Glove Cities

For over 150 years people in Fulton County, New York have been involved in the glove and leather industry. 

Once upon a time the cities of Johnstown and Gloversville were considered to be "The glove-making capital of the world" and are to this day referred to locally as the "Glove Cities". Johnstown is historically known as the home of Sir William Johnson, a Baronet who came to the British colony of New York and founded the town and named it John's Town after his son John Johnson. Johnstown is also famous for being the birthplace of women's rights activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Gloversville in it's name reveals it's main claim to fame, but many more lives have been touched over the past century and a half by the glovers, tanners, & leather dressers of the area and those in many affiliated local industries.

Stroll down memory lane, learn about history or share stories and info about the Glovers and Tanners of Fulton County, NY. 

Glovers, Tanners & Leather Dressers

Neighborhoods were made up of cutters, makers, swabbers and stakers, fleshers, wet choremen, beamers and foremen, 
buffers, bucktailers, embroiderers and retailers. Many, many hours of research went into compiling information and facts and figures about this fascinating time in our local history. A small piece of the glove and leather industry still exists, but as each old building is leveled, part of our history disappears without fanfare and many men and women spent a great deal of their lives in those places, lest we forget.  
Glovers and Tanners

                 Glovers, Tanners & Leather Dressers and Allied Industries


Glovers, Tanners & Leather Dressers of Fulton County, New York.
Glovers and Tanners
retro8114@yahoo.com

(518)527-GTL1
    Wood & Hyde Leather Co
  H&P
Gloves
Beaming
Crescendoe-Superb Gloves
Gates-Mills
Glovers and Tanners
RJ & R Evans Gloves
Jos P Conroy Gloves
Johnstown and Gloversville were not only the center of the glove industry, but these were the first places in the United States where gloves were manufactured.

The settlers had learned the crude process of tanning deer skin from their fathers and the Indians. The tanned skins were placed on basswood boards, and on them were traced the outlines of gloves, mittens and moccasins.

The skins were then cut around the outlines with sharp sheep shears, and sewed with a three edge needle and homespun hempen thread. Nearly every home became a miniature glove factory. Some of the people became peddlers and in sleighs and wagons carried their gloves to distant points. From such simple beginnings came the great glove industry of Gloversville and Johnstown; and in it’s heyday Fulton County manufactured about ninety percent of the men’s leather gloves produced in this country.
Beaming
***NEW*** GLOVE SAMPLE PICS ON THE MISCELLANEOUS PAGE***