Gloves, Past and Present

by Willard M. Smith

“The dressing of leather,” says Hull, in his History of the Glove Trade, published in England in 1834, “formed one of the earliest occupations 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 glacé 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 France, from Provence and the Pyrenees; as one nears Spain, the 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 calling. Fathers, sons and grandchildren have passed their lives and spent their efforts in furthering and perfecting the art of preparing 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 structure, 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 floor, 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 manufacturer is allotted sufficient 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.

Each layer of skins, as placed on the 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 instructions 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, sunk 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 the most crucial point in the dressing of kid skins, for it is only after long years of experience 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 adheres superfluous fat—with large hand shears.