renaissance 
 of glove-making. Paris swarmed with 
 workers, and could get more sewers at lower 
 wages than Grenoble contained within its 
 gates. In 1810, however, the southern city 
 began to reach out into the surrounding 
 country for apprentices; and quickly the 
 peasant people responded by the hundreds 
 and thousands. Many of them flocked to the 
 town, filling the places left destitute by the 
 violent events of the last twenty years; and, 
 for miles about, sewing was portioned out, 
 to be done in the small villages and in 
 isolated households scattered among the 
 mountains. Grazing and goat rearing once 
 more became a profitable occupation. 
 
 It proved a long, proud pull — ^but the 
 glovers of Grenoble were not to be daunted. 
 At last that city's ancient prestige was 
 restored. The War of 1870, instead of being 
 a set-back, was really a help; for the remote- 
 
66 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 ness of Grenoble from tlie seat of war per- 
 mitted her to continue working, and orders 
 from England and America— wliicli, ordi- 
 narily, might have sought other channels — 
 she filled in her factories and home shops. In 
 1872, to be sure, Grenoble, and all the 
 French glovers, suddenly found themselves 
 up against tremendous, and totally unex- 
 pected, competition with Saxony, Austria, 
 Luxembourg and Belgium. These countries 
 had devised a means of placing on the market 
 remarkably handsome lambskin gloves, which 
 rivalled in appearance the fine French kid 
 product and sold for far less. But a few 
 years of obstinately insisting upon the high 
 prices they always had exacted for their 
 goods, soon taught the French manufac- 
 turers the necessity of finding a less expensive 
 kid; and with the development of new 
 mechanical inventions for cheaper cutting 
 and sewing, Grenoble presently regained her 
 firm footing. 
 
 If the seventeenth century must be con- 
 sidered little short of marvellous as regards 
 glove-making in Grenoble — and it may be 
 compared, indeed, to the first five years of a 
 child's life, in which he makes, proportion- 
 ately, his most astonishing progress — the 
 achievements of the industry in the nineteenth 
 century, if possible, have been even greater. 
 Apart from the facts of the vicissitudes the 
 trade had had to face, the battles it had 
 waged — and won — all the vast accoutre- 
 ments of modern machinery and scientific 
 appliances now come into play. Also, a great, 
 inventive genius has arisen, destined to 
 revolutionize the art of glove-making. 
 
Chapter VII. 
 FEOM AETIST TO AKTISAN 
 
 "There is nothing impossible to industry." — Clio, one of 
 the Seven Wise Men of Greece. 
 
 UNTIL now we liave been dealing with 
 revolutionar}^ movements in the political 
 sense, and, indirectly, their effects upon the 
 glove trade. We presently have to consider 
 the great revolution within the industry 
 itself, which came with the introduction of 
 machinery in the nineteenth century, whereby 
 productive labor was completely transformed 
 and glove-making permanently modernized. 
 
 Earl,y in the nineteenth century, the fac- 
 tory system was firmly established in Eng- 
 land. The French, however, held out against 
 the system, in great measure, as might be 
 expected of a people who recently had fought 
 so passionately for individual liberty. Child 
 labor was an evil against which the French 
 economists were vehement in their protesta- 
 tions. Apprenticing the young was an 
 entirely different matter, without doubt, 
 from enslaving children from dawn to dark 
 in mills, where they were compelled to repeat 
 unceasingly some mechanical detail of the 
 process, with very little hope of enlighten- 
 ment or advancement in their occupation. 
 The French, progressive but not greedy, 
 sought to maintain industry upon a humane 
 basis. 
 
 With the revival of glove-making at the 
 time of the First Empire, the honored methods 
 of craftsmanship still were in practice. 
 Gloves were made entirely by hand, and the 
 
68 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 glove-maker — whetlier designer or workman 
 — was, in the true sense, an artist. Patterns, 
 cut from thin boards, were laid on the leather, 
 and the shape traced with lead pencil. These 
 designs were cut out with a pair of long 
 scissors. The parts were then sewed together. 
 In order to keep the stitches uniform, the 
 pieces were placed between a pair of jaws, 
 the holding edges of which were serrated 
 with fine saw teeth; and the sewer by pass- 
 ing the needle forwards and backwards 
 between each of these teeth secured neat, 
 even-length stitches. The embroidery on the 
 backs was done with very great care, and 
 necessarily consumed much time. Although 
 these gloves possessed the charm peculiar to 
 most hand-made articles, the matter of fit 
 was purely accidental, for it depended partly 
 upon the elasticity of the leather and even 
 more upon the skill of the maker. 
 
 In point of skill no glove workers in the 
 world at that time surpassed those of 
 Grenoble. Relying wholly upon the art of 
 her workmen and the dexterity of her sew- 
 ing women, the ancient glove city still set the 
 standard of excellence for the rest of Europe 
 — even in the years when she was not in a 
 position to turn out so many gloves, nor sell 
 her product so cheaply, as Paris. Though 
 forced for some time to take secondary place, 
 quantitatively, Grenoble never yielded to her 
 rivals in the matter of quality. If she could 
 not produce the most gloves, she at least 
 would furnish the market with the best gloves. 
 
 The finest tawed skins to be had were 
 prepared for the Grenoble glovers in the mills 
 at Millau and Annonay. Their value excelled 
 
From Autist to Artisan 69 
 
 that of any skins tawed by foreigners. On 
 this fact, however, the prestige of the 
 Grenoble glove did not rest. These beautiful 
 skins were sent abroad to manufacturers all 
 over Europe, so, in themselves, they did not 
 create a monopoly in favor of the city really 
 responsible for their superiority. No, it was 
 her method of making gloves, the cutting and 
 the sewing of them, which actually dis- 
 tinguished Grenoble. Her workers enjoyed a 
 privileged position in the industry; they 
 were celebrated far and near. Other locali- 
 ties did their best to entice them away; 
 especially did Germany, Piedmont and 
 Smtzerland offer inducements, and, whenever 
 possible, strangers would enter the Grenoble 
 shops to spy upon these artists and steal their 
 secrets. But they were never able to carry 
 this far enough to establish any great com- 
 petition in the international markets. The 
 Grenoble glove continued to be much sought 
 and exceedingly envied. Not able to procure 
 elsewhere gloves of equal beauty, shapeliness 
 and finish, merchants far and wide were 
 obliged to supply themselves from the city of 
 inimitable artists in the Dauphine; and 
 thus, without the slightest compulsion from 
 the Grenoble manufacturers, these traders 
 stimulated their business and spread their 
 fame. 
 
 The sewing women, M. Eoux tells us, con- 
 stituted a peculiar source of wealth to the 
 Grenoble industry. Their exquisite hand- 
 work defied all rivalry; there were no other 
 such accomplished sewers in all France, nor 
 in any other country. To-day they are still 
 celebrated ; but then they formed an exclusive 
 
70 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 factor of Grrenoble's prestige. Apprenticed 
 wMle young girls, they looked upon glove- 
 making as a career, an art in wMch they 
 desired to perfect themselves. The traditions 
 of glove-making forebears held them to the 
 ancient metier of the place; and even more 
 than the glovers and the male workers, they 
 met the encroachments of self-seeking for- 
 eigners with an intuitive distrust and i^roud 
 resistance. 
 
 Under such conditions as these, the glove 
 industr}^ in Grenoble was able to support 
 successfully the extreme vicissitudes of the 
 post-Eevolutionary era. Even while the wave 
 of prosperit}^ rolled, now high, now low, in 
 face of other manufacturers it maintained an 
 invincible superiority — ^none excelled the skill 
 of its handwork. Others were unable to 
 counterfeit this; it could not be imitated; 
 never elsewhere was it equalled. 
 
 But meanwhile, right at home, unsuspected 
 forces were slowly working, which were 
 destined to prove at the same time propitious 
 and full of danger for the Grenoble glovers. 
 The real revolution was approaching; the 
 great, internal change which was to be the 
 undoing of the old, the uprearing of a new 
 industrial system upon the razed foundations 
 of the old. The days of the craftsman and the 
 artist were numbered. 
 
 Every genius has his forerunner. About 
 the year 1819, Yallet d'Artois, a French 
 glove manufacturer, invented steel punches 
 in three sizes, each of which would cut, or 
 punch, out of leather two dozen gloves at 
 once. This invention was the first step toward 
 the introduction of modern machinerj^ into 
 
From Artist to Artisan 71 
 
 tlie glove industry. It multiplied tlie effi- 
 ciency of the glove cutter, so far as speed was 
 concerned, twenty-four times. 
 
 In tlie same year, the genius who was 
 finally to revolutionize glove-making was 
 barely entering 3^oung manhood. Xavier 
 Jouvin has sometimes been called a Parisian. 
 He was born, however, in Grenoble, on the 
 eighth day of December, 1800, in the house 
 in the rue St. Laurent, now bearing the num- 
 ber 57. JouAdn was in Paris as a student in 
 1817, and he lived there again in 1825. But 
 he never felt at home in the least in the 
 French capital. He was a provincial by tra- 
 dition, birth and natural inclination; a 
 student and a dreamer whose spirit was 
 nourished by seclusion — b}^ journeying inward 
 and exploring its own solitudes rather than 
 by contact with men and affairs. 
 
 It seems significant that the first year of 
 the new centuiy should have ushered into 
 the world one of the leading mechanical 
 minds of that epoch. It is also strikingly 
 appropriate that Jouvin should have been a 
 native of Grenoble, since his name, above all 
 others, is identified with the modern industry 
 of glove-making. He was a visionary, whose 
 single need was the necessity of inventing 
 something all his days. He could not see any 
 kind of work going on near him but he must 
 think how he could make it easier by the 
 creation of some mechanical instrument. 
 Without ambition for fortune or for fame, 
 he was only too contented to proscribe his 
 life within apparently narrow limits. Eeturn- 
 ing from Paris in 1825, he was resolved to 
 enjoy obscurity, the provincial and rural 
 
72 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 environment in which his talent throve ; while 
 occupying his mind almost exclusively with 
 the study of mechanical processes necessary 
 to assure exact regularity in cutting gloves. 
 
