In 1977 Daniel J. Sandin and Thomas DeFanti created the first wired data glove based on an idea by Richard Sayre as a project for the National Endowment for the Arts. It used light based sensors with flexible tubes with a light source at one end and a photocell at the other. As the fingers were bent, the amount of light that hit the photocells varied, thus providing a measure of finger flexion. It was a lightweight, inexpensive effective method for multidimensional control, mainly used to manipulate sliders.

For further information:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wired_glove
http://www.historyofinformation.com/expanded.php?id=4080
http://vw.fed.wiki.org/view/sayre-glove