Frederick Douglas and Son’s had more involvement in regards to Printing that History often gives them credit. These Great Men of History used printing to advocate for women's rights, particularly those of Black women, including their right to vote as well as other pressing matters.
Read MoreWe may not be on IMDB but our 3-ton 1955 Heidelberg Cylinder Press, from the Printing Museum, was on the vibrant sets at Cal Poly Pomona campus, for the film Queenpins, staring Kristen Bell, Kirby Howell-Baptise, Paul Walter Hauser, with Bebe Rexha, and Vince Vaughn. Now available for streaming on Netflix.
Read MoreHBO’s period drama The Gilded Age, From Oscar® and Emmy® winner Julian Fellowes, follows a young woman who moves in with her old-money aunts and quickly gets entangled in the social war between them and their new-money neighbors. It also features our very own Prouty “Grasshopper” newspaper press from the late 1800s in Episode 4 “A Long Ladder.” Read more about the work it took to get the printer on the set of this HBO show.
Read MoreLike many of you, being stuck at home has given me an extreme case of wanderlust. This has inspired me to create THE ultimate print, book, and paper nerd map!
Six years ago when I was first hired for the job of Museum Manager of The International Printing Museum I knew almost nothing about printing. You see the dirty secret of many museum jobs is that you don’t have to be an expert in the subject of the museum, you just have to know how to work in a museum. So I set out on a journey to soak up anything and everything about printing. At the time I was living in Washington DC and Mark sent me a handy list of local places of interest I might visit to start getting a hang of printing history. My first stop was the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, which I had previously interned at in the Division of Political and Military History. Thanks to my connections I was able to finagle a meeting with Joan Boudreau, Curator of The Printing and Graphic Arts collections. She took me to see one of the collection’s storage rooms where none other than Benjamin Franklin’s printing press itself was temporarily being stored. Here I was, barely knowing if I’d ever seen a printing press before, and the first one I see is Benjamin Franklins! From then on I started noticing printing everywhere, in antiquarian books on display at Museums, in local letterpress shops on the street, even in small displays in offices and apartment building that had been repurposed from a printing facility.
From Left to Right: Mark Barbour (Director and curator), Sara Halpert (Museum Manager), and Madeline Helland (assistant manager)
I’m so lucky because I have my very own letterpress travel concierge named Mark Barbour who always knows of some printing museum, letterpress shop, or even private collection wherever I travel. But others are not so lucky and I’ve spent my time making a map, a resource for those not lucky enough to have an unending fountain of knowledge like Mark. In his excellent book “The Itinerant Printer” (seriously you should really get a copy) Chris Fritton made a very astute observation “Social media and the ubiquity of information in contemporary society all but guaranteed that everyone in the modest letterpress community knew what everyone else was doing.” but he soon realized he “couldn’t have been more wrong.” With this map I’m attempting to right that wrong if only a little bit.
Previously I had used resources like the AAPA Printing Museums listing and BriarPress, but my travels taught me that there was just so much more out there than any one list contained. With that in mind I set out to compile this map with an untold number of resources from the aforementioned “Itinerant Printer” book, to Atlas Obscura, and even to findagrave.com. I did deep google dives and ended up in great but unexpected places.
As some of you might know, after six wonderful years at The Printing Museum I will be leaving the position next month. Think of this as a parting gift to thank you for all the printing passion and knowledge you’ve all sparked in me.
Till We Meet Again,
Sara Halpert
Museum Manager
The world is an ever changing and moving environment where businesses and museums shut down, move, or otherwise change. I’m sure there are many errors in the map with wrong addresses, long shut down shops, or other mistakes. If you can a correction or an addition to the map please feel free to email me Sara@printmuseum.org
I had to decide what I wanted to focus in on and what parameters to place. The map is split into 10 sections, although many of the locations could fit into multiple categories
These are Museums that focus primarily on the history of printing or museums that have working historical print shops or working presses.
The main parameters for this section were that the gallery had to have displayed printed art and the art centers or print shops had to offer workshops or welcome visitors to see the shop. Basically it’s a resource for anyone who wants to find where to see or learn printing near them.
These are print shops connected to a University program or Universities that offer some kind of book arts programs or classes.
These places focus primarily on typography or typecasting.
This very broad category includes libraries with rare books or historic collections, rare book shops, archives, and other related places.
These are historic print shop buildings and sites, plaques noting printing history, statues dedicated to printing history, gravesites of notable printing industry people and other printing and book related public art.
