Gloves. The glove (Anglo-Saxon glōf) which forms the ordinary hand covering is, both from its history and symbolic import, one of the most interesting of all articles of dress. Its use reaches back to a remote antiquity, for we are told in the Odyssey that Laertes, the farmer-king, wore gloves to protect his hands from the thorns. Xenophon also sneers at the Persians for wearing gloves for keeping their hands warm. In their more robust days the Greeks and Romans scorned the use of gloves; but in later times their use was not unknown in Rome. From time immemorial the glove possessed a legal significance in oriental countries in connection with the transfer of property, the handing over of the seller's glove to the purchaser being the recognised token of investiture. In this connection it is held by some that the word translated 'shoe' in Ruth, iv. 7, should more properly read 'glove,' making the passage read: 'Now this was the manner in former time in Israel concerning redeeming and concerning changing, for to confirm all things; a man plucked off his glove and gave it to his neighbour.' In feudal times the challenge to single combat was given by the casting down of the glove; and an ancient and more pleasing ceremonial still observed consists in the presentation of white gloves to a judge presiding over an assize at which no cases come up for trial.
The glove appears to have become a well-known article of dress in England about the 14th century, and corporations of glovers were in existence in the 15th century. In the days of Queen Elizabeth gloves were made with gauntlets upon which much rich and elaborate embroidery was worked.
Modern gloves are of two distinct classes: (1) woven and knitted gloves, and (2) those made of leather; and the making of these constitute entirely separate branches of manufacture. The manufacture of knitted or woven gloves is an industry allied to the hosiery trade, and the materials comprise all the ordinary fibres, the most important being silk and wool. In some cases these gloves are entirely made and finished by knitting; but in others, and in the best of such gloves, the pieces are separately fashioned and sewed together as in making leather gloves. The manufacture is widespread, but the headquarters of the thread and cloth glove trade are now Berlin and Saxony. The materials used for making leather gloves are principally the skins of deer, sheep and lambs, goats and kids, the latter being the most important, although far more 'kid' gloves are made of sheep than of kid leather. The skins for military and other heavy gloves—doe or buck leather—are prepared by the ordinary process of tanning, or are a fine kind of chamois leather. Those for what are called dressed kid gloves are subjected to a special method of tanning, by which, under the influence of heat, and treatment with a mixture of flour, yellow of egg, and alum, the material is rendered peculiarly soft and flexible. After the leather has been properly prepared it is cut into pieces of the required size, then folded over somewhat unequally, as the back should be larger than the front. Three cuts are then made through the doubled piece to produce the four fingers; an oblong hole is cut at the bending of the fold for the insertion of the thumb-piece; the cutting of this of the exact shape and size requires considerable skill. The first and fourth fingers are completed by gussets or strips sewed only on their inner sides, while the second and third fingers require gussets on each side to complete them. Besides these, small pieces of a diamond shape are sewed in at the base of the fingers towards the palm of the hand. The stitching together of these pieces requires much care, as the junction must be made as closely as possible to the edge of each piece, and yet with sufficient hold to keep the stitches from cutting through the material. A kind of vice or clamp, with minute teeth to regulate the stitches, is used for this purpose in the making of hand-sewn gloves, by which method all the finest gloves are stitched. Sewing-machines are applied for the ornamental or embroidery stitching on the backs of fine gloves, and for almost the entire sewing of the cheaper and heavier gloves. The putting in of the thumb-piece requires special skill and management. Badly made gloves commonly give way at this part. The superiority of the French and the best English gloves depends chiefly upon the adaptation of their shape to the structure of the hand by giving additional size where the flexure of the hand requires it.
Kid gloves are of two principal kinds, Glacé and Suède, according to the manner of dressing and finishing the leather used. Glacé gloves are those which are dressed, dyed, and polished on the hair or outer side of the skin, while Suède gloves are carefully pared, smoothed, and dyed on the inner side of the skin for their purpose, and thus have the appearance of fine chamois.
Paris and Grenoble are the chief seats of the French kid-glove trade. Military gloves are made at Niort and Vendôme. Brussels and Copenhagen are also important glove-making centres. In England, Worcester is the principal seat of the glove industry; and in a speciality, the so-called English dogskin gloves made from tan skins of Cape sheep, English manufacturers are without rivals. See Beck's Gloves; their Annals and Associations (1883).