Every genius has his forerunner. About the year 1819, Vallet 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 machinery into the glove industry. It multiplied the efficiency of the glove cutter, so far as speed was concerned, twenty-four times.
In the same year, the genius who was finally to revolutionize glove-making was barely entering young 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 number 57. Jouvin 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 tradition, birth and natural inclination; a student and a dreamer whose spirit was nourished by seclusion—by 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 century 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. Returning from Paris in 1825, he was resolved to enjoy obscurity, the provincial and rural 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 attention 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 Hospital 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, slender 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 perfected for cutting out these three hundred and twenty different gradations of gloves consisted of the calibre, or glove pattern, and the punch, or emporte-pièce, and were made of fine tempered steel blades fastened to a back of cast iron. In making the 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 many pairs were cut at once. The nicest part of this process consists in getting the leather in proper shape. Different 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 producing an accurately fitting glove.
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 achievement was somewhat curious.
During Jouvin’s own lifetime his invention 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 “vulgarized” 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-turvy!
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-pièce, for automatically cutting gloves to measure. In the following year, however, his work suddenly received conspicuous public notice. It was rewarded a bronze medal at the Industrial Exposition in Paris. From that 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 factory 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.