These are mostly historic paper mills or places dedicated to paper history specifically.
I can’t be the only one to get excited just because a little museum has one small printing press right? This category is extremely broad, it’s basically any public institutions that has notable printed objects or printing equipment, even if only a small amount.
Places to spend your money on printed goods and ogle pretty presses.
Anything and everything vaguely related to this map but doesn’t necessarily fit into another category.
In March 2021, a full year after the first Covid shutdowns, Mark, the Museum Director, and one of our presses got to venture out of Southern California. Mark traveled across the country with our 5000 lb Grasshopper press in tow to do a film shoot for an upcoming tv show. The rest of the Museum staff were in for a treat upon Mark’s return– he had found a number of printing treasures on the East Coast that he brought back with him. The largest of these was a Philadelphia Press, which you can read about here. And one of the smaller items was a very rare No. 1 Edison Mimeograph, one of the earliest duplicators.
This first mimeograph was created by Thomas Edison and the A.B. Dick Company.
Edison was one of America’s most famous inventors, best known for his work with lightbulbs, phonographs, telephones, and other electrical innovations that shaped the modern world. Among his many inventions, Edison also played a role in creating the first duplicator. Edison was something of a patent fiend– during his lifetime he acquired over a thousand patents for his inventions. His patents that became noteworthy to the printing industry included “autographic printing” with an electric pen and flatbed press and “autographic stencils.” Nothing much came of these patents however until the Chicago based A.B. Dick Company took an interest in the technology in the mid-1880s.
A.B. Dick got its name from its founder Albert Blake Dick, who started the business in 1883 as a lumber company. Within the next ten years, the A.B Dick Company transformed into a major manufacturer of printing equipment. Dick designed his own version of the electric pen and stencil and reached out to Edison, who controlled the patents for the technology. The two established a working relationship as they began to design the first stencil duplicator. The result was the Edison Mimeograph.
Our No. 1 Edison Mimeograph is packaged in a wooden box that still contains all the chemicals and tools needed to produce a stencil. It even has an old stencil that may have been by its previous owner. Inside the lid of the box are instructions on how to use it and a price list for other models of mimeographs (Our No. 1 model cost $15 back in the 1890s, which is equivalent to $500 today).
Here at the Museum, we also have a number of later models of mimeographs. They evolved dramatically from a handmade stencil in a box to a flatbed press to a rotary style machine. Each iteration of the mimeograph improved it slightly. The flatbed model replaced the free-floating screen and brayer from the earliest models. The rotary mimeograph could automatically apply ink and produce prints by turning a hand crank. The machines shown below are examples of the rotary iteration of the mimeograph.
AB Dick Mimeograph Model 77
AB Dick Mimeograph Model 78
Nowadays, the mimeograph is best known as a low budget duplicator that was popular in schools before xerox machines and digital technology became widespread. It was an affordable alternative to professional printing and much faster than typing each copy of a page. The mimeograph also became popular with DIY publishers who wanted to cheaply produce booklets, zines, and other materials that they could distribute without being inhibited by the constraints of traditional media.
June 26, 2021 marks a new holiday in the world of printing and book arts– it’s International Kelmscott Press Day! To celebrate the 125th anniversary of the Kelmscott Chaucer, the William Morris society announced a worldwide celebration of the press that produced this incredible book.
William Morris
For those who are not familiar, Kelmscott Press was a printing studio run by the prolific English artist, William Morris, and his edition of The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer is the work the press is most renowned for.
William Morris was an artist with a very specific creative ideology. He was born into the age of industrialization, and the work he created was a direct reaction to the times. Morris was a figurehead of the Arts and Crafts Movement, which stood against the shoddy manufacturing, poor working conditions, and cheap products that came out of factories at the time. Instead of embracing new industrial processes, the movement idealized the craftsmanship of Middle Ages. Morris and his fellow artists drew inspiration from Medieval art and valued working by hand to produce high-quality goods. In the 1860s, Morris founded a design firm, which manufactured decorative items like textiles, stained glass, and wallpaper. Despite their contrarian views on labor and aesthetics, the company’s designs were extremely popular with its Victorian audience and Morris became quite successful.
After a long life of artistic success and social activism, Morris retired to his summer home, Kelmscott Manor, and set up a press in a nearby cottage. This was the beginning of the Kelmscott Press. Morris created the Press as a personal project, to create books he found beautiful. He printed his own writings, texts by his contemporaries, and Medieval works.