 Already this young man had invented a 
 mowing machine, and a planisphere, by 
 means of which, automatically, one could 
 determine the position of the stars for every 
 night in the year. Now, in turning his atten- 
 tion to the problem of regularity of cut in 
 gloves, he was really broaching the great 
 factor which has given modern glove-making 
 its ascendency over the old method — ^namely, 
 the element of fit. At the outset he perceived 
 the exact terms of the problem which he 
 had set himself to solve. First, he must make 
 a general classification of the different sizes 
 and shapes of hands one meets ; secondly, he 
 must ascertain the precise extension of the 
 skin required for the measurements of the 
 hand he wished to fit. 
 
 By minutely studying hands in the Hos- 
 pital of Grenoble, Jouvin discovered and 
 wrote out in a rectangle thirty-two different 
 sizes of hands. He furthermore recognized 
 five types — ^very broad, broad, medium, slen- 
 der and very slender — each type being 
 divided into two classes. As there were 
 thirty-two sizes for each class, and five types 
 altogether, this made three hundred and 
 twenty different numbers of gloves, which 
 proved more than requisite to the demands of 
 the finest trade. 
 
 The dies which Jouvin invented and per- 
 fected for cutting out these three hundred 
 and twenty different gradations of gloves 
 consisted of the calibre, or glove pattern, and 
 
From Artist to Aetisan 73 
 
 the puncli, or emporte-piece, and were made 
 of fine tempered steel blades fastened to a 
 back of cast iron. In making tlie heavier 
 grades of gloves, the die was struck with a 
 ponderous mallet, cutting only one thickness 
 at a time. By cutting only one piece in this 
 way, the artisan avoided any holes in the 
 skins which might have been made in killing 
 the wild animal or in dressing the leather. 
 The thumbs and gussets, or fourchettes — the 
 strips inserted to form the sides of the 
 fingers — ^were cut with separate dies from 
 pieces not large enough for the body of the 
 glove, thus utilizing nearly every scrap of 
 the material. As the leather was first placed 
 upon a block to receive the blows of the 
 mallet, this grade of goods came to be called 
 "block cut." In "table cut" gloves, however, 
 the leather was tranked out on a table and 
 shaped for the size desired. Then, by means 
 of a power press manj^ pairs were cut at once. 
 The nicest part of this process consists in 
 getting the leather in proper shape. Dif- 
 ferent sizes may be cut with the same pattern 
 by estimating accurately the elasticity of the 
 leather. Jouvin's calibre is the same by 
 which — under many different systems, of 
 course — -all gloves are cut to-day. 
 
 Jouvin also studied to determine what 
 degrees of pressure the skin will withstand 
 in different parts, in order that, in every 
 case, just the right piece of material should 
 be selected to produce the measurements 
 desired. Expert knowledge of skins is equally 
 important with proper use of utensils in pro- 
 ducing an accurately fitting glove. 
 
74 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 In his work Jouvin sought the satisfaction 
 of the scientist and the artist rather than any 
 financial benefit which might have accrued 
 to him from his remarkable system. When 
 he had completed his invention, he hardly 
 realized its pecuniary value; he took out a 
 patent for France, but not for any foreign 
 country. The immediate effect of his achieve- 
 ment was somewhat curious. 
 
 During Jouvin's own lifetime his inven- 
 tion not only failed to profit the glovers of his 
 native city, but actually worked them harm. 
 He himself groped his way for several years, 
 in an attempt to find capital and workers 
 which should prove the usefulness of his new 
 method. But the manufacturers scoffed at 
 him. They declared that Jouvin had "vulgar- 
 ized" glove cutting. The glove cutter was 
 dethroned; he was no longer an artist. A 
 machine did his work, and it was evident 
 that with this machine a good cutter could 
 turn out good gloves from poor skins, while 
 a poor cutter would turn out poor gloves 
 from good skins. The calibre certainly was a 
 mischievous device, and had turned the glove 
 art topsy-turvjM 
 
 Like any inventor, Jouvin himself was not 
 greatly affected by all this talk, nor by the 
 rebuffs he met whenever he tried to interest 
 business men; for he was absorbed in the 
 possibilities of further improvement upon 
 his invention. He had discovered the calibre 
 in 1834; in 1838 — ^without having drawn a 
 cent of profit thus far — ^he added the punch, 
 or emporte-piece, for automatically cutting 
 gloves to measure. In the following year, 
 however, his work suddenly received con- 
 
From Artist to Artisan 75 
 
 spicuous public notice. It was rewarded a 
 bronze medal at tbe Industrial Exposition in 
 Paris. From tliat moment, Jouvin's future 
 as a glove manufacturer was assured, for men 
 with money rallied to his support. The first 
 thing the Grenoble glovers knew, Germany, 
 Switzerland and Italy had all seized upon 
 their fellow-citizen's admirable invention and 
 were turning it to tremendous commercial 
 account. Their outputs were increasing by 
 leaps and bounds. But, in France, one fac- 
 tory only — that of the inventor — worked, 
 while his compatriots stood still for the 
 benefit of foreign competitors to whom the 
 Jouvin system was free, while debarred from 
 French manufacturers under the terms of 
 the patent. 
 
 Of course, lawsuits against Jouvin arose, 
 as other glovers endeavored to have the broad, 
 general idea of stamping out gloves become 
 domaine piiblic, or public property. But the 
 industry had so far diminished in Grenoble 
 in 1840 that that city was not mentioned as 
 one of the principle producers of gloves. 
 
 Without doubt, the conservative manu- 
 facturers of that town learned their lesson. 
 For, in 1849, the year in which the Jouvin 
 patents expired, they hastened to shake off 
 this decade of depression which had seen 
 them bound hand and foot, while the glove- 
 makers of other lands rapidly eclipsed them 
 in importance ; and immediately they installed 
 in their shops the new system. With their 
 unrivalled skill and natural precedence now 
 reinforced by up-to-date mechanical methods, 
 the glovers of Grenoble effected a lightning 
 recovery. Moreover, their misfortunes had 
 
76 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 not been due to tlie lack of mechanical equip- 
 ment alone. Financial panic in America had 
 robbed them temporarily of one of their best 
 clients; and the price of skins had risen to 
 an exorbitant figure in France, even while 
 foreigners knew how to get them, without 
 paying a heavy duty, from Grenoble's own 
 mills at Annonay. 
 
 These conditions, however, were soon to 
 be righted. But another challenge to the old 
 regime loomed a few years ahead. In 1867, 
 at the Paris Exposition, some Grenoble 
 glovers paused in front of a fragile, little 
 machine, glanced at it with curiosity, and 
 went home without any idea that that jnodest 
 piece of mechanism was going to cap the 
 work of the calibre; and that shortly the 
 whole world would possess what, for two cen- 
 turies, had been the fortune and renown of 
 their native city — the ability to sew gloves 
 perfectly. 
 
 The era of labor-saving, quantity-multiply- 
 and cost-reducing machinery had indeed 
 arrived; and Grenoble, once she realized the 
 full significance of "vulgarizing" her ancient 
 trade, did not lag far behind. She faced and 
 conquered great difficulties in the nineteenth 
 century — ^notably, the large increase in the 
 "centres" of glove-making, as the trade grew 
 and improved abroad ; and also she succeeded 
 in finding a cheap, but good, kid to compete 
 with the German and Italian lambskins 
 which looked so well that they satisfied the 
 taste of the general public. These things she 
 accomplished with the help of modern 
 machinery; for which, in a peculiarly thank- 
 less and round-about way, the city owed a 
 
From Artist to Artisan 77 
 
 great debt to one of her own sons. Tlie 
 European glove world paid its tribute to 
 Jouvin in 1851, wlien tlie Universal Exposi- 
 tion lield in Vienna voted Mm a Diploma of 
 Honor. 
 
 A later contribution to tbe teclinique 
 of the glove was the modern style of 
 fastener, introduced, about 1855, by M. Kay- 
 mond of Grenoble. His factory was a valu- 
 able addition to the leading industry of that 
 city. Koux gives credit to Kaymond for all 
 the various changes and improvements in 
 glove fasteners which we have to-day. The 
 old-fashioned lacing has been completely 
 replaced by the clasp, the neatness and 
 efficiency of which could hardly be bettered. 
 
 Thus, in the last century, we see virtually 
 every trace of the immemorial methods of 
 glove-making vanish before the swift incur- 
 sion of modern machinery. A few hand-sewn 
 gloves alone remain to remind us of the days 
 when the couiurieres, peasant women and 
 girls gathered in groups in cottages on the 
 outskirts of Grenoble, or in the ateliers of the 
 town, to sing as they sewed gloves for the 
 nobility and the gentry of a former time. But 
 the art has gained by the inestimable assets 
 of fit and individuality in gloves: by the 
 great numbers, also, in which gloves to-day 
 are supplied, that we all may delight in wear- 
 ing them. 
 
 In respect to Grenoble, moreover, it should 
 be observed that, through all these changes 
 and commercializing influences, she has sacri- 
 ficed not a whit of her invincible good taste. 
 Against foreign competition and the paraly- 
 sis which she suffered under the Jouvin 
 
78 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 patent, she had only the superiority of her 
 product to offer — the suppleness of her skins, 
 the elegance of their cut, the beauty of the 
 tints artificially applied, the finish and dura- 
 bility of her sewing. But these were enough 
 to keep her art alive. They still prevail — 
 and in even higher degree — in the gloves of 
 Grenoble makers to-day. 
 
 In the evolution from artist to artisan, 
 there is little room for regret. Already the 
 glove-workers of France have readjusted very 
 largely to changed conditions within the 
 industry; while the consumer and producer 
 alike may rejoice in the widespread accessi- 
 bility of the finest gloves in the world. 
 
Chapter VIII. 
 ANNONAY AND ITS INDUSTKY 
 
 "In France, kid-culture is carried to perfection. ... To 
 this is due the value of the French skins, which command 
 higher prices than any in the market." — William 8. Beck. 
 
 NO history of gloves would be complete 
 wliicli failed to take into account the 
 old French town of Annonay and its cele- 
 brated industry. Annonaj^ has been men- 
 tioned several times already in the course of 
 these pages, when the subject of fine French 
 skins was touched upon, and especially in 
 connection with the diflficulties which arose 
 over the free exportation of these beautiful 
 leathers to manufacturers outside France. 
 At once the foundation of the glovers' pros- 
 perity, and the source to them of hardship 
 and bitter contention for want of proper 
 domestic protection of the trade in skins, 
 both Annonay and the town of Millau were 
 famous as old-established centres of the taw- 
 ing industry. 
 
