Catching the Past - Fingerless Gloves

One thing I've learned while researching is that it can pay to read the fine print under photos of even commonplace items in history books.

For example, I was reading along in a Jane Austen fashion book, and the image appeared to be an average pair of Georgian/Regency Era gloves. Except the text starts to talk about fingerless gloves, so I look at the image again. It still looks like ordinary gloves, then I read the inscription. Low and behold those ordinary looking gloves were apparently fingerless gloves!

Now, I use fingerless gloves all the time in winter, but mine look like the grey pair the girl is wearing in the graphic above. Clearly cut off.

But the fingerless Georgian Era gloves looked very much like normal gloves (hence the green pair in the image). In fact, if the inscription hadn't said they were fingerless, I'd have never known.

Only the tiniest bits were missing off those fingerless gloves, and they could really be more appropriately called 'fingertip-less gloves.'

While I wear my fingerless gloves everywhere, that was not acceptable in the Georgian Era. Fingerless gloves were for home use only. Proper gloves must be worn when you went out.

The purpose of fingerless gloves was, naturally, for better dexterity with tasks like needlework.

And while keeping your hands warm was one reason for wearing any kind of glove in the Georgian Era, the textbook mentioned another more prevailing reason. This reason isn't applicable today (unless you count rubber gloves). Women wore gloves to keep their hands clean. Regular hand washing wasn't really a thing. Gloves took care of that.

Personally, I use fingerless gloves to keep my fingers from aching in the cold, so a bit of a different reason! :)

Do you use fingerless gloves? (FYI, it is winter in Australia, so I'm wearing my pair right now!)

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