History

Who needs Google Maps when you’ve got a glove?

Mobile mapping, 19th-century style with this leather glove (created for the 1851 Great Exhibition), as shared on Twitter by Sean Fagan:

Leather glove with hand painted map of London for the Great Exhibition of 1851

No smartphones required.

As the National Archives explains:

As far as we know, the glove was never produced commercially. This example survives because its creator, George Shove, chose to protect his design by registering it with the government. This involved depositing a ‘representation’, which was a sample, a drawing or a photograph of the design, at the Office of the Registrar of Designs.

Very smart and a reminder as ever that new technology has long, deep roots in history.

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