 And right here, for the benefit of the lay- 
 man, it might not come amiss to define the 
 distinction between the well-known process 
 of tanning leather, and the less familiar 
 method of dressing skins, called tawing. 
 The latter is applied almost exclusively to 
 leathers in preparation for glove-making. It 
 differs from ordinary tanning in point of the 
 greater care and cleanliness of all the opera- 
 tions. Also, the dressed skin is submitted to 
 a brief fermentation, by piling one piece upon 
 another in a very warm place, so that, under 
 the influence of the heat and the pressure, the 
 
80 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 softness and flexibility of tlie leather may be 
 increased. The actual "tawing" itself con- 
 sists in treating the skins with a mixture of 
 flour, the yolks of eggs and alum. On the com- 
 pletion of this operation, they are stretched 
 by hand and dried as rapidly as possible. 
 
 The expert preparation of glove leather, 
 then, was the chief accomplishment of 
 Annonay and Millau. In regard to the latter, 
 it was that city which particularly was 
 embarrassed by the lambskin competition of 
 1872. Millau long had made a specialty of 
 tawing lambskin, but had not discovered the 
 secret of making the fine-looking gloves which 
 now, suddenly, were put upon the market by 
 Germany and other foreign countries. These 
 manufacturers abroad redoubled their activi- 
 ties, initiating new styles and even receiving 
 compensations from their governments. For 
 a time Millau folded its arms and submitted, 
 as M. Roux tells us, "in tranquil despair." 
 
 But before long Millau makers were hard 
 at work studying and experimenting to pro- 
 duce a cheaper grade of glove which, like 
 its rivals abroad should meet the growing 
 demand for a popular-price article with all 
 the fine appearance of genuine kid. The 
 glove trade, along with other industries of 
 the period, found that it must adapt itself to 
 the insistency on democratization of all 
 products. It must recognize the spirit of the 
 times; and in the cause of social equality, it 
 must furnish those who could not, or would 
 not, buy expensive kid gloves, with an excel- 
 lent substitute, as far as style and finish 
 were concerned. 
 
. Annonay and Its Industry 81 
 
 Lambskins, at this period, became the 
 glove of democracy ; and Millau, quicklj^ over- 
 taking her foreign competitors, is to-day pro- 
 ducing fine lambskin gloves which are second 
 to none in Europe. 
 
 But, to return to Annonay, whose name is 
 identified with the ancient art of tawing as 
 far back, probably, as the fourteenth centurj^ ! 
 The place has been called — and not inap- 
 propriately — the twin city of Grenoble. Its 
 industry, certainly, went hand in hand and 
 ranked equally in importance with that of 
 the celebrated glove town. Without Annonay 
 tanners and tawers Grenoble would have 
 lacked the fine skins indispensable to her 
 manufacture, and might never have held 
 first position as a producer of the most beauti- 
 ful gloves in the world. 
 
 Also, geographically^, there is a striking 
 resemblance between the two cities, which 
 likewise has an important bearing upon their 
 affiliations in commerce. Annonay, in the 
 department of the Ardeche, in south-eastern 
 France, is irregularly and picturesquely built 
 on several small hills, overlooking the deep 
 gorges of the Deome and the Cance. Thus, 
 it stands near the confluence of two large, 
 swift rivers, almost exactly as Grenoble does ; 
 and the waters of these rivers — torrential 
 streams, subject to sudden floods — supply 
 power to the factories of the town. By means 
 of a dam across the Ternay, a tributary of 
 the Deome, to the northwest of the city, a 
 reservoir is provided, in which an additional 
 supply of water, for both industrial and 
 domestic purposes, is stored. Moreover, the 
 river Ardeche flows in close proximity — like 
 
82 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 the Isere unexcelled for its purity. By virtue 
 of the especial qualities of its waters, Anno- 
 nay has become what it is — the chief home of 
 French dressers of glace kid skins. 
 
 The climate, like that environing Grenoble, 
 is particularly favorable to the raising of 
 goats and sheep. The Oevannes mountains 
 almost cover the department of the Ardeche, 
 and their spurs provide rich grazing country. 
 The peasants are shepherds worthy of that 
 ancient calling. The young kids are as care- 
 fully nurtured and watched over as are the 
 children in the family, for absolutely nothing 
 must be allowed to cause any defects in their 
 skins. They must be killed at a tender age, 
 for as soon as the kid begins to eat herbage, 
 his pelt is injured for the finer qualities of 
 gloves. Indeed, the perfect glove animal is 
 milk-fed — and necessarily short-lived. 
 
 However, when the kids are allowed to 
 grow up and become goats, their skins are 
 still useful for the heavier, stronger grades 
 of gloves. Such are termed chevrettes, that 
 being the French name for goats. The same 
 care is exercised that these animals shall not 
 meet with any injury to their hides, and good 
 chevrette leather is invaluable for pique and 
 prickseam gloves, which rank very high 
 indeed. 
 
 Formerly, skins of chamoix, and both wild 
 and domestic animals, were collected all over 
 the country by a class of people correspond- 
 ing to what were known in England as 
 "higglers." Ultimately, all these trophies 
 found their way into the hands of the famous 
 dressers of Annonay. In these days, the 
 leading glove manufacturers of Grenoble 
 
Annonay and Its Industry 83 
 
 buy their skins "in the raw" at the Spring 
 fairs, which are held at various centres 
 throughout France. When they have as- 
 sembled their lots, they then ship them to 
 the dressing factory in Annonay. 
 
 "The dressing of leather," says Hull, in his 
 History of the Glove Trade, published in Eng- 
 land in 1834, "formed one of the earliest occu- 
 pations of mankind in all countries; and it 
 is a significant fact that Laplanders, Africans 
 and Canadian Indians dress skins in the 
 highest perfection, altho' their means and 
 processes necessarily are of the rudest kind. 
 The Laplanders also make very tolerable 
 gloves." 
 
 With all due respect to the Laplanders, 
 and other aborigines, we venture to place 
 the tawers of Annonay above even those 
 primitive artists to whom Mr. Hull gave first 
 credit. Mr. Hull wrote his little book to 
 prove that the free trade policy would be the 
 ruination of England's home manufactures — 
 nor was he greatly mistaken, as far as the 
 glove business of his day was concerned. 
 Naturally, this vehement protectionist had 
 little good to say of French methods — ^which 
 accounts, perhaps, for his going back to the 
 uncivilized peoples to pay his debt for the 
 art of leather-dressing ; in England, certainly, 
 at that period, skill in preparing glove skins 
 was sadly lacking. 
 
 The finest qualities of French kid skins, 
 suitable for glace hand-wear, come from the 
 valleys of the Loire, the Rhone, the Poiton 
 and Auvergne. Inferior to these are those 
 which emanate from the extreme south of 
 
84 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 France, from Provence and the Pyrenees ; as 
 one nears Spain, tlie skins coarsen. 
 
 At Annonay, the skin-dressing industry — 
 like that of glove-making at Grenoble — has 
 been established for so many centuries, that 
 long family lines have devoted themselves 
 for successive generations to that single call- 
 ing. Fathers, sons and grandchildren have 
 passed their lives and spent their efforts in 
 furthering and perfecting the art of prepar- 
 ing glove skins which should be without a 
 rival. The "French National" skins are the 
 result. Doubtless they are the finest skins 
 in the world. 
 
 To appreciate fully the perfection of this 
 art, and its importance to the science of 
 glove-making, a visit to the largest skin- 
 dressing establishment in Annonay to-day 
 would appear almost indispensable. In 
 imagination, accordingly^, let us enter the 
 factory in question, owned and operated by 
 Messrs. Briancon & Company. We find it a 
 large, airy, well-lighted, four-storied struc- 
 ture, recently built for the express purpose 
 for which it is now used. 
 
 When the skins "in the hair" arrive at this 
 factory they are at once hoisted to the top 
 fioor, where they are unpacked and piled up 
 in stacks. The dresser holds the skins on 
 account of the manufacturer of gloves who 
 has bought them at the fairs. To each manu- 
 facturer is allotted suf^cient floor space in 
 the fourth story of the dressing factory to 
 receive his supply of skins. Each stack is 
 ticketed with the name of the owner or 
 owners — that is, the manufacturer — and its 
 place of origin. 
 
Annonay and Its Industry 85 
 
 Each layer of skins, as placed on tlie stack, 
 is well sprinkled with naphtha to disinfect 
 and keep it wholesome. If the hides are to 
 remain long in the stacks before going into 
 the dressing, they must be unstacked from 
 time to time, shaken out, aired, and restacked, 
 to prevent them from overheating. When the 
 dresser receives from the manufacturer in- 
 structions to put one of his lots into the 
 dressing, the first thing that has to be done 
 is carefully to inspect each skin in the pile; 
 it is then classified as "hard," "extra strong," 
 or "medium"; as "fine" or "superfine." 
 
 After all the skins in the stack have been 
 looked over, and sorted in this manner, they 
 are carried to the ground floor of the factory 
 and placed in tanks of clear, cold water, in 
 which they must remain for forty-eight hours. 
 At the end of that time, they are thoroughly 
 washed in running cold water, and are again 
 put into the tanks, where they are kept for 
 another forty-eight hours. 
 
 The next step is one of the most particular 
 in the entire process. The skins are removed 
 from the clear water into tanks of concrete, 
 simk in the floor of the factory, which are 
 filled with a mixture of water and dead sifted 
 lime. Every forty-eight hours they are taken 
 out and well swilled with a similar mixture ; 
 then immediately replaced in the tanks. The 
 length of time skins should be kept in this 
 lime bath depends upon their character and 
 origin. The effect of the lime on the skin is 
 to render it very easy to scrape off the hair. 
 According to the regions from which they 
 come, skins remain in the bath for from ten 
 to twenty-five days. This lime treatment is 
 
86 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 the most crucial point in the dressing of kid 
 skins, for it is only after long years of experi- 
 ence that a master dresser knows exactly how 
 long it takes to render — let us say, for 
 instance — an Auvergne skin "unhairable." If 
 the skins are left even twenty-four hours too 
 long in the lime mixture, they are so damaged 
 as to be useless for manufacturing into high 
 grade gloves. 
 
