ANNONAY AND ITS INDUSTRY
“In France, kid-culture is carried to perfection.... To this is due
the value of the French skins, which command higher prices than any
in the market.”—_William S. Beck._
No history of gloves would be complete which failed to take into account
the old French town of Annonay and its celebrated industry. Annonay has
been mentioned several times already in the course of these pages, when
the subject of fine French skins was touched upon, and especially in
connection with the difficulties which arose over the free exportation
of these beautiful leathers to manufacturers outside France. At once the
foundation of the glovers’ prosperity, and the source to them of
hardship and bitter contention for want of proper domestic protection of
the trade in skins, both Annonay and the town of Millau were famous as
old-established centres of the tawing industry.
And right here, for the benefit of the layman, it might not come amiss
to define the distinction between the well-known process of tanning
leather, and the less familiar method of dressing skins, called tawing.
The latter is applied almost exclusively to leathers in preparation for
glove-making. It differs from ordinary tanning in point of the greater
care and cleanliness of all the operations. Also, the dressed skin is
submitted to a brief fermentation, by piling one piece upon another in a
very warm place, so that, under the influence of the heat and the
pressure, the softness and flexibility of the leather may be increased.
The actual “tawing” itself consists in treating the skins with a mixture
of flour, the yolks of eggs and alum. On the completion of this
operation, they are stretched by hand and dried as rapidly as possible.
The expert preparation of glove leather, then, was the chief
accomplishment of Annonay and Millau. In regard to the latter, it was
that city which particularly was embarrassed by the lambskin competition
of 1872. Millau long had made a specialty of tawing lambskin, but had
not discovered the secret of making the fine-looking gloves which now,
suddenly, were put upon the market by Germany and other foreign
countries. These manufacturers abroad redoubled their activities,
initiating new styles and even receiving compensations from their
governments. For a time Millau folded its arms and submitted, as M. Roux
tells us, “in tranquil despair.”
But before long Millau makers were hard at work studying and
experimenting to produce a cheaper grade of glove which, like its rivals
abroad should meet the growing demand for a popular-price article with
all the fine appearance of genuine kid. The glove trade, along with
other industries of the period, found that it must adapt itself to the
insistency on democratization of all products. It must recognize the
spirit of the times; and in the cause of social equality, it must
furnish those who could not, or would not, buy expensive kid gloves,
with an excellent substitute, as far as style and finish were concerned.
Lambskins, at this period, became the glove of democracy; and Millau,
quickly overtaking her foreign competitors, is to-day producing fine
lambskin gloves which are second to none in Europe.
But, to return to Annonay, whose name is identified with the ancient art
of tawing as far back, probably, as the fourteenth century! The place
has been called—and not inappropriately—the twin city of Grenoble. Its
industry, certainly, went hand in hand and ranked equally in importance
with that of the celebrated glove town. Without Annonay tanners and
tawers Grenoble would have lacked the fine skins indispensable to her
manufacture, and might never have held first position as a producer of
the most beautiful gloves in the world.
Also, geographically, there is a striking resemblance between the two
cities, which likewise has an important bearing upon their affiliations
in commerce. Annonay, in the department of the Ardèche, in south-eastern
France, is irregularly and picturesquely built on several small hills,
overlooking the deep gorges of the Déôme and the Cance. Thus, it stands
near the confluence of two large, swift rivers, almost exactly as
Grenoble does; and the waters of these rivers—torrential streams,
subject to sudden floods—supply power to the factories of the town. By
means of a dam across the Ternay, a tributary of the Déôme, to the
northwest of the city, a reservoir is provided, in which an additional
supply of water, for both industrial and domestic purposes, is stored.
Moreover, the river Ardèche flows in close proximity—like the Isère
unexcelled for its purity. By virtue of the especial qualities of its
waters, Annonay has become what it is—the chief home of French dressers
of glacé kid skins.
The climate, like that environing Grenoble, is particularly favorable to
the raising of goats and sheep. The Cevannes mountains almost cover the
department of the Ardèche, and their spurs provide rich grazing country.
The peasants are shepherds worthy of that ancient calling. The young
kids are as carefully nurtured and watched over as are the children in
the family, for absolutely nothing must be allowed to cause any defects
in their skins. They must be killed at a tender age, for as soon as the
kid begins to eat herbage, his pelt is injured for the finer qualities
of gloves. Indeed, the perfect glove animal is milk-fed—and necessarily
short-lived.
