No Gloves Required (Please Accept This to be True)

Quite recently—March 9, 2023—the New York Times ran an article “For Rare Book Librarians, It’s Gloves Off. Seriously” (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/09/arts/rare-books-white-gloves.html). Therefore, we would like to take this opportunity to explain and reinforce the fact that you should NOT wear gloves when handling rare materials with very few exceptions.
For years, the staff who work with special collections everywhere knew that wearing gloves when handling rare materials might actually pose more risk of damage than not wearing them at all. This is because we lose our tactile sensation—i.e. we cannot fully feel with our fingertips—and clumsily become unaware of how much pressure we are putting onto delicate materials. This may lead to folds, tears or other unintended consequences of mishandling.

International Preservation News published “Misperceptions about White Gloves” a paper by preservation/conservation specialists Cathleen A. Baker and Randy Silverman in its December 2005 issue that concludes that gloves are not the best protection for rare books and that clean, dry hands are more reasonable and effective.

The exception to the no-gloves rule is only when handling photographs and/or materials with shiny surfaces. Because the slightest bit of skin oil may harm or chemically change such material, we would wear the gloves when handling them.

In most cases it is gloves off for most rare books, which are usually constructed of paper and vellum. Save those white gloves for formal occasions or your mime performance!

Auto Racing in Western New York

With the 2023 NASCAR season underway and Formula 1 set to begin this weekend, it felt appropriate to take a brief look at Buffalo’s involvement with auto racing and the automobile industry in general. Unless you are a serious auto historian, it can be easy to forget that Buffalo was once at the helm of (to paraphrase an article about inline-6-cylinder engines from the latest issue of The Arrow) the engine design dynasty at the turn of the 20th century. And, given that numerous car manufacturers existed here, the main culprits being the Pierce-Arrow and Thomas Motor companies, it makes sense that Buffalo was very much involved with the earliest auto races, not only in the country, but in the world.

Pierce-Arrow began making a case for its dominance in the auto industry as early as 1901, participating in the New York to Buffalo Race (which was abruptly cut short due to an infamous presidential assassination) and would go on to win numerous Glidden Tours held between 1904-1913. Known as the National Reliability Runs by the American Automobile Association, these were long endurance races meant to put cars and drivers through rigorous conditions to demonstrate the stress these machines could successfully endure.

The Grosvenor Room has numerous resources to peruse regarding the Pierce Arrow Motor Company from books, newspaper articles, scrapbook clippings, a vertical file, and the entire run of the Pierce Arrow Society’s newsletter and magazine, The Arrow.

The Thomas Motor Company, while perhaps not as savvy as Pierce Arrow when it came to advertising, perhaps not quite as luxurious either, nevertheless holds the claim of not only being the only American car to enter into the 1908 New York to Paris Race, but also the winner. The original plan of the race was to drive from New York to Alaska, motor across (if frozen, otherwise ferry) the Bering Strait and then navigate through Russia and Europe until the finish line in Paris. This would be thwarted due to impossible driving conditions in Alaska, thus necessitating the vehicles be transported by ship from San Francisco to Japan, where the drivers would make their way to the the Sea of Japan and be shipped to Vladivostok in order to continue the overseas part of the adventure. This race was held at a time when viable roads were not guaranteed outside of major cities, cars were not driven during the winter, maps were not readily available, and bandits were a serious concern (serious enough that one of the French teams dropped out of the race before making it to Russia for fear of highway robbers – pardon the joke, there were no highways at the time). Somehow, after 169 days of driving and surviving, the Thomas automobile made it to Paris and was declared winner of the race.

This is from a Reader’s Digest article about the 1908 race, written by George Schuster, the only Buffalo mechanic/driver to be with the car throughout the entirety of the race. The painting depicts a moment of comradery despite the competition, when the Buffalo team helped the German team drag their vehicle out of the mud. You can look at a four page spread of the painting in Schuster’s book, The Longest Auto Race, which goes into much more detail about his journey.

If you want to take a more in depth look at the famous race that has never been equaled in either length or insanity (otherwise known as ambition), check out the New York to Paris Race, Thomas Flyer section in The Grosvenor Room’s Digital Collections. You can also look at our guide to relevant resources via this link.

Beyond learning about Buffalo’s early car manufacturing prowess and the wild endurance races that ensued, you can read about the history of auto racing in Western New York in Keith S. Herbst’s Western New York Heritage article from 2007, which focuses particularly on the 1930s and 40s races held at the Buffalo Civic Stadium. You can read about Buffalo native Jim Hurtibise in a profile written for Buffalo Magazine in 1967, browse our local history file and vertical files for more information, and, soon to be part of our collection, read Herbst’s 2006 Daredevils of the Frontier, the book that his WNY Heritage article was based on.

Article by Keith S. Herbst in the Summer 2007 WNY Heritage Magazine

Jim Hurtibise – after a bad accident forced the doctors to set his hands into a permanent position, Hurtibise told them to make sure they were set in a way that he could continue driving