 When it is judged that the skins have 
 remained long enough in the lime bath, they 
 are taken out and then energetically washed 
 in clear, running water ; after which they are 
 passed along to another set of men who place 
 them, one by one, flat, over a smooth, rounded 
 block of wood, and with a blunt, two-handled, 
 almost scythe-shaped knife, proceed to scrape 
 the hair and fat off the surface of the skins. 
 The "unhairing" completed, the skins, still 
 wet and mussy, are passed on to women 
 workers who trim the edges — to which ad- 
 heres superfluous fat — with large hand 
 shears. 
 
 The next process is to rid the skins of the 
 lime with which tliej have been charged. 
 Therefore, scraped and trimmed, they are sub- 
 merged in a large, wooden vat, containing hot 
 water mixed with an entirelj^ new product, 
 invented by Monsieur Louis Peyrache. This 
 product is called "peroly" and is an enemy to 
 lime. When the skins are lifted out of this 
 solution they are found to be quite devoid of 
 all traces of the latter. 
 
 Following the "peroly bath," the skins are 
 placed in another large tub full of hot water, 
 above which passes a crank connected with an 
 electric motor, from which crank four shafts 
 
Annonay and Its Industry 87 
 
 terminating in wooden "stampers" hang down 
 into the tub. Tlie tub also revolves on a 
 spindle connected with, the motor. The object 
 of this bath is to free the skins of every ves- 
 tige of the peroly; and the effect of the hot 
 water is to open the pores in the skins and 
 render them more easily deprived of the ani- 
 mal matter they contain. 
 
 The skins have now been well washed and 
 thoroughly cleaned. They appear almost 
 transparent. But the series of "baths" is not 
 over. However, before another is attempted, 
 the skins are laid again across the wooden 
 blocks and as much as possible of the fatty 
 substance which still adheres to them is 
 scraped off with the blunt knives already 
 described. In this instance, as previously, 
 the skins are scraped on the sides from which 
 the hair was removed in the first place, known 
 as the "fleur" side of the sldn. Then comes 
 the bran bath. In a mixture of luke warm 
 water and bran they are gently stirred 
 around by means of long, wooden props 
 fitted with ferules of india-rubber. Once 
 more the skins are lifted out and laid on the 
 blocks ; and this time the scraping is done on 
 the "flesh" or inside. Another bran bath 
 follows, and now the skins require careful 
 watching. When the master dresser judges 
 that they have stayed long enough in this 
 second bran solution, they are again, one by 
 one, laid over the blocks, when all the remains 
 of the bran are scraped off. 
 
 Now the skins are put into a large, closed 
 receptacle, containing a mixture of the yel- 
 lows of eggs, meal and alum. This mixture 
 "feeds" the skins; it is a kind of "wrinkled 
 
88 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 paste" in the beautifying process. It fills up 
 the pores which have been impoverished 
 through the loss of their natural fat and oil. 
 The next day, the skins are taken out of this 
 bath, and are strung up in a large room 
 through which flows a current of dry, heated 
 air. In stringing up the skins here, care 
 always is taken to fold them with the "fleur" 
 surface inside. After they have become 
 thoroughly dried, they are tied up into 
 packets of six dozen each, and left in a dry, 
 normal atmosphere for fifteen days, or even 
 a month. By this time the skins are quite 
 hard and brittle. 
 
 To take out the stiffness, the skins now 
 are dipped into clear, cold water for a few 
 minutes. They are left in the air until the 
 following day, when they are passed through 
 a set of rollers which help to make them 
 supple; after which they are sent imme- 
 diately to the "palisson." This process rein- 
 vigorates the dressed skins, rendering them 
 plastic and easily stretched. By the old- 
 fashioned method, it is performed by hand. 
 The "palisson" consists, as formerly, of a 
 large, rounded, blunted steel blade, pointing 
 upwards, and fastened into a wooden block, 
 over which the skin is dravm backwards and 
 forwards, with its flesh side on the blade. 
 After this operation, the skin is rubbed over 
 another blade, similarly shaped, but slightly 
 sharpened. By means of this, the remainder 
 of the flesh is cut away from the surface of 
 the skin, thus giving it the softness and white- 
 ness which, by this time, it will have acquired. 
 
 In these days, the "palisson" process is 
 also performed by girls at revolving wheels 
 
Annonay and Its Industry 89 
 
 run by a motor, and tlie results obtained com- 
 pare very well indeed with the old-fashioned 
 method of palisson by hand. 
 
 The skins are now completely dressed. 
 Lastly, they are sent to the classing room to 
 be examined by experts and sorted according 
 to their qualities. They are then forwarded 
 to the manufacturers at Grenoble. 
 
 In the United States kid gloves manu- 
 factured out of skins from all over Europe, 
 and even from northern Africa and China, are 
 to be found on the counters of the glove shops. 
 But the best kidskins come from France, and 
 are invariably dressed in Annonay and manu- 
 factured into gloves at Grenoble. The 
 American, then, who buys gloves of French 
 origin, Annonay dressed, and made in Gre- 
 noble, may flatter himself that he is enjoying 
 perfection itself in hand-wear. 
 
Chapter IX. 
 THE GLOVES WE BUY 
 
 "There's nothing like leather. Leather is a product of 
 Nature. Take a piece of leather and observe the way the 
 fibres are knit together. It is Nature's work. It is so won- 
 derful that man cannot hope to reproduce it. He cannot 
 even re-create it. Boil a piece of hide or skin. It will turn to 
 gelatine. No power known to man can turn that gelatine back 
 into leather. Shred it. No machine can reweave the fibres 
 into their former wonderful fabric. Take all the chemicals 
 which go to make up a piece of leather, and mix them in all 
 the ways that can be imagined, and man cannot make a single 
 inch of leather. Synthetic leather seems farther away than, 
 the synthetic diamond." 
 
 THE person wlio enters a glove shop of 
 reputation — or the glove department of 
 any high class store — to buy gloves, probably 
 has a very limited notion of the variety of 
 fabrics and workmanship represented by the 
 goods before him. To this single line of mer- 
 chandise nearly every country in the world 
 contributes to-day; not merely in the his- 
 torical sense, in which we have watched the 
 glove evolve through the centuries, but also 
 in point of materials and processes actually 
 used. The glove counter, little as we may 
 appreciate it, brings together the riches and 
 skill of the Orient, of Africa, of Europe, and 
 of the Western World. A glance at some of 
 the names, familiar to us all, as cape and 
 mocha, immediately suggests their origin in 
 far distant countries. 
 
 And yet, perhaps for economy of expres- 
 sion — if not from positive ignorance — the 
 general public divides all leather dress gloves 
 into just two classes, "dressed kid" and "un- 
 dressed kid." Everything with the grain 
 surface, or smooth finish, is designated by 
 
The Gloves We Buy 91 
 
 the former term; tlie latter is popularly 
 applied to gloves with the grain surface 
 removed, or finished on the flesh side of the 
 skin. To the initiated, however, gloves are 
 distinguished primarily by the different kinds 
 of leather of which they are made; and, still 
 further, by the great variety of qualities 
 which each kind of leather is capable of 
 exhibiting. 
 
 In the glove trade men talk of "cape," 
 "suede," "doeskin," "lambskin," "kid"— nor 
 is the meaning of each of these nearly so 
 obvious, nor so simple, as would casuallj^ 
 appear. If, in every case, the name were 
 properly applied to skins which came from a 
 distinct type of animal, grown in one partic- 
 ular district, whose hide was tanned into 
 leather by its own peculiar process, then the 
 quality and character of each kind of leather 
 would be practically uniform. But such is far 
 from being the fact. When first used, no 
 doubt, each of these terms meant a certain, 
 well-defined thing. Now, however, in the 
 evolution of processes of production, the 
 meaning has been enlarged; and virtually 
 any of these designations covers a much 
 wider scope, even departing radically, in 
 many instances, from its original application. 
 
 Let us take, for example, the "cape" glove. 
 In the first place this name was used to dis- 
 tinguish a glove made of skins from the Cape 
 district of South Africa. These skins were 
 large spread, heavy, rather tight grained, and 
 are still used in the production of genuine 
 cape gloves. But the soft, pliable, widely- 
 worn glove, in various weights, now commer- 
 cially known as cape, is manufactured from 
 
92 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 sheep and lamb skins grown in many lands, 
 and tanned and dressed by tlie method called 
 "napa dipped." What was once the name 
 for a glove made from one type of skins is 
 now the designation for hand-wear made 
 from leather of a particular tannage, for 
 which skins of many types, grown in many 
 lands, are used. 
 
 Probably the best types of these skins 
 come from Eussia to-day — the district fur- 
 nishing the most desirable qualities being the 
 province of Kasan and the nearby territory 
 of the Volga Eiver. Others of varying degrees 
 of merit emanate from Spain, as well as from 
 the European Orient — Turkey, Eoumania, 
 Bulgaria, Montenegro and Servia; and, to a 
 small extent, from some other vicinities. All 
 these are called Oriental skins. Those with 
 the finest grades of wool, oddly enough, are 
 Inferior, usually, to those which have hairy, 
 wiry wool — as far as their desirability for 
 glove leather is concerned. Evidently, then, 
 the place of origin, the character of the pelt, 
 and the method of its tannage, all have 
 important bearing on the quality of the 
 cape glove. 
 
 But if the cape is made from lamb skin, 
 what, then, is the distinguishing feature 
 between the lamb glove and the cape glove? 
 How are we to tell them apart? Up to that 
 stage in tannage referred to as "in the 
 white," these two leathers are practically the 
 the same — except that the skins which are 
 to go into the capes are heavier and larger. 
 It is in the finishing and coloring processes 
 that the distinction occurs. The dressing 
 and coloring — which, in fact, is a part of the 
 
The Gloves We Buy 93 
 
 tannage of the capes and completes this 
 process — is done by the "drum" or "dipped" 
 method. This colors the skin all the way 
 through; whereas, leather for the so-called 
 lamb glove has the color brushed on the 
 grain surface only, leaving the flesh side of 
 the leather, which is to be the inside of the 
 glove, in the white. 
 
