Gifts of Preservation

Above:  Last year for Christmas, my wife and I gave my daughter two of the fashion illustration watercolors that were painted by June Anderson (my mother) during her years at Traphagen School of Fashion.  They were cleaned, matted, and framed.

Above:  I think my wife and I just treated ourselves to this one – no special occasion.  It was a large photographic print, nearly two feet in height.  It was taken in the early 1920s and shows my grandparents (Arthur N. and Ada Belle Price) visiting Ada Belle's grandmother in Orange, New Jersey.  We had the image cleaned, matted, and framed.

Above:  Well, this is technically from my wife’s family collection, but I'll include it here because I love the way it turned out.  These are wallpaper remnants that were rescued from the Shumate family homestead in Missouri.  I had them cleaned, matted, framed, and labeled for my wife’s birthday.

All conservation treatment, matting, and framing for the above projects was performed at the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts.

© 2010 Lee Price

A Note of Frustration and Thanksgiving

(Cross-posted on the June and Art blog…)

Last summer, I returned home from Florida with twelve large boxes comprising our family collection.  So much history…  and yet there are still countless gaps in the record.

Art’s letters are missing for that nine-day stretch of correspondence between June’s return to school and Thanksgiving vacation.  At the very least, we know we are missing the letter that June refers to as the “shortest.. on record” and the one with the “long, low whistle.”

We have no pictures in our family collection of the Traphagen School of Fashion where June attended for two years.  I’d be happy with an interior or an exterior.  My sister and I have searched the internet, the New York Public Library, and the New York Historical Society.  We’ve found nothing.

There are no photographs of June’s apartments in the city.

We've found no pictures of Shirley Stahl, June’s roommate and close friend.  Perhaps June used her as a model for some of her fashion illustrations?  There’s no way to know.

I don’t know where Jack’s (where June would eat breakfast before class) was located.  We’ve found no pictures of Roulston’s on Main Street in Southampton or Partida’s where Art went for his art classes.  And I’d sure love to uncover a photo of Helen Darby’s house where June and Art met.

Nevertheless, frustrating as it is to acknowledge these gaps, I’m deeply thankful for all that we have – twelve gift boxes from the past for us to care for and pass forward into the future.

Our personal heritage is important.  We’re indeed fortunate to have so much.

© 2010 Lee Price

Preservation Strategies for Old Books

Custom-made boxes for book storage from the
Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts.

There’s a mass-produced biography of Paul Robeson, published in the 1960s, at the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts (CCAHA) right now.  It’s getting top-of-the-line treatment.  The text has been disbound, the leaves will be washed, tears will be repaired, and the spine will be resewn.  That’s not the usual level of attention that an ordinary book of this period would receive, but this particular one has Robeson’s autograph signature on the title page.  The signature changes everything.

The family books that I brought in to be examined by Jim Hinz, CCAHA Director of Book Conservation, have no great associations with famous people and they don’t qualify as “rare” by any measure.  Sentimental value is the only value they have.  Conservation treatment is not recommended.

However, good care and proper storage is strongly recommended.  According to Jim, the most important thing is to keep the books in appropriate environmental conditions with low humidity and minimal light exposure.  When it comes to temperature and humidity, I should strive for moderation and consistency.

If I wanted to go a step further, Jim suggested that I look into custom-made boxes to store the books.  These boxes protect the books from light, help with humidity, provide some additional protection in the case of disaster, and are ideal for shipping.  For some standard-sized books, custom-fit boxes may be available through Gaylord or University Products.  For most books, custom-made boxes are more

appropriate and these require that very precise measurements be made.  They also look great on the shelf.  Very classy.

Special thanks to Jim Hinz for his consultations during the past week!

© 2010 Lee Price

The Same Book

My Hamlet and Tarzan are the same.  Not the same character and not by the same author, but when looked at as physical objects, my family books of Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs and Best Loved Plays of Williams Shakespeare are essentially the same book.

I’d always assumed they were different.  The Burroughs book was a cheap pulp book, only a half-step up from the mass-market pulp magazines that originally published his work.  The Shakespeare book, however, was “the world’s greatest literature,” published by Spencer Press and in the introduction they promised:  “Mounteney in his careful designing has created books possessing rare beauty of design and exquisite good taste which view in appearance and handsomeness with the Spencer* masterpieces.”  All lies.  It’s a cheap book, no better than the Tarzan.

Jim Hinz, Director of Book Conservation at the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts, placed the two books next to each other, pointing out one similarity after another.  According to Jim, they were both consistent with industry standards for mass-produced volumes…  but no better.

