Gloversville Free Library

HRR.JEW Jewish Community Center Dedication of the Lucius N. Littauer Building, 1930. 128p.; paperbound; illustrated; 31cm.

Lucius N. Littauer, 1859-1944, is considered Gloversville’s greatest philanthropist. Born in Gloversville, he spent most of his boyhood in New York City. After graduating from Harvard University in 1878, he returned to Gloversville to help manage his father’s leather business. It soon became one of the largest glove companies in the country. In 1896 he was elected to Congress for the first of five terms. In Washington, he was a respected leader on the Appropriations Committee and became an advisor to President Theodore Roosevelt. It was Lucius Littauer who provided the funds to construct Gloversville’s Nathan Littauer Hospital, named in honor of his father. In 1929 he founded the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation to continue his philanthropic work. According to researchers, the Gloversville Free Library has the most extensive collection of material on Lucius Littauer – more than Harvard University, where there is a chair in Jewish Literature and Philosophy in his honor.