The William Morris Society’s Albion Press
An 1863 Albion press at the Printing Museum
In setting up the press, Morris put considerable thought into both the design of his books and into the process by which he made them. He purchased a number of Albion hand presses to print books that would emulate the designs in Medieval manuscripts. Although more modern presses, like the cylinder press and platen press, had been invented, Morris preferred the old-fashioned method of hand printing, feeling that it was more in keeping with traditional craftsmanship.
Morris rejected modern ink and paper and had these supplies outsourced by various artisans. The book bindings produced for the press were also a nod to the past. Instead of using leather bindings, which were popular at the time, Morris had his publications bound in a historic limp vellum style or in a simple linen and board cover. The illustrations in Kelmscott publications were engraved on woodblocks and the type and decorative elements were made with punches that had been cut by hand.
A replica kelmscott binding by karen hamner
the Title page of the kelmscott chaucer
Morris’s ideas were drawn from historic influences but ultimately he created books in a style all his own. The designs he made were inspired by the Medieval era, more than they were a direct reproduction of Medieval art, and the same can be said for his production process at the Kelmscott Press. The elaborate books created at the Kelmscott Press are incredible feats of innovation and artistry. The most elaborate of these works was the Kelmscott Chaucer, which was completed on June 26, 1891– 125 years ago today. While all Kelmscott books were immaculately designed and made with labored precision, the illustrations and decorative borders that distinguish them were usually limited to a few pages. In contrast, every single page of the Kelmscott Chaucer has an illustration, borders, and decorative typography. It is truly a masterpiece and an unparalleled feat of printing.
Here at the Museum, we have two small works produced by the Kelmscott Press, which came from our founder, Ernie Lindner’s, personal collection. These two books have simple linen covers but their title pages are intricately designed. The Museum is also home to a number of Albion presses of various sizes, which are contemporaries of the hand presses Morris himself used.
For Asian American Heritage month, we will be exploring the history of the book in Asia. We will dive into how papermaking, bookbinding, and printing varied between different regions and cultures.
Last week, we looked into how Japan they drew inspiration from Chinese innovation to create its own distinctive methods of papermaking and bookbinding. Today we’ll be exploring book production in Korea and how it differs from processes we discussed in our two previous posts.
Like Japan, Korea was in contact with China and imported a number of their ideas about printing and papermaking as soon as they developed. For several centuries, Korea used woodblock printing and paper made out of hemp to produce written texts. This process was almost identical to what the Chinese were doing at the same time. Things began to change, however, during the Goryeo period when Korea went through an artistic golden age.
In 1234, a man named Choe Yun-ui was tasked with printing a lengthy Buddhist text that would have taken thousands of wooden blocks to reproduce. Choe found a way around this by creating moveable metal type. The final form of this metal type is practically identical to what Gutenberg created 200 years later but Choe’s method for producing the type is vastly different. Gutenberg produced his letters with a type mold, pouring molten metal into an opening where it would fill a matrix that had been indented into the shape of the letter being cast. The Korean method that Choe envisioned did not use a mold at all. Instead, a character would be carved into a piece of wood and then pressed into a bed of sand, where it could be filled with metal. To expedite the process, multiple characters would be pressed into the sand and connected with thin trenches. The freshly cast type looked a little like a tree when it was pulled out of the sand, each character connected by a metal branch. Once it had cooled, the characters could be broken off their branches and used individually.
While the Chinese had come up with the idea of moveable type before the Koreans, it gained more traction in Korea. Korea had a simplified alphabet called Hangul that was about the same size as the Roman alphabet, which made typecasting and typesetting much more feasible. In China there were too many characters for moveable type to be a practical alternative to woodblock printing. While China gets credit for creating the first printed book, the oldest surviving book printed with moveable metal type is a Buddhist text called the Jikji, which was produced in Korea in 1377.
During the Goryeo Dynasty, Korea also made considerable strides in their papermaking methods. They developed a type of paper called Hanji, which was made from the bark of a paper mulberry tree called Dak and tree sap. This type of paper is extremely durable– there are surviving examples of Hanji that have lasted for hundreds of years. As printing flourished during the Goryeo period, so did papermaking. Paper mulberry trees were planted all across the country to meet the demands of printers and for centuries the government nurtured the growth of the paper market.
