Do hobos do a lot of data entry in the winter?

December 11, 2006 4:30 PM

What's the deal with hobo gloves (gloves with no finger tips)?

While typing in my freezing office, I considered getting a pair of gloves with no finger tips (so-called hobo gloves). That's when I started to wonder what exactly neccessitated the adoption of gloves with no finger tips among hobos (I assume widespread adoption within this demographic because the gloves are named after them)? If the goal of these gloves was to provide warmth, one would imagine that a pair of mitts, with a much smaller surface area, would be the better option. Did hobos often perform tasks that required a great deal of manual dexterity?

posted by reformedjerk to clothing, beauty, & fashion (33 comments total)

This is terrible but the first thing I thought of was to open bottles of cheap booze. My next thought was to pick coins of the ground. Interesting question.
posted by twistedonion at 4:34 PM on December 11, 2006

I think hobos actually ended up with gloves missing the finger tips because the gloves were worn out.
posted by oneirodynia at 4:34 PM on December 11, 2006

Yeah, so the bottle wouldn't slip out of your hand while lighting a cigerette....I wear them for the cigerette thing ;P
posted by JujuB at 4:34 PM on December 11, 2006

Driving gloves are made like that too.
posted by JujuB at 4:36 PM on December 11, 2006

I agree with oneirodynia, I have long-ish nails and go through gloves like crazy because they rip through the ends, creating the fingerless look.
posted by thisisnotkatrina at 4:37 PM on December 11, 2006

I always assumed that hobos lacked the money to repair gloves, and so were forced to wear them long after the fingers had developed holes and frayed away.

But, I also called them "Bob Cratchit" gloves, which made perfect sense for a lowly, 19th century clerk. Maybe there is an interesting isogloss to be drawn about the difference?
posted by migurski at 4:38 PM on December 11, 2006

The technical term is "fingerless gloves"
posted by Paris Hilton at 4:43 PM on December 11, 2006

I offer you this: Why would a hobo take a perfectly good pair of gloves and snip off the ends? Of course he wouldn't.

That said, for typing, I find the woolblend ones a bit bulky and instead cut the tips of the fingers out of thin, stretchy gloves.
posted by desuetude at 4:47 PM on December 11, 2006

Whatever they were for originally, they are handy for smoking outdoors in cold weather.
posted by nebulawindphone at 4:47 PM on December 11, 2006

Well, they are pretty useful for doing things in cold weather like putting chains on a car (because God knows you don't need the chains until it's blisteringly cold outside), but those are by design, with little caps to go over your hands when you're not doing something.
But if you wear cheap gloves long enough (the really thin kind), they disintegrate at the fingertips. Then they stop fraying.
posted by lilithim at 5:08 PM on December 11, 2006

You can even get special ones for smoking cigars.
posted by web-goddess at 5:14 PM on December 11, 2006

Probably so it's easier to defend themselves if attacked (or if they need to attack someone). It's hard to be aggressive in mittens.
posted by Jasper McLean at 5:19 PM on December 11, 2006 [2 favorites has favorites]

They're really handy for farm work.
posted by fshgrl at 5:20 PM on December 11, 2006

I'd imagine they wear them all day long because they live outdoors or can't afford indoor heating, so it's more convenient to have them fingerless so they don't have take them off everytime they need to do something with their hands.
posted by randomstriker at 5:21 PM on December 11, 2006

I'm going to vote for the "worn out" theory. And I'll also suggest that they probably got most of their clothing (including gloves) from second-hand sources.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 5:32 PM on December 11, 2006

I'm not entirely sure why they're made like that, but if you're looking for some hand coverings that can go from outdoor to indoor, convertible mittens are awesome. They're basically like fingerless gloves, but they have a little pouch that you can pull over to cover your fingers completely. (Added bonus: they seem to be in style this season, if that matters, but at least they are easier to find.)
posted by sperose at 5:33 PM on December 11, 2006

sailing gloves are also fingerless so you can tie knots etc. They keep your whole hand pretty warm since the blood to the fingertips is kept warm coming in and so is still warm going out.
posted by Rumple at 5:39 PM on December 11, 2006

Come on its obvious, it is so they can smoke 4 cigarettes at once (one between each pair of fingers).