 Thus, the visible marks of difference 
 between the cape glove and the lamb glove, 
 so-named, are in the weight of the stock, and 
 in the fact that the cape, when colored, is 
 dyed through the skin, instead of merely on 
 the grain surface. 
 
 German tanners have been the largest 
 converters of lamb and sheep skins into cape 
 leather by the napa tannage, which is an 
 alum process. And it is the German stock 
 which, until recently, was chiefly used in the 
 American-made cape gloves. In the year 
 1913, however, several American tanners 
 devised a chrome cape tannage, which 
 appears to be even superior to the napa 
 process, and possesses the added merit that 
 it may be cleansed in water free of alkali of 
 any temperature up to 212° Fahrenheit. It is 
 this leather — really an American discovery — 
 which goes into the gloves popularly known 
 as washable capes. Since the outbreak of 
 the European War, in 1914, chrome tanning 
 has been further improved in this country; 
 and as real Cape of Good Hope leather is 
 used, the United States is producing to-day 
 the best cape gloves ever known, and the 
 German tanned napa cape is fast being 
 discarded. 
 
 While mocha is made from skins grown in 
 
94 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 far distant lands, moclia gloves are distinctly 
 of American origin. With tlie march, of civili- 
 zation westward in the United States, and the 
 disappearance of the antelope from the 
 western plains of North America some thirty- 
 five years ago, a skin was sought by glove 
 manufacturers in this country to take the 
 place of the antelope, which was used in mak- 
 ing a glove in those days known as doeskin. 
 After patient search, and much experiment- 
 ing with various species of skins and different 
 tanning processes, a tannage was perfected 
 for the skin of the Arabian hair sheep which 
 produced the strong, but soft, velvety finished 
 mocha. 
 
 The skin derives its name, no doubt, from 
 Mocha, a seaport town of Arabia on the Red 
 Sea, whence, it is said, these skins were first 
 brought. The Mocha hair sheep is a distinct 
 type, and is not a species resulting from cross 
 breeding between the Mocha goat and a kind 
 of wool sheep, as often has been stated. 
 While the Mocha goat and the Mocha sheep 
 herd together, they do not interbreed. The 
 mocha market of the world is Aden, at the 
 southern end of Arabia. The buyers here 
 keep native collectors at the chief points to 
 which skins are conveyed by caravans. These 
 points are Moka, Berber a. Bulbar, Djibouti 
 and Zeylah in Africa, and Hodeidah in 
 Arabia. The skins are sorted and graded 
 according to size, weight and condition; then 
 they are baled, about three hundred in a lot. 
 First, however, they are sun-dried, and are 
 treated with naphthaline to protect them 
 from damage by worms. 
 
The Gloves We Buy 95 
 
 In tlie vernacular of the trade, these skins 
 are referred to as wMte-lieads, black-heads 
 and red-heads. They are thus classified in 
 reference to the color of the hair on the heads 
 of the animals, the bodies being black and 
 white, red and white, or all white. However, 
 as the head colors denote a type of skin with 
 more or less well defined characteristics, 
 these designations are more scientific than 
 would appear. For glove leather the black- 
 heads rank first in quality, the white-heads 
 second, and the red-heads third. The black- 
 head type, which comes principally from the 
 African districts mentioned, is more dis- 
 tinctly a hair skin than the other two types, 
 and has a tighter, firmer texture. With the 
 white-heads, which are chiefly Arabian skins, 
 the hair is of a more woolly character and 
 the fibre of the skin is looser. This last is 
 also true of the red-heads, in which these ele- 
 ments are even more pronounced. Certain 
 other kinds of sheep skins — ^notably those 
 found in the district between Cairo and 
 Khartum, known as "Sudans" — have been 
 adapted for the manufacture of mocha leather. 
 These yield a much larger spread, coarser 
 fibre skin than the mocha hair sheep; but 
 when tanned by the mocha process, sudans 
 sufficiently resemble the mocha to be sold for 
 that article — except to the expert. 
 
 No other glove leather passes through so 
 many different processes in tanning and 
 dressing as does the mocha. This is chiefly 
 due to the fact that the skins, at their source, 
 are handled by the natives in a crude sort of 
 way, and under the crusted, sun-dried surface 
 there are often many defects which do not 
 
96 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 show until tlie skin is subjected to tlie tan- 
 ning process. Mocha skins invariably are 
 scratched, scarred and imperfect on the grain 
 surface ; for this reason the grain is removed. 
 At the same time, as much of the grain 
 strength as possible must be preserved while 
 eliminating the imperfections. 
 
 This method, which is called "friezing," 
 distinguishes the mocha from the suede glove. 
 Though in appearance, when finished, they 
 are very similar, mocha and suede actually 
 are extremel}^ different in character. In the 
 friezed mocha, the outer or wearing surface 
 of the glove, which receives the finish, is on 
 the grain and not on the flesh side of the 
 leather. Friezing merely removes the grain 
 to take the finish, thus leaving much of the 
 strength of the outer skin — while in suede or 
 other "undressed" finishes, this strength is 
 entirely lacking. 
 
 The name suede is derived purely from 
 the sueding process, and not from the kind 
 of leather used. Skins with perfect grain 
 usually are finished on the grain surface side 
 and are called glace. But many with imper-i 
 feet grain are finished on the fiesh side of the 
 skin, by the sueding process. Suede, then, is 
 exactly the reverse of mocha, in that what 
 was the inside of the skin becomes the out- 
 side of the glove. Suede leather, obviously, is 
 inferior in strength, if not in appearance, to 
 the same types of skins dressed on the grain 
 side. It has by no means the durability of 
 mocha — though a high-grade suede strikingly 
 resembles mocha. 
 
 Although "chamois" is not chamois, it is 
 by no means a sham. And that the "doeskin" 
 
The Gloves We Buy 97 
 
 is most likely a eweskin is notMng to its 
 discredit. The chamois of commerce is not 
 the skin of the Switzerland animal known by 
 that name, nor is the doeskin of to-day the 
 skin of the one-time antelope. Both are 
 sheep skins, or parts of sheep skins, tanned 
 and dressed as chamois and doeskins. Col- 
 lectors and dealers in sheep skins at their 
 source, in some districts find it necessary, or 
 advantageous, to split the skins edgewise, 
 making two thinner skins. The upper part, 
 with the grain surface, is termed a "skiver," 
 and the lower section a "flesher." It is from 
 these flesher sheepskins that the leathers 
 commercially known as chamois and doeskin 
 are produced. 
 
 The tanning processes of chamois are 
 many, the most common being the oil tan- 
 nage, alum and chrome. The finest selections 
 of fleshers, split from sheepskins of the 
 Scotch mountains, and from France, Spain 
 and Turkey, are oil tanned and are used for 
 the production of the washable chamois glove. 
 Another, and comparatively recent, tannage 
 of fleshers, is the formaldehyde process which 
 supplies the leather commercially known as 
 doeskin. Properly tanned for that purpose, 
 these leathers will wash perfectly under the 
 prescribed rules for washing. Trade in these 
 gloves, however, has suffered from intense 
 competition which has forced a cheap, quicker 
 tannage, and one which will preserve the 
 largest possible spread to the skin. And some- 
 times the washing quality has been sacrificed 
 to secure a finer "face" to the leather. Tan- 
 nages even are used which render the leather 
 not washable but actually impervious to 
 
98 GrLOVES, Past and Present 
 
 water — simply for the sake of tlie pleasing 
 appearance of the skin when new. These 
 things, coupled with the wearer's careless 
 disregard of proper methods of washing, have 
 cast some measure of discredit upon what 
 are really meritorious gloves. 
 
 But, as regards the really reputable 
 chamois glove of to-day! In the first place, 
 how absurd to the initiated is the question, 
 so often asked by the customer, "Is this 
 genuine chamois?" Think of it! An animal 
 grown in the Swiss Alps, and, like the Ameri- 
 can buffalo, now almost extinct, is supposed 
 by many people to produce chamois gloves 
 for the whole, civilized world! As we have 
 seen, "genuine chamois" is sheep or lamb 
 skin, tanned by a simple process similar to 
 that used on the real chamois, many, many 
 years ago. Sheep skins give the best results ; 
 but lamb skins are used to a limited extent. 
 The latter make finer gloves, but not so 
 durable, as these skins scarcely can stand 
 the hard usage this leather requires in 
 preparation. 
 
 The entire tanning process of chamois 
 leather calls for absolutely nothing but fish 
 oil. No dye, no acid, no alkali goes into this 
 leather, and thus its washing qualities are 
 unquestioned. After the skins have remained 
 in the vats in this oil a sufficient length of 
 time — a month or more, as is determined by 
 experts — they are wrung out and hung up 
 in drying rooms, without ventilation, and a 
 few fagots of wood kept burning. When 
 thoroughly dry they have what is known as 
 the "natural" or yellow color, and no two 
 tannings come out alike in shade. When a 
 
The Gloves We Buy 99 
 
 cream color, or wMte, is desired, another 
 process follows. An expert goes through the 
 skins, selecting those that have body and 
 strength enough to stand the severe washing 
 they are to get. These skins are put into 
 vats or tubs of clear water and washed 
 "French fashion" — which means, beaten with 
 a club — and are then wrung out again and 
 laid on the grass in the sun to bleach. 
 
 If cream color is wanted, a day or two on 
 the grass in the sun will suffice. But if white 
 is desired — and it mostly is preferred— a 
 week or ten days is required for this bleach- 
 ing, depending, of course, on the weather. 
 Good, sunshiny weather means good, white 
 chamois leather; while a long spell of dull, 
 cloudy weather means a poor shade of white, 
 with plenty of white chalk rubbed into the 
 skins to make them appear whiter. Irre- 
 spective of the sun, they will all get some 
 chalk, however. It is interesting to note that 
 these skins are supposed to imbibe a great 
 deal of nourishment from the grass as they 
 lie exposed to the sunlight. White chamois 
 gloves, which have been put away for some 
 time in boxes, will begin to turn back to a 
 dull yellow; but if placed in the light, in a 
 store or in a window, they will turn white 
 again. 
 
