Glove
a covering for the hand. It is distinguished from a mitten by having a separate inclosure for each finger. If we may credit Zenophon, the writer of the Anabasis, the Greeks appear to have sneered at the Persian soldiers for wearing gloves to keep their hands warm. However much the ancients may have scorned to cover their hands in the days of simplicity, it is known that gloves were worn in the later days of the Roman Empire. Richly embroidered gloves were a fashionable article of attire among gallants in the day when Walter Raleigh spread his rich cloak over the mud for Queen Elizabeth to walk on. A mailed glove formed of interwoven steel links was a part of the knight's armor. To fling a glove at the feet of another was a challenge to mortal combat. To send a mailed gauntlet to a court or camp was a declaration of war.
Modern glovemaking is an important industry. In the world of trade knit gloves, whether of cotton, silk, or other fiber, are classed with hosiery. Glovemaking from woven or felted cloth, cut by pattern and afterward stitched together, is a separate branch of industry. Driving gloves and sportsmen's gloves are made of horsehide, buckskin, pigskin; also kid and calf, or any pliable, durable leather. Kid gloves are supposed to be made from the skins of young goats, but, as a matter of fact, the cheaper grades are made of sheepskin shaved thin.
Most of the leather used in heavy gloves is oil tanned. The tanning of kid leather is an art in itself. The hair and fat are loosened by a bath in lime water. Scraping and fermentation in bran mash give a clean skin ready for tanning. Tanning is accomplished with alum; while softness and delicacy and elasticity are secured by treatment in a custard of eggs, flour, and salt. Kid leather is finished in two styles, the dressed and the undressed or suede. To produce the former, the hair side is smoothed, dyed, and polished. In making undressed kid, the flesh side of the skin is shaved, dyed, and given a soft, velvet finish by buffing on an emery wheel. Two kid skins supply sufficient material for three pairs of gloves.
Germany leads in the manufacture of thread gloves. Paris is the center of the kid glove industry. Brussels and Copenhagen are important centers. Worcester, England, is noted for the manufacture of dogskin gloves, made, however, from a variety of skins. In Austria 2,400,000,000 pairs of gloves are made annually.
Glovemaking in America was established shortly before the Revolutionary War. Some Scotch glovemaking families were colonized in Fulton County, New York, by Sir William Johnson, the great manager of the Mohawk Indians. They called their village Perth, and began at once the making of heavy buckskin and other gloves for farmers and frontiersmen. Thread, needles, and patterns they brought with them. From this small beginning a large industry grew up in Perth and vicinity. In 1825 a lumber wagon laden with gloves was dispatched to the Boston market, making the trip in less than two months,--a notable event in the trade.
At the present time about 400 institutions in the United States make gloves. One hundred and sixty-six of these are in Fulton County, at Gloversville, Johnstown, and other cities in the vicinity of Perth where the business began. In 1900 Fulton County produced nearly $10,000,000 worth of gloves out of a total of $17,048,-658 for the entire nation.
The leather is laid out smooth in piles and is cut with curved chisels called dies. Fronts, rears, gussets, and thumbs are cut in quantities and sent out to thousands of glovemakers' homes to be sewed. Only the high priced gloves are sewed in factories. Instead of huge factories, the glovemakers' streets are lined with small comfortable homes, a-clatter with the rattle of sewing machines. The finished glove is shaped by slipping it on a hollow brass hand heated within by steam. Mates are tacked together and put up in paper bands for market, a dozen pairs in a package.