Their covers consist of a thin layer of buckram, a stiff cloth treated with a starch mixture, over

boards.  The spine linings were insufficient on both books, not capable of standing up to normal usage.  And the paper was virtually identical in both books, characteristic of the American wood pulp papers that dominated the industry from 1850 to 1950.  This paper puts out acetic acid which breaks down the paper fibers, resulting in the most brittle paper in the world.

My poor Shakespeare—it turns out it’s not much more than a “quintessence of dust,” not a paragon at all.

* William Augustus Spencer was a famous book collector who specialized in fine French bindings.

© 2010 Lee Price

The Professional Examination

  

This is how a conservator examines a book, explained Jim Hinz, Director of Book Conservation at the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts.  There are three steps:

1.  The Cover:  What’s it made of?  How’s it holding up?  Is it clean or dirty?

2.  The Sewing:  How were the pages sewn together and how is the sewing holding up?  Anything detached?

3.  The Text Block:  What’s the paper and what’s the media?  (Wood pulp paper and common black printing ink in the case of my books.)  Does the paper retain flexibility or is it becoming brittle?  Are there other problems like tears, distortions, or surface dirt?



Detached Spine.

Considering the cheapness of their original production, the family books that I brought in for Jim to examine are in pretty good shape.  There’s some surface grime on their covers and minor losses on the slightly battered corners.  The spine linings were insufficient from the start, resulting in detached spines in the cloth layer on two of the books.  The pages are discolored but have not reached a point of severe brittleness yet (it’s just a matter of time with this highly acidic paper though...).

Of course I feel invested in my family books, so it's good to hear that--all things considered--they're in okay shape for typical books published during the greatest age (1850-1950) of bad bookmaking the world has ever seen.

© 2010 Lee Price

Mold and Books

Jim Hinz, Director of Book
Conservation at the
Conservation Center for
Art and Historic Artifacts.

Good news!  Our family books are clean.  There’s no sign of mildew or mold on them, according to Jim Hinz, Director of Book Conservation at the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts.  I was concerned, as these books had been in a waterlogged house for approximately a week in September 2008 after a second floor toilet supply line broke, flooding our home.  Granted, the condition of these books is far from pristine (they’ve got surface grime, detached spines, and brittle paper), but clean of mold is reason to celebrate.

Mildew and mold are both fungi.  While there are technical botanical differences between them, the difference matters little to a conservator.  They’re both bad for books and bad for people.  You smell their musty odor because their spores release into the air around them as the molds search for new hosts.  But don’t take too deep a sniff.  Molds can trigger serious allergic reactions and aggravate asthma.

I asked Jim what his response would have been if he

Book with mold.

had opened the books and discovered mold.  “You always see a mold bloom,” Jim said.  “They can come in a rainbow of colors.  If left untreated, the mold will eat right through the pages and text.”  With an active mold, you can usually see a white fuzzy growth amid the color.  In situations where there’s a visible mold bloom, the best thing to do is to take the infected books to a conservator.  And until you get to the books to a conservator, you should isolate them.

In a case like mine, where the books had been exposed to some serious humidity and were at-risk for mildew, Jim would recommend setting any moist books upright, fanning out the pages, and drying them out with a hairdryer.  The downside to this is that the pages may cockle, but that’s preferable to the risk of mold.

Most home remedies for mold (many of which are touted on the internet) are ineffective because they don’t stop the mold spores.  Beware of solutions that just cover up the mold smell with some mildly preferable aroma, like baking soda.  The mold will continue its relentless work.

Our books were in the house when it was thoroughly dried out (huge fans running in all the rooms) and this was probably good for them.  Then the books were packed up into boxes and shipped out for storage.  The storage building was kept at a low constant temperature--and that was in our favor, too.  Molds like humidity and high temperatures.  In the end our books lucked out, emerging unscathed from potential mold disaster.

© 2010 Lee Price

The Great Flood of 2008

Early September 2008:  A toilet supply line broke in a bathroom on our second floor, creating a geyser of water that spread through the house, soaking everything.  No one was home but our dog.  I returned home from work that evening to find water running down our staircase, ceiling tiles bulging and breaking in the kitchen, the floor inches deep in water, and one very unhappy dog. 

Our family books on the shelves basically survived.  They didn’t suffer any direct water exposure.  But they were in a soaking wet house for a week, only to be packed into boxes and shipped off to storage for a seven-month period of recovery.  When we finally moved back into the house, we unpacked the books and put them up on new shelves.

To be honest, I'm nervous about letting a conservator look at these books.  I'm not sure if I want to hear an honest opinion abou their condition.

Next week:  A conservator looks at the books.

© 2010 Lee Price