INGENUITY AND LUXURY 



texture and delicate workmanship. These gloves 

 were made from the skins of very young calves, kids, 

 and lambs, tanned and prepared in a special manner. 

 Some of them were so delicate that "one might be 

 placed in a walnut shell." For many years these 

 gloves were worn extensively, but were eventually 

 supplanted in popular favor by the French kid glove. 



The manufacture of gloves and mittens in America 

 was not undertaken extensively until just before the 

 outbreak of the Revolutionary War. In 1760, a colony 

 of immigrants from Scotland settled in what is now 

 Fulton County, New York, establishing a village which 

 they called Perth. Many of these newcomers had 

 been glove-makers at home, and brought with them 

 their patterns, needles, and thread. While they came 

 as tillers of the soil, these former glovers devoted their 

 spare hours, from work in the fields, to making coarse 

 mittens and gloves which they sold to their neighbors 

 on the adjoining farms. Skins were to be had in abun- 

 dance, particularly buckskins, which were ideal for 

 making into tough, serviceable mittens, adapted to 

 the needs of farmers and hunters. 



It was not until 1809, however, that gloves were 

 manufactured for outside markets, and glove-making 

 began taking the form of an independent industry. 

 About this time a storekeeper named Talmadge Ed- 

 wards took with him a bag of gloves on horseback to 

 Albany to be exchanged for merchandise. Finding a 

 ready sale for these, he employed a number of girls 

 from the neighboring farms to cut gloves in his little 

 factory, sending these out among the farmers' wives 



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