In the 1800s, Western technology was introduced into Korea. It reshaped the fields of papermaking and printing to become more industrialized and less traditional, in the same way it had in Japan. However, like Japan, Korea still recognizes the importance of traditional printing and papermaking and celebrates these processes.
India is a huge country with a hybrid of different cultural traditions, which makes for a very complicated history. There are lots of different artistic styles based on region and religion. The Jains, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, and Christians that occupied the subcontinent all had differing beliefs, which led to wildly different iconography in the books they created. They each brought different methods of papermaking, printing, and bookbinding to the areas they occupied. Today, we’re going to touch on some of those different processes and how they were introduced to the country.
In ancient times, Indian books were made of long strips of palm leaves or birch bark then bound together like venetian blinds, with thread at the edges of the book linking each page to the next. These books were meant to be read one page at a time, but they could be unfurled into one long text, sort of like a scroll. Artisans would carve or write religious texts into the page and paint vibrant miniatures alongside these texts as illustrations. Bookbinding as we know it was introduced to India during the Middle Ages, when an Islamic kingdom called the Mughal Empire assumed power. Like books in the West, Islamic books have pages sewn into signatures and a hard cover. What makes them distinctive is the triangular flaps on the front cover that hold the book shut.
A Islamic book with a protective flap on the cover
Image Credit: Radha Pandey
The Mughals also introduced paper-making to India. The legend is that Arabic invaders captured papermakers from China and forced them to share their secret craft. As these invaders moved from China into the Middle East, they spread their knowledge of paper-making wherever they settled. Although the story of the Chinese prisoners is probably more of a myth than a reality, the route paper-making took from Asia to the Middle East is pretty accurate. Islamic people coexisted with many different cultures, and they brought the traditions they learned to new territories, like India, as they migrated across the continent. Indo-Islamic papermakers, called Kagzi, took up residence in northern regions of India where they had access to fresh water, trade routes, and cooler climates. They made durable rag paper out of hemp fibers, rather than cotton or linen like Europeans. During the British Raj, this practice largely died out and industrial paper mills that used wood pulp became the norm in India.
While Indian bookbinding and papermaking were the result of centuries of cultural synthesis, the introduction of printing was more of a happy accident. In 1556, a group of Jesuits was traveling from Portugal to Abyssinia (now modern Ethiopia) with a printing press in tow and got detained in Goa, on the southwest coast of India. Shortly after, the head of the expedition passed away before the rest of the priests could resume their travels, so the printing press never left the region. The remaining Jesuits began teaching the locals about the art of printing and then created metal type in the native Indian script, Tamil. Unfortunately, by the 17th century missionaries began to make efforts to suppress indigenous languages, which put a halt to printing in the area. Printing really took off in India a century later when the British East India Company set up print shops in the region of Calcutta, but this was much more for the benefit of English colonists than existing Indian communities.
A Chinese woodblock from the museum’s collection
If you were to ask someone “who invented printing?” there is a good chance they would answer, “Gutenberg, of course!” Although Gutenberg was the first person in Europe to invent the printing press and moveable metal type, printing predated him by several centuries. In fact, printing wasn’t invented in Europe at all– it started in Asia.
For Asian American Heritage month, we will be exploring the history of the book in Asia. We will dive into how paper making, bookbinding, and printing varied between different regions and cultures. We’re starting in East Asia, with the country that first invented printing and paper: China!
The Paper making process
The invention of paper is attributed to an imperial official from the Han Dynasty named Ts’ai Lun, who purportedly came up with the idea in 105 A.D. In reality, the idea may have predated Ts’ai Lun, but his close relationship to the imperial court meant his name went down in history. Before paper, Chinese scribes would use pieces of bamboo or wood to write on, then later they began to use silk and cloth. All of these materials were difficult to write on and silk was too expensive for it to find widespread use. Paper was a huge improvement and proved to be a revolutionary invention. Chinese papermakers made pulp from readily available waste products, like rags and fishnets, as well as fresh plant fibers like bamboo and mulberry bark (called Kozo).
