Gloves, Past and Present

by Willard M. Smith

Chapter VII.
FROM ARTIST TO ARTISAN

“There is nothing impossible to industry.”—Clio, one of the Seven Wise Men of Greece.

Until now we have been dealing with revolutionary 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.

Early in the nineteenth century, the factory system was firmly established in England. 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 protestations. 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 enlightenment 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 glove-maker—whether 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 passing 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 sewing 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 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 distinguished Grenoble. Her workers enjoyed a privileged position in the industry; they were celebrated far and near. Other localities did their best to entice them away; especially did Germany, Piedmont and Switzerland 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 competition 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 Dauphiné; and thus, without the slightest compulsion from the Grenoble manufacturers, these traders stimulated their business and spread their fame.

The sewing women, M. Roux tells us, constituted a peculiar source of wealth to the Grenoble industry. Their exquisite handwork 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 factor of Grenoble’s prestige. Apprenticed while young girls, they looked upon glove-making as a career, an art in which 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 foreigners with an intuitive distrust and proud resistance.

Under such conditions as these, the glove industry in Grenoble was able to support successfully the extreme vicissitudes of the post-Revolutionary era. Even while the wave of prosperity 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.