However, when the kids are allowed to grow up and become goats, their
skins are still useful for the heavier, stronger grades of gloves. Such
are termed chevrettes, that being the French name for goats. The same
care is exercised that these animals shall not meet with any injury to
their hides, and good chevrette leather is invaluable for piqué and
prick-seam gloves, which rank very high indeed.
Formerly, skins of chamoix, and both wild and domestic animals, were
collected all over the country by a class of people corresponding to
what were known in England as “higglers.” Ultimately, all these trophies
found their way into the hands of the famous dressers of Annonay. In
these days, the leading glove manufacturers of Grenoble buy their skins
“in the raw” at the Spring fairs, which are held at various centres
throughout France. When they have assembled their lots, they then ship
them to the dressing factory in Annonay.
“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.
The next process is to rid the skins of the lime with which they have
been charged. Therefore, scraped and trimmed, they are submerged in a
large, wooden vat, containing hot water mixed with an entirely new
product, invented by Monsieur Louis Peyrache. This product is called
“peroly” and is an enemy to lime. When the skins are lifted out of this
solution they are found to be quite devoid of all traces of the latter.
Following the “peroly bath,” the skins are placed in another large tub
full of hot water, above which passes a crank connected with an electric
motor, from which crank four shafts terminating in wooden “stampers”
hang down into the tub. The tub also revolves on a spindle connected
with the motor. The object of this bath is to free the skins of every
vestige of the peroly; and the effect of the hot water is to open the
pores in the skins and render them more easily deprived of the animal
matter they contain.
The skins have now been well washed and thoroughly cleaned. They appear
almost transparent. But the series of “baths” is not over. However,
before another is attempted, the skins are laid again across the wooden
blocks and as much as possible of the fatty substance which still
adheres to them is scraped off with the blunt knives already described.
In this instance, as previously, the skins are scraped on the sides from
which the hair was removed in the first place, known as the “fleur” side
of the skin. Then comes the bran bath. In a mixture of luke warm water
and bran they are gently stirred around by means of long, wooden props
fitted with ferules of india-rubber. Once more the skins are lifted out
and laid on the blocks; and this time the scraping is done on the
“flesh” or inside. Another bran bath follows, and now the skins require
careful watching. When the master dresser judges that they have stayed
long enough in this second bran solution, they are again, one by one,
laid over the blocks, when all the remains of the bran are scraped off.
Now the skins are put into a large, closed receptacle, containing a
mixture of the yellows of eggs, meal and alum. This mixture “feeds” the
skins; it is a kind of “wrinkled paste” in the beautifying process. It
fills up the pores which have been impoverished through the loss of
their natural fat and oil. The next day, the skins are taken out of this
bath, and are strung up in a large room through which flows a current of
dry, heated air. In stringing up the skins here, care always is taken to
fold them with the “fleur” surface inside. After they have become
thoroughly dried, they are tied up into packets of six dozen each, and
left in a dry, normal atmosphere for fifteen days, or even a month. By
this time the skins are quite hard and brittle.
To take out the stiffness, the skins now are dipped into clear, cold
water for a few minutes. They are left in the air until the following
day, when they are passed through a set of rollers which help to make
them supple; after which they are sent immediately to the “palisson.”
This process reinvigorates the dressed skins, rendering them plastic and
easily stretched. By the old-fashioned method, it is performed by hand.
The “palisson” consists, as formerly, of a large, rounded, blunted steel
blade, pointing upwards, and fastened into a wooden block, over which
the skin is drawn backwards and forwards, with its flesh side on the
blade. After this operation, the skin is rubbed over another blade,
similarly shaped, but slightly sharpened. By means of this, the
remainder of the flesh is cut away from the surface of the skin, thus
giving it the softness and whiteness which, by this time, it will have
acquired.
In these days, the “palisson” process is also performed by girls at
revolving wheels run by a motor, and the results obtained compare very
well indeed with the old-fashioned method of palisson by hand.
The skins are now completely dressed. Lastly, they are sent to the
classing room to be examined by experts and sorted according to their
qualities. They are then forwarded to the manufacturers at Grenoble.
In the United States kid gloves manufactured out of skins from all over
Europe, and even from northern Africa and China, are to be found on the
counters of the glove shops. But the best kidskins come from France, and
are invariably dressed in Annonay and manufactured into gloves at
Grenoble. The American, then, who buys gloves of French origin, Annonay
dressed, and made in Grenoble, may flatter himself that he is enjoying
perfection itself in hand-wear.