The invention of paper led to a significant increase in books and literacy across China, but printing moved things a step further. Printing took a number of different forms in China. The oldest of these forms was woodblock printing, which began about 500 years after Ts’ai Lun’s lifetime. With this method, an entire page of text would be carved onto a block of wood, coated in ink, and pressed onto a sheet of paper. Around 1040 A.D., a Chinese artisan named Bi Sheng came up with the idea of using moveable wooden type that could be repurposed for many books, instead of carving one page at a time. Later inventors replicated this idea but instead used clay to shape their characters. A man named Wang Zhen is credited with improving on these forms of moveable type and creating a distinctive circular type case that spun so you could easily access different characters. However, these clay and wood characters had a number of imperfections that kept them from taking off in China to the same extent that moveable metal type spread in Europe. Additionally, the Chinese alphabet contains thousands of characters, much more than European alphabets. It was very time consuming to carve all of them and to sort through them when typesetting. So, despite the invention of moveable type, wood blocks remained the most popular form of printing in China.
chinese scrolls
Before paper became widely available, Chinese texts were written on silk scrolls. However, scrolls were inconvenient in many ways– silk was expensive, delicate, and difficult to write on, plus the scrolls were cumbersome to store and time consuming to unroll. The invention of paper and printing marked a shift away from this. Written texts in China began to look more like our conventional idea of a book. Accordion books began to appear in China around the fifth century as more efficient alternatives to scrolls. These books were made of folded strips of paper that were tucked inside a paper cover.
China was at the forefront of printing, paper making, and bookbinding long before Gutenberg was born. A Buddhist text called the Diamond Sutra, which was made using all the methods described here, in 868 A.D. during the Tang Dynasty, is believed to be the oldest printed book in the world. China used their technological advances to spread literacy while only a privileged few had access to handwritten manuscripts in the West.
Japanese account books
Now we’re shifting our focus from China to the neighboring country of Japan. We will explore how Japan used existing ideas in China to come up with their own methods of book production.
Since China and Japan are neighbors, Japanese artisans adopted quite a few ideas from the Chinese when it came to producing books. They borrowed their methods of papermaking and woodblock printing. Like the Chinese, the Japanese also used silk scrolls to write down important texts and then began to make accordion style books once they had access to paper.
WASHI PAPER
The Chinese method of making paper was introduced to Japan in the 7th century by the Korean Buddhist monk, Doncho. Japanese papermakers thought Chinese paper was too delicate, so they modified the process to make their own paper stronger and more flexible. Japanese paper is called Washi and it is made using a very traditional process. Papermakers were typically farmers, first and foremost. They would grow plants for paper alongside their other crops and use the fibers to create pulp. These fibers included hemp, tree bark (specifically kozo, gampi, and mitsumata), and a substance called neri, that was added to pulp to help papermakers pull more even sheets. Making washi was a seasonal activity that took place in rural areas. In the winter, when it was too cold for farmers to work in their fields, they would pull sheets of paper using icy water to ensure their washi was free of impurities.
Between the 12th to 14th century, Japan began to come up with their own styles of bookbinding. The oldest book structure they used was a multi-section binding that looked very similar to the sewn signatures in Western style books. The most recognizable book form was a four-hole binding that many binders nowadays refer to as a Japanese stab stitch. Bookbinders would fold their pages in half, text side out, and sew through holes the paper cover to join the pages together. Folding pages in half so they were blank on the inside was a practical choice. The ink that was used for printing and calligraphy bled through thin washi paper, so it made sense to create book pages with a double leaf.
DIFFERENT EXAMPLES OF JAPANESE BINDINGS
Printed books had a limited scope in Japan until the 1600s. There were printed Buddhist texts for religious purposes and calligraphic manuscripts for the elite, but the processes for producing these books were so labor intensive and expensive that printed books did not spread very quickly. This changed during the Edo Period, when the stability of shogunate leadership led to an increase in paper production. During this time, books were printed on every subject imaginable and literacy began to spread. The biggest change came in the 1800s when Western technology was introduced to Japan, kickstarting an industrial revolution. Printing presses, thick machine-made paper, and metal type begin to permeate the field of book production.
Although industrialization changed the field of printing, bookbinding, and papermaking in Japan, it did not erase any of the country’s traditional practices. Japanese woodblock printing and bookbinding are still art forms that are practiced today. The craft of producing traditional washi is even registered as a form of intangible cultural heritage under UNESCO.
The Lindner Collection at the International Printing Museum has numerous gems of printing history. Some of those gems even tell a unique Southern California history. One such example is the Landacre Washington Press.
The early origins of the press we call The Landacre Press are unknown (although false legend had it that Mark Twain himself printed on it). It was manufactured just prior to the Civil War in Cincinnati and made its way west to California on a wagon. What can be verified is that the press was discovered in 1929 in the famous ghost town of Bodie, California. According to biographer Anthony L. Lehman in his book “Paul Landacre: A Life and A Legacy” the press was found “standing rusted and caked with grime in a ramshackle barn that was being held together more by habit than by nails.” It was found by acclaimed editor and photographer Willard Morgan. Morgan left this press to his friend and fellow artist Paul Landacre in 1930.
