US glovemaker Elmer Little’s gloves land over one hundred years later at This Thing of Ours.
In 1893, Elmer Little, a resident of Gloversville, the American glove-making hub from which it derives its name, founded his brand, Elmer Gloves. (Apparently, Gloversville was called Stump City before the residents all voted to change the name, which is an excellent case study of civil democracy.)
The area, from the late 1800s until the 1950s, was the glove-making capital of the world, with over 200 manufacturers contributing to 90% of the US glove supply. Competition spurs innovation, as many classical economists love to argue, and therefore, in the glove-based, dog-eat-dog, Hobbesian world, only the strongest, fittest, cosiest, stretchiest, gloveliest survive.
Elmer’s gloves are still about in 2022, which implies that they did something right. They outlived the rest of the competition, shifted their supply chain to Japan, and now they make Japanese-infused and technologically rich gloves that are adaptable to a variety of situations.
They’ve landed at Manchester’s own Japan-inspired tech sore, This Thing of Ours, and many are on sale.
Shouts out to the OG Elmer Little for creating a lineage, and shouts out to This Thing of Ours for keeping it alive in Manchester.