 After the yellowing or bleaching process, 
 the chamois skins — natural, cream or white — 
 have only to go to the doler to be ready for 
 the cutter's knife. At the best, this glove is 
 rather rough looking, but it is simple and 
 artistic, and especially in keeping with the 
 travelling or sport costume. Also, at the 
 end of the journey, or after the out-of-door 
 
100 GrLOVES, Past and Present 
 
 game, such a glove may be washed as easily 
 and successfully as a pocket-handkercMef. 
 So, its popularity is enduring. 
 
 Already we are somewhat familiar with 
 kid gloves, from our detailed study of the 
 great industry of Grenoble, including the 
 dressers' works at Annonay. Nearly all the 
 kid skins used in glove-making are procured 
 in Europe, and the production really is 
 limited to a very few countries. As we have 
 seen, France leads. Next comes Italy, then 
 Germany, Austria, and — ^up to the disaster 
 of August, 1914 — Belgium. Several months 
 are consumed, and a dozen or more processes 
 are necessary, before kid skins are in the 
 market as glove leather. These operations 
 have been fully described in the chapter 
 immediately preceding. When the finished 
 skins appear "in the white" they are ready 
 for the dyer. 
 
 An expert goes through the skins and 
 assorts them for the different colors for 
 which they are best adapted. For instance, 
 some skins will make good tan shades, but 
 would not make greys — and so on, through 
 the entire list of colors. As all skins take the 
 black dje well, it follows that the last sort- 
 ings go into black. Black and white are the 
 easiest of all to dye; and perfect skins, dyed 
 white, show to the best advantage of any — 
 while grej is a color which is a l)ete noir to 
 all manufacturers and dyers. Hundreds of 
 dollars have been literally thrown away in 
 an attempt to produce some particular shade. 
 Suede leather yields more readily and accu- 
 rately to the dyer's art than glace, and 
 furnishes a greater variety of shades. For 
 
The Gloves We Buy 101 
 
 tMs reason, and because of their fine, velvety 
 surface, they are considered by many the 
 most beautiful of all gloves; and by the 
 fastidious are preferred for opera and even- 
 ing wear. 
 
 Kid skins produced in other countries 
 than France all have about the same charac- 
 teristics. But French Nationals remain 
 invariably the best. It may be added that 
 kids raised in low, flat countries, like Bel- 
 gium, while presenting a fine appearance, 
 never have the strength of the highland 
 skins. 
 
 Lambskins, like kid, are nearly all found 
 in Europe, but they cover a much wider 
 range of territory. Like kid skins, they are 
 carefully nurtured and guarded against im- 
 perfections. They are grown in Italy, Sicily, 
 Sardinia, Corsica, Spain, France, Germany, 
 Austria, Eussia and the Balkan States, the 
 product of the latter being known — like the 
 sheepskins for "cape" purposes — as "Oriental 
 leather." For fine lambskin gloves the best 
 leather of all comes from northern Italy, and 
 is termed, commercially, "Tuscany skins"; 
 these rival kid skins for fine grain and 
 durability. Next in value comes the fine 
 French lamb known as "Eigord." Then fol- 
 low the Spanish skins. The Eussian (Kasan) 
 and Oriental skins are of equal value with 
 some of the above named, many of them run- 
 ning very fine in grain and producing remark- 
 ably durable gloves. As they tend to be 
 heavier in weight, however, the larger part 
 of this class of lambskins finds its way into 
 men's gloves. It is said that fully 80% of 
 Oriental leather goes to German and English 
 
102 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 tanneries, wMcli prepare more especially 
 materials for tlie heavier grades of gloves. 
 
 In the tanning or dressing of lambskins, 
 the processes are practically the same as in 
 the prepara,tion of kid and goat skins for the 
 glove manufacturer. Lambskins also are 
 subjected to the same examination by experts 
 to determine the colors they will take best. 
 In fact, the only real difference between fine 
 kid and fine lamb gloves is that the former is 
 of a more delicate, yet firmer, grain, and pro- 
 duces a better wearing article with more 
 intrinsic value. 
 
 Nearly all colors, applied in dyeing both 
 kid and lamb gloves, are put on with a brush. 
 The skins are laid on marble slabs, and the 
 color brushed on, a sufficient number of coats 
 being given to produce the desired shade and 
 to fix it thoroughly and evenly. This explains 
 wh}^ colored gloves remain white on the 
 inside, as the dyes do not strike through, 
 Some of the light, or extremely delicate tints, 
 however — as pink, cream, azure, lilac — will 
 not take the color with brushing. In such 
 cases, the skin must be immersed in the dye, 
 or "dipped"; and then the color shows, of 
 course, on both exterior and interior. 
 
 After the dj^er's work is done, and the 
 skins would appear to a novice ready for the 
 cutter, still another process has to be gone 
 through, requiring an entirely different kind 
 of skilled labor. This is the process of 
 "doling" — ^mentioned a few paragraphs back, 
 in connection with chamois — and it consists 
 in reducing each skin to a uniform thickness 
 throughout, as nearly as possible. The doler 
 lays the skin on a marble slab and with a 
 
The Gloves We Buy 103 
 
 broad, flat knife, sliarp as a razor, goes over 
 tlie inner surface, planing or doling off the 
 uneven places. A thoroughly good cutter 
 always doles his own skins. Some manu- 
 facturers, however, employ dolers for this 
 purpose exclusively. 
 
 Such are the leading leathers used in the 
 making of fine gloves. Developments in tan- 
 ning have also brought into use the skins of 
 many animals ordinarily considered of no 
 value to the glove trade. While deer, sheep, 
 kid and calf skins in former daj^s were used 
 exclusively, in our times the skins of dogs, 
 foxes, bears, the cow, the colt, the kangaroo 
 — and almost every hair animal — are em- 
 ployed to some extent. Most of these, how- 
 ever, could never pass for fine products, even 
 among the uninitiated-— with the possible 
 exception of colt; and they are used only by 
 inferiors in the trade, with whom the pres- 
 ent discussion of glove-making has nothing 
 to do. These coarse leathers are honest 
 enough, however, in the hands of Esquimaux, 
 backwoodsmen, and people who are obliged 
 to provide out of the materials within reach 
 warm coverings for the hands. But, in such 
 cases, the fur is usually left on the hide, 
 deceiving no one. 
 
 And now we come to the actual turning 
 of the leather into gloves. Since Xavier 
 Jouvin's invention, the glove cutter has not 
 actually cut out gloves. The old method of 
 tracing the pattern and following it with 
 the scissors has completely vanished. But 
 the glove cutter, still so-called, exercises a 
 great deal of care and skill in cutting oblong- 
 shaped pieces of leather which will make 
 
104 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 exactly tlie size lie stamps on them wlien, 
 later, tlie gloves are cut out by means of steel 
 dies. In doing tMs, the cutter uses paste- 
 hoard patterns, to he sure; hut these are 
 simply guides to enahle him to put exactly the 
 right amount of leather into each piece that 
 he cuts, in order to produce the size desired. 
 To the cutter each skin he takes up becomes 
 a new problem. As no tv^o faces are alike, so 
 also no two skins are alike — not even those 
 of the same class. 
 
 The cutter first stretches the skin care- 
 fully to ascertain or measure its elasticity. 
 Then he applies his pattern to see how he 
 can get the best results quantitatively. In 
 other words, a cutter must exercise the 
 utmost ingenuity to get as many gloves as 
 possible out of the skins he is working on, 
 and not let any of the leather go to waste. 
 In many glove factories, the foreman "taxes" 
 the skins as they are given out to the cutters ; 
 that is, he fixes the number of pairs of gloves 
 the cutter must turn out for a certain quan- 
 tity of skins. After the cutter has stretched, 
 pulled, measured, and finally cut out his 
 oblong piece of leather, he marks the size on 
 it and lays it aside for the calibres, which 
 will be shown in operation later on. 
 
 The skilled cutter's work is done, and the 
 pieces of leather he has cut are called tranks. 
 The cutter must know, of course, whether the 
 tranks he is producing are for over-seam, 
 pique or prick-seam gloves, as each requires 
 a different pattern. The fragments of leather 
 left from the skins after the tranks are cut 
 are used as far as possible for cutting hems, 
 bindings, fourchettes and "hearts," which 
 
The Gloves We Buy 105 
 
 latter is the teclinical name for the little 
 "stay" at the bottom of the wrist opening. 
 And certainly there is very little of the skin 
 which is not utilized after all these items are 
 subtracted. One would hardly realize what a 
 jig-saw puzzle, and in how many intricately 
 fitting parts, a glove actually is, until he 
 paused to examine one and to count the dif- 
 ferent sections which must be shaped and 
 cut out to go into its making. 
 
 Next, the calibres demand out attention. 
 These are the knives which really cut the 
 tranks into the shape of gloves and might, 
 perhajDS, be called dies. They run, of course, 
 in sizes ; and the process might be likened to 
 the old-fashioned way of cutting cakes out 
 of dough with a tin cover, except that in 
 stamping out gloves the position is reversed. 
 The calibre is locked into a heavy machine 
 with the sharp steel knife-edges up, and the 
 tranks laid on top. A lever is pulled, a heavy 
 weight descends, and the cut gloves are then 
 ready to sew. 
 
 Calibres are by no means uniform. That 
 is to say, all manufacturers do not use the 
 same kind; and among the leading, large 
 manufacturers, each has his own cut, or set 
 of calibres, differing from all others in some 
 one or more points. For example, one manu- 
 facturer will have the fingers of his gloves 
 made longer or shorter than the average; 
 another will have all the fingers gussetted, 
 while another will have no gussets, not even 
 at the gore of the thumb. Still another has 
 a cut with a specially short little finger — 
 and so on. This results in a very wide 
 variety of "cuts" in gloves, and each manu- 
 
106 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 facturer of standard make is satisfied, and 
 thinks Ms own is the best. It is the dis- 
 criminating woman who finds out what cut 
 or make fits her particular hand, and then 
 sticks to that manufacturer's gloves. 
 