Paul Landacre was one of the most acclaimed wood engravers of the twentieth century, known for his technical acumen paired with the artistic beauty of his illustration and prints. His prints are featured in prestigious museum collections throughout the world and his house is a Los Angeles Cultural Historic Landmark. Landacre spent months lovingly restoring and repairing the press that would become his constant companion for the rest of his working life.
In an article for “The Relief Print Woodcut Wood Engraving and Linoleum Cut” (1945) he wrote:
“I print my engravings on an old Washington Hand Press, using a silk timpan and a printing blanket made especially for hand presses. This method is, for certain types of engraving, undoubtedly superior even to modern power presses which have more advantage in speed. The advantage of the hand press lies in the great pressure which may be sustained and the amount of pressure being felt in the pull of the lever.”
Paul Landacre and his press
“The Press” on a vinyl cover next to the actual press that inspired it
Paul Landacre so loved his press that he made an engraving of its toggle and lever entitled “The Press” in 1934. That print became one of Paul’s most famous images, being featured in shows at the Philadelphia Art Alliance, the San Diego Fine Arts Guild, and the American Artists Group in New York. Prints of this wood engraving are now in the collection at The National Gallery of Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, the De Young Museum, The Huntington Library, and many more prestigious collections. It was even featured on the vinyl cover for the 1977 release of Symphony No. 6 by Walter Piston and Piano Concerto No. 1 by Leon Kirchner. Just last year a copy of that vinyl was donated to the Museum by our patron and friend John Horn of Little Rock, Arkansas.
Tragically in 1963, after Paul’s wife and companion passed away from cancer, the artist took his own life. He made plans to leave his press in the hands of one of his students at Otis Art Institute who would love and care for it as he had. However, before the press could be passed on, unknown thieves managed to steal it in the night. For anyone who has tried to move a Washington Press, weighing in at one ton or more, you’ll no doubt know the amount of knowledge, strength, and skill these thieves must have had to pull it off. Anthony L. Lehman surmised, “It would have taken no less than several men, some type of hoisting apparatus, a truck, and a considerable amount of time and muscle. The larger parts of the press were extraordinarily heavy, and Landacre’s home was built on such a steep hillside that it was impossible to pull a vehicle alongside.”
Joe Landacre’s Initials (JL) center punched on the press
There was one possible sighting of the press shortly afterwards but other than that, it would be almost 20 years until it was rediscovered in 1981 by none other than the Los Angeles printing equipment collector Ernie Lindner (and later the Founder of the International Printing Museum). Ernie received a call by someone who came into possession of the press through an unpaid storage bill that the thief seemed to have skipped town on. According to Ernie the press seemed badly weathered and had been exposed to the elements for roughly three years. Its authenticity was later confirmed by multiple sources included Paul’s brother, Joe Landacre, who identified his initials J L which he had centerpunched into the ornate, cast iron decorations on the press shortly after Paul’s death. Ernie, knowing the importance of the item, bought the press and brought it home to restore it.
That’s when another Southern California legendary artist, Vance Gerry, became involved with the press. Vance was a letterpress printer and a close friend of Ernie Lindner, but most know him as a legendary storyboard artist for Walt Disney. Vance worked on such classic films as The Jungle Book, The Sword in the Stone, and One Hundred and One Dalmations.
Ernie and Vance collaborated on other press refurbishment projects, usually with Ernie fixing up the mechanics and Vance giving a new coat of paint and decorations. When restoring the press, it was searched in vain to find some identifying marks, but all that was found was the original serial number, 2331. Ernie was able to determine that it was manufactured in the mid-19th century by C. Foster & Brother in Cincinnati, Ohio. It is a very rare example of the Washington-style press, with less than five known to exist. The nameplate on our Landacre Press was copied from another C. Foster Press Ernie found at the Sacramento History Museum.
When Ernie co-founded The International Printing Museum in 1988 with his world-famous collection, the Landacre Washington Press was one of the first presses every visitor encountered when they walked through the doors; it remains one of the gems among the Lindner Collection.
The Landacre Press may be enjoyed in the Museum’s main gallery every Saturday from 10 am to 4 pm or by appointment Tuesday through Friday. Let’s see if you can find those counterpunched initials!