Little known fact, hobos have 6 fingers.

They are worn out gloves. They also have toeless socks.
posted by Pollomacho at 5:41 PM on December 11, 2006

Also a vote for being worn on.

Though, their all-around usefulness rocks my face.
posted by jmd82 at 5:51 PM on December 11, 2006

Those little 'one size fits all' gloves at the dollar store are too small for my hands. The fingerless ones can fit almost any finger comfortable, no matter how long. This may not be the intention behind their design, but it's the reason why I bought a pair from Dollarama!
posted by The Wig at 5:51 PM on December 11, 2006

Smoking. I buy a pair of cheapos every year and cut two fingers off so I can easily smoke in the winter. Booyakasha.
posted by nitsuj at 6:07 PM on December 11, 2006

they are great for flyfishing in cold weather. do hobos flyfish?
posted by caddis at 6:07 PM on December 11, 2006

Fingerless leather gloves are pretty good for fighting (they protect your knuckles but allow you to grab) which might be part of why they may have been popularized as hobo gloves (as opposed to them in reality being worn out)
posted by Smedleyman at 6:21 PM on December 11, 2006

I use em when I busk with mah fiddle. I can't play the fiddle with mittens on.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 7:15 PM on December 11, 2006

They needed them like that so they could control the volume on their iPods. Hey, I wear mine so I can fiddle with the buttons on my car stereo in the winter.

When I bought them, it looked like the display was marketing them to skiers or other outdoor enthusiasts who might need to adjust equipment in not-too-cold weather.
posted by gimonca at 7:24 PM on December 11, 2006

I wear them for the cigerette thing

Especially if you have to roll your own.

They are popular with bike messengers in DC. They need protection on the hands from the weather, but the fingers still need to be free to operate the phone or radio and to sort paperwork.
posted by peeedro at 7:31 PM on December 11, 2006

They needed them like that so they could control the volume on their iPods.

I knit a pair of mittens with a small hole near the tip of my index finger so I could stick it out and skip songs whilst keeping my hands warm.
posted by Lucinda at 7:46 PM on December 11, 2006

Obviously none of you people have been out in the cold selling newspapers. You cut the ends of the fingers off so you can count/pick up coins.
posted by three blind mice at 8:02 PM on December 11, 2006

Sorry that I don't know the answer to your question, but the typing in a freezing office part sure hits home...I am hoping for these particular fingerless gloves from Santa!
posted by TochterAusElysium at 8:35 PM on December 11, 2006

Fingerless gloves are perfect for receiving monies from folks in cars, and picking up change flung at them by well-dressed men on their way to the office. As an aside - I see more hobos when it's raining - are they out for the sympathy money? Like working at a restaurant on Christmas Eve? (if you are of that religion?)
posted by chupwalla at 8:58 PM on December 11, 2006

I'm gonna reveal myself to be a former band geek here, but in high school, the entire clarinet section (myself included) used them in marching band. Playing the clarinet requires skin-to-key contact, but it got pretty damn cold in Ohio in the late fall, and those goofy fingerless gloves were a godsend.
posted by dicaxpuella at 9:45 PM on December 11, 2006

I call 'em Fagin Gloves, after the character in Oliver Twist (who wore gloves like that throughout the 1968 film). Best usage I've seen was during the Solar Max repair mission of 1985. Astronaut George Nelson (who has the unfortunate nickname of "Pinky" (which reminds me of Harpo Marx)) performed repairs on the Solar Max satellite in the Challenger's payload bay, first time a satellite had ever been fixed in orbit. Close-up video on NASA Select had great imagery of his hands at work, which showed he'd removed the fingertips of his spaceman gloves. I'm guessing he had some sort of undergloves on, but it looked like bare skin -- in space!
posted by Rash at 10:05 AM on December 12, 2006

FWIW, they're not called hobo gloves everywhere - I'd never heard the term until now. I've always heard them referred to as fingertipless gloves, usually associated with some sporting or professional need for dexterity in the cold. OTOH, there aren't hobos or homeless where I come from.
posted by -harlequin- at 12:04 PM on December 12, 2006