 Gloves are sewed in three different waj^s. 
 First, the two edges are brought together 
 and sewed over and over. This is called over- 
 seam, and sometimes round-seam, and is the 
 method used on all fine, dressy gloves. A 
 second way laps the edges one over the other 
 and sews through and through. This is lap- 
 seam, or pique, and is popular on gloves for 
 street wear. Third, and last, the seams are 
 brought together, the same as in overseam 
 sewing, but are sewed through and through. 
 This method is called prick-seam, and some- 
 times sadlers sewn, and is used only on heavy 
 leathers. 
 
 The first machine invented for glove sew- 
 ing was put on the market about forty-five 
 years ago and did overseam work only. It 
 was fought by many of the best manufac- 
 turers who continued to make the boast of 
 their hand-sewn gloves. Time has overcome 
 this feeling, and the invention of pique and 
 prick-seam sewing machines has done away 
 with all handsewing — ^with the exception of 
 a few sadlers sewn, made in England, and 
 their quantity so small as to be negligible. 
 Even the embroidery on the backs of gloves 
 to-day is done almost entirely by machine. 
 There are one or two styles still shown that 
 are sewn by hand, called tambour. Tambour 
 work is very handsome and cannot be done 
 except by hand — yet; but the limit of ma- 
 chines has bv no means been reached. 
 
Chapter X. 
 GLOVES OF THE HOUK 
 
 AN interesting modern development in 
 ^ glove making, and one which un- 
 doubtedly has come to stay, is the vogue of 
 the silk glove whose popularity has grown to 
 surprising proportions. Oddly enough, the 
 first gloves to be introduced into Europe for 
 women in the thirteenth century were made 
 of linen, and were of very simple design. 
 These may be regarded as the ancestor of the 
 chamoisette and cotton doeskins of our day; 
 while the knitted silk, or "purled" hand cover- 
 ings, worn by the early clergy, suggested 
 perhaps the gloves of silk fabric so widely in 
 favor for the last half century. Quaint lace 
 "mitts" and gloves of spider-webby texture 
 imparted to the costumes of our grand- 
 mothers a charming femininity. But the 
 practical silk glove as a substitution for kid 
 is a comparatively recent achievement of 
 manufacturers who are trying their best to 
 meet the constantly multiplying new demands 
 of modern men and women. 
 
 The most hasty comparison of the earliest 
 fabric gloves with those produced in our own 
 times cannot fail to impress one with the 
 tremendous strides the glove art has taken 
 since it became a really modern industry. 
 The silk and linen gloves of mediaeval days 
 were loose and almost shapeless; they 
 possessed neither fit nor individuality. 
 Roughh^ measured to clothe the hands of a 
 king, they might have been worn almost 
 equally well by the lowliest of his subjects. 
 
108 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 They were bulky and awkward, concealing, 
 rather than delineating, the character of the 
 hands beneath. 
 
 Gloves of leather and kid were first to 
 acquire those traits of individuality which 
 were made possible by Xavier Jouvin's inven- 
 tion of an exact system of measurements, 
 adapted to virtually every size and type of 
 human hand. The perfection of fabric gloves, 
 however, lagged behind. Even silk gloves 
 were indifferently made, and could be had in 
 only a very limited range of styles and sizes. 
 As for cotton gloves, these were conspicuous 
 for their ugliness and cheapness, up to within 
 a very few years ago. And yet, to-day, we 
 have velvety chamoisette and imitation doe- 
 skins which, upon the hand of the wearer, are 
 so deceptive that they readily are mistaken 
 for the soft-finished leathers from which they 
 have been named. These fabric gloves, made 
 of white, yellow and many other colored 
 textiles, woven especially for this purpose, 
 are supple, snug fitting, and possess a style 
 of their own. They retain their shape even 
 with repeated washing, and they wear amaz- 
 ingly w^ell. It cannot be disputed that they 
 fill a long felt need in both the masculine 
 and the feminine wardrobes. 
 
 Particularly in warm weather the fabric 
 glove, or the silk glove, almost puts out of 
 business the leather glove, which seems heavy, 
 overheating, unsanitary, and entirely out of 
 keeping both with the light costume and the 
 altered mood of the wearer. As summer 
 approaches, we naturally long to have every- 
 thing about our persons fresh, easily re- 
 newable, dainty, light and cool to the touch. 
 
Gloves of the Hour 109 
 
 Leather and kid repell us for ordinary wear. 
 Only the finest and thinnest of Idd dress 
 gloves find a favored place in the summer 
 wardrobe ; while the fabric glove, in countless 
 new guises, becomes increasingly popular 
 with every successive season. Through June, 
 July and August, fabric and silk are worn 
 almost exclusively — and if the period be 
 short, during these weeks at least the wash- 
 able glove is without a rival. 
 
 Just as the chamoisette, or cotton doeskin, 
 provides an acceptable substitute for cape 
 and lambskins for general wear, so the silk 
 glove — the Italian or Milanaise — becomes 
 the dress glove for summer and is appro- 
 priate for all except the most formal occa- 
 sions. The silk glove, indeed, has recently 
 been brought to a very high state of perfec- 
 tion through the growing skill of textile 
 experts and inventors, and by the application 
 of the best glove-cutting and sewing methods ; 
 the latter, which have worked such changes 
 in the style and fit of kid gloves, have done 
 no less, proportionately, for the elevating of 
 the silk glove. The soft, delicate, yet firm 
 Milanaise silk fabric now clothes the hands 
 as smoothly, and renders their shape as 
 comely and as full of character, as the kid 
 glove long has been wont to do. Indeed, it 
 disguises the hand even less, and is a real 
 test of shapely knuckles and tapering finger 
 tips. Also, the glistening silk itself is pecu- 
 liarly seductive, at the same time that it 
 delights the wearer with its luxurious and 
 cleanly contact. 
 
 While kid gloves must be regarded as an 
 art whose secrets are best known to the 
 
110 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 French, fabric, and particularly silk, gloves 
 are manufactured with enviable success in 
 our own country. Doubtless one of the most 
 interesting glove mills to visit is a well- 
 known factory located in the Alleghany 
 industrial district of Pennsylvania, which, 
 though occupying a comparatively small area, 
 is wonderfully complete and efficient, and 
 turns out by the latest approved methods a 
 large output of high class Milanaise gloves. 
 The president of this company, who is hands, 
 feet and brains to his mill — also a practical 
 inventor and a lover of machines — ^has made 
 it possible, by courteous attention to every 
 requirement of the trade, to place upon the 
 market a superior product, and to win 
 and hold the confidence of his business 
 associates. 
 
 A visit to this particular mill is doubly 
 affording to the student of glove-making 
 because here they weave and dye their own 
 silk fabric. We are able to follow the 
 process from a skein of raw silk to the finished 
 glove in all its accuracy and beauty. Every 
 step in its evolution is attended with ad- 
 mirable carefulness and despatch — the glove 
 emerging almost miraculously from the crude 
 material as it is passed swiftly from one 
 operator to another, each worker contribut- 
 ing one factor more to its final perfection. 
 
 The silk strand arrives "in the raw" from 
 Japan, packed in straw bales, and might 
 easily be mistaken for a shipment of tea. In 
 this state the silk resembles fine white hair 
 or, even more closely, spun sugar. It is sent 
 in quantities, as needed, to the spinners, and 
 on its return is put through a boiling 
 
Gloves of the Hour 111 
 
 process to remove a gummy substance 
 inherent in tlie crude product. 
 
 The strand is now ready to make the 
 acquaintance of the machines. First of all, 
 it must be wound by machinery upon spools. 
 This process is known, simply, as the wind- 
 ing process. The neatly, evenly wound silk is 
 then conveniently fed from the spools onto 
 other machines which transform it into the 
 warp or foundation for the silk fabric. These 
 warps vary greatly in width — some being 
 like ribbons, measuring about six inches 
 across, others measuring 144 and even 168 
 inches. They are delicate webs of shining 
 silk with the threads running in a single 
 direction — ^vertically, to be exact. 
 
 Weaving machines next receive the warped 
 silk. Each of these machines is equipped 
 with four thousand needles, or twenty-eight 
 needles to every inch, which knit up the 
 silken w^eb into cloth. As fast as woven, it 
 is dropped and rolled upon a long cylinder; 
 it is very soft and satiny and astonishingly 
 resembles a mass of molasses candy which 
 has been "pulled" until it is snowy white and 
 of glistening smoothness. It is now ready to 
 be dyed. The dyeing is one of the few 
 primitive steps retained in the entire process. 
 This operation is performed by hand, and 
 the material is lifted and worked on long 
 sticks to ensure evenness of color. 'No 
 machine is capable of giving such satisfac- 
 tory results. 
 
 The final step in preparing the fabric, 
 however — the dressing or finishing — is done 
 by means of an elaborate machine, consisttug 
 of sets of copper cylinders or rollers. The 
 
112 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 wet, freshly dyed silk clotli is brouglit to tlie 
 dressing machine a hopeless looking mass of 
 soppiness and wrinkles. It is rolled upon a 
 large cylinder which passes it on to one 
 smaller in diameter, which, in turn, feeds it 
 off onto a rectangular frame provided with 
 rows of sharp points, like pin points, on both 
 edges. Between these points the silk is 
 stretched as tight as the inflated skin of a 
 balloon. The frame bearing the taut silk is 
 then carried through a long, narrow, heated 
 tent, some twelve feet in extent. It emerges 
 at the opposite end, thoroughly pressed, 
 smooth and finished, and is again rolled on 
 cjdinders with layers of paper between the 
 breadths of the silk, in case the fabric may 
 still be a trifle damp, in order to ensure the 
 perfection of the silk. 
 
 The Milanaise or Italian silk is now ready 
 for the glove makers. First it passes into the 
 hands of the cutters, who block out and cut 
 by means of dies pieces of silk of the right 
 size for each glove. These dies vary accord- 
 ing to the many different sizes of gloves. 
 Another set of cutters takes these pieces and 
 places them in punches which mechanically 
 cut out the shapes of the fingers and the rein- 
 forcements for the tips of the first three 
 fingers. These reinforcements hang onto the 
 ends of the fingers. Still other cutters cut 
 out gussets, fourchettes and thumbs from 
 scraps of the silk cloth, to be fitted into the 
 glove when it is sewn together later. In this 
 way every morsel of the silk is utilized. 
 
 Before the gloves at this stage are handed 
 over to the sewers they are stamped in a 
 press with the name of the company which 
 
Gloves of the Hour 113 
 
 has ordered them for its trade. Aluminum 
 leaf is used in this process, and silver letter- 
 ing is the result. 
 
 Women seated at sewing machines now 
 receive the cut, marked gloves, and the first 
 step toward joining their many parts con- 
 sists in stitching the reinforcements onto the 
 ends of the fingers. This, of course, gives 
 the double finger tip and is a protection 
 against wear. The backs of the gloves next 
 are finished with fancy embroidery stitcher}^ 
 In the simplest and cheapest gloves this is 
 accomplished by a single operation. But as 
 gloves rise in quality and price, the em- 
 broidered backs become more elaborate. 
 
 The thumbs now are stitched together 
 individually and then are put into the glove 
 itself. The next set of sewers stitch in the 
 fourchettes — or sections forming the sides of 
 the fingers — seam up all the fingers, and close 
 up the long seam running from end to end of 
 the glove. Passing into other hands, the 
 openings at the wrists are skilfully bound 
 and stiffened, or faced. Trimmers clip off all 
 superfluous silk in the seams and turn the 
 gloves right side out on wooden sticks. The 
 wrists are then neatly hemmed. Clasps of 
 metal, pearl, or covered with the silk, are 
 stamped into the wrist facings by machinery 
 — and the glove is ready for the examiner. 
 
 This is one of the most important steps in 
 the whole process. It guarantees the perfect 
 condition of every pair of gloves which leaves 
 this factory, and ensures the merchant and 
 his customer against any possibility of fraud 
 in handling or buying the output of this 
 company. The finished glove is turned on a 
 
114 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 stick resembling tlie glove stretcher com- 
 monly used at the counter; every seam and 
 crevice is carefully tested and scrutinized. If 
 no flaw is discovered the glove is pronounced 
 ready for the packing room. 
 
 In order that the goods may present the 
 finest appearance possible and that it may 
 be restored to perfect freshness and shapeli- 
 ness after passing through so many hands in 
 the making, the gloves are placed on v^ooden 
 forms in the packing room and enclosed in a 
 heated box for from six to seven minutes. 
 They are then taken out, slipped off the forms, 
 and given to operators who stitch them 
 together in pairs, label and tie them, and 
 pack them in pasteboard boxes according to 
 size and color. The finished glove is now 
 ready to be placed on sale, and is fit to 
 tempt the most discriminating customer of 
 either sex. 
 
 But while the silk glove of recent years 
 has become a truly progressive industry, let 
 it not be imagined that the kid glove to-day 
 is resting upon its laurels — great as its his- 
 torical prestige certainly is! The methods 
 of kid glove manufacture are being tirelessly 
 improved upon; the product itself is of finer 
 grade than ever before, it presents greater 
 variety, it is all the time more cleverly 
 adapted to modern uses. But only the 
 designer of new styles in this important phase 
 of apparel can fully appreciate the possibili- 
 ties of the glove art as they open before him 
 at the present hour. 
 
 The designer of French kid gloves, it goes 
 without saying, is an artist. He may not be 
 a Frenchman, however. It is a mistake to 
 
Gloves of the Hour 115 
 
 suppose that all the originality and all the 
 inspiration to create a beautiful article of 
 dress, acceptable to the fastidious of every 
 land, must be of French origin. French 
 influence, to be sure, plays an invaluable part 
 in the education of such artists; but an 
 American, with long training in the glove 
 business, may have both the taste and the 
 talent to invent glove masterpieces which 
 will be eagerly adopted, not only in New York, 
 but also in Paris. A few American experts 
 actually have accomplished this thing, and 
 their work is not to be lightly mentioned and 
 passed over. It deserves our very special 
 attention. 
 
 An artist who designs kid gloves, first of 
 all has the feeling for gloves as gloves. His 
 object is to originate something beautiful in 
 glove form. Next, he knows the technique of 
 glove-making from A to Z, just as the painter 
 knows his pigments, the laws of color and of 
 drawing. The glove designer realizes the 
 physical limitations of his art, and equally 
 he divines the developments of which that art 
 is susceptible. He is thoroughly familiar 
 with the materials at his disposal, with the 
 machines and the skilled workers he must 
 employ to execute his ideas. 
 
 At the same time, he has to be something 
 of a journalist ; he must keep his finger on the 
 public pulse, and be able to prophesy what 
 styles men, and especially women, will take 
 kindly to wearing a season hence. Gloves, 
 like everything else in dress, must satisfy the 
 demands of fashion. They must change 
 because life itself is change. They must 
 adapt themselves to the costumes the shops 
 
116 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 are showing, to tlie mode of tlie hour, the 
 latest conception of smartness and good taste. 
 
 In the hands of the designer of practical 
 experience, who is also an artist, this becomes 
 possible. Yet, to most people, gloves would 
 appear a very limited field for the expres- 
 sion of originality! Examine, then, some of 
 the new designs for this year and season. 
 They will answer the question whether so 
 simple and necessarily uniform an article as 
 the modern glove is capable of much artistic 
 variation, and from them also we can learn 
 how such novelties are evolved. 
 
 Every large glove company has its own 
 classical models — that is, there are certain 
 standard styles of kid gloves of the best 
 manufacture which virtuall}^ do not change 
 from season to season. These have names, 
 which are as well known in the glove trade 
 as the names of real laces, of old, established 
 design, to exporters and importers of that 
 delightful commodity. For instance, in a 
 famous glove shop on Fifth Avenue, New 
 York, we are introduced to three classical 
 styles — the Florine, the Seville and the Isere. 
 These are all fine French gloves, of a cut 
 and finish familiar to many of us. They are 
 the foundation of all the other styles, 
 which are simply clever variations of these 
 three. 
 
 For example, the Florine, a simple, over- 
 seam glove, acquires a one-inch cuff of a con- 
 trasting color — and with it the romantic title 
 of Bandallette. Many beautiful color com- 
 binations may be seen in the new Bandallette 
 — alabaster with a brown cuff, canary with 
 white, gunmetal with pale grey. 
 
Gloves of the Hour 117 
 
 The Seville is clistinguislied by its crochet- 
 embroidered backs, affording a miicli heavier 
 finish than the stitching which decorates the 
 Florine and the Isere. A deeply fringed cuff 
 of kid is added — and lo, the Spanish cavalier 
 becomes a knight of quite another cycle! 
 Hiawatha, this picturesquely slashed glove 
 of purely American inspiration is called — 
 most reminiscent of the fringed decorations 
 of aboriginal chieftains is the odd device 
 which gives it its new-world Mzarrerie and 
 flavor. It is especially striking in pure white 
 and black. 
 
 On the other hand, a two-inch cuff sport- 
 ing large diamonds of white kid set in a black 
 border — or the colors may be reversed — is 
 known as the Van Dyck, and doubtless has 
 caught something of the character of early 
 Flemish design. The Van Metor may be 
 mentioned as similar. This is a particularly 
 beautiful glove when made in white kid, 
 stitched with black, and adorned with white 
 cuffs, scalloped or pinked, and appliqued 
 with black kid cut in deep, sharp points which 
 taper upward. 
 
 The Isere is especially adapted for varia- 
 tions of a dainty, delicate character. While 
 the Seville lends itself best to two-toned 
 embroidery in handsome, heavy effects, on 
 the backs, the Isere is displaying just now on 
 a white kid model rows of fine, black feather 
 stitching between slender lines of plain 
 stitching. 
 
 Another distinguished glove, the work of 
 the same expert designer, is the Fielder, 
 vaguely reminiscent of an old English hunt- 
 ing glove. In black, with a very long wrist. 
 
118 Gloves, Past and Present 
 
 the striking feature of the Fielder is the deep, 
 fan-shaped piece of white set into the wrist 
 on the under side; it also fastens with a 
 cleverly adjusted strap, clasped with a white 
 pearl fastener. This is a very dashing glove. 
 
 A black glace with white stitching has a 
 fancy embroidered design on the back which 
 gives to it its title of Dagger. The dagger 
 is delightfully managed in conventionalized 
 form, and reminds one of the adornments on 
 crested gloves of ancient days. 
 
 Nothing could be more exquisite than the 
 new gloves embroidered with bow-knots. If 
 they are black, the bow-knots are in white; 
 if white, the graceful design is embroidered 
 in black. Either effect is charming; but the 
 white gloves seem redolent of old valentine 
 customs, when the true lovers' knot might 
 well have appeared upon a perfumed pair of 
 dainty gift gloves such as these. The wrists 
 also are parti-colored, gaily striped in white 
 and black, like Pierrette. 
 
 A very long-wristed, modish glove is the 
 Garnett, in white kid, with four black straps 
 confining the fulness of the flaring cuff which 
 is lined with black, and all the stitching black. 
 Indeed, while delicate tints are seen in many 
 of the novelties, the effectiveness of the new 
 designs is best grasped in the black and white 
 combinations. In any case, mere description 
 gives little or no notion of the many interest- 
 ing, beautiful styles which are appearing — 
 nor of how much imagination and invention 
 goes into the devising of these styles from 
 season to season. 
 
 There is a world of comfort, too, in the 
 thought that while such artists as these con- 
 
Gloves of the Hour 119 
 
 tinue to concern themselves with gloves as a 
 thing of beauty — gloves for gloves' sake — ^we 
 may rest assured that commercialism will not 
 devour the more subtle distinctions of life. 
 If such a trifle, let us say, as our gloves is 
 being zealouly guarded and saved to the 
 canons of good taste, certainly we may hope 
 to retain a true sense of elegance, and our 
 requirements in respect to the little niceties 
 Avhich make up the general deportment of a 
 people shall be continually elevated. 
 
 If the foregoing description of the gloves 
 of the hour may have seemed redundant, or 
 of too ephemeral interest, to the reader, let 
 him pause and reflect that, after all, we are 
 ourselves makers of glove history ; and it may 
 be that glove lovers of the future will be as 
 grateful to find on record the gloves of our 
 times, as we have been gratified to rediscover 
 the glove annals of remote periods of human 
 history. 
 
 FINIS 
 
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