The Landacre Press is part of the Cincinnati Press Project, a database of Cincinnati-made printing presses. If you have knowledge of a Cincinnati-made press not presently in the database, be sure to contact them!
Women’s Auxiliary TypogrAPhical Union Labor Day Parade 1909 LOC
This past August, Americans celebrated the centennial of Universal Women Suffrage. The fight for that right blossomed at the infamous 1848 Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York. The convention was led by Women’s Rights pioneers Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Lesser known is their involvement in forming the first Women’s Typographical Union in New York and as publishers of a women’s rights newspaper called “The Revolution.” Last March, we published a series of articles on Women in Printing, including the fascinating story of Mrs. Agnes B. Peterson and the forming of the Women’s Co-operative Printing Union (WCPU) in 1869 San Francisco. On the opposite coast, in New York City, women were also fighting back against male typesetting trade unions.
The mid-nineteenth century was the epoch of the typesetting trade. Printing technology was moving at an industrial pace and demand for material had never been higher. The mechanization of typesetting, however, lagged behind in comparison. This gave rise to the giants of typesetting, the age of whole compositing rooms and a large staff of typesetters for big city newspapers or book publishers. According to Print Historian Walker Rumble in his book about nineteenth century typesetting, The Swifts, “The advent of women on the printing shop floor threatened to lower wages, ‘feminize’ male workplace culture, and present a competitive challenge to job performance.”
But this attitude was contradicted by the fact that in small towns across America, thousands of women worked in the printing industry. Fincher’s Trades Review reported at mid-century that at least half of the compositors in American towns were women. Similar to the Rosie the Riveters of WWII, the number of qualified female typesetters increased during the American Civil War, replacing men who went to fight. However, these women were excluded from apprenticeships and shut out of trade unions that dictated hiring and pricing practices, especially in big cities. With no other option, women who needed the work, or were determined to work, took lower wages and were often used as strikebreakers, ultimately pitting them against the male trade unions.
In addition, the compositing rooms of big city newspapers were fast paced, rambunctious places filled with wily young bachelors, old hats, gambling, drinking, saloon going and similarly “masculine” activities. The unionist no doubt feared that including women in a workplace would temper that spirit (sound familiar?). Keep in mind at this time there were few professions that were equally male and female. Things were either “Men’s Work,” or “Women’s Work” and men did not appreciate being identified with “Women’s Work” There were a myriad of reasons whether justifiable, societal, or just plain sexist, why men wanted to keep women out of the composing room but, as historian Mary Briggs observed, “Their most fundamental opposition was not to women but to the competition of inferior and cheap labor.”
Sketch of Augusta Lewis Troup from the American Dictionary of Printing and Bookmaking, New York, Howard Lockwood & Co., 1894.
In New York the tension was palpable. There was more work there than most places, therefore there was more work for the men to lose. The New York Typographical Union Chapter, Local No. 6. Local No. 6 was one of the most powerful unions in the nation, sometimes referred to as the “Big 6”. A talented young typesetter named Augusta Lewis entered the picture. Lewis learned typesetting not from an apprenticeship (women were shut out of apprenticeships and therefore union membership), but simple on the job training when the New York World hired a number of women typesetters in an effort to reduce costs. The inclusion of women in the typesetting room was a huge reason the typesetting staff of the New York World walked out on the job in 1868. Once the Big 6 Union resolved their differences with the New York World management, all women were fired from their positions. It was clear that management viewed women typesetters as a bargaining chip and cheap labor. They pitted unions against women and had no interest in who won, as long as they ended up saving money.
Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton c.1870
That’s when August Lewis turned to Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony for help. Luckily, they just happened to have recently started publishing their own Newspaper called “The Revolution,” a weekly that covered issues of women’s rights, suffrage, and politics. The newspaper advocated for the female typesetters and, upon their firings, hired many of them to work for The Revolution. According to Elizabeth Cady Stanton “One of Miss Anthony’s most cherished plans is to have a magnificent printing establishment, and a daily paper, owned and controlled and all the work done by women, thus giving employment to hundreds and making the world ring with the new evangel for women.”
But the partnership was a shaky one from the start. When they established the Working Women’s Association in September of 1868, the divide between working and middle-class women became apparent. The middle-class women, who made up the majority of suffragists, pushed to gain political standing in order to further women’s rights while the working-class women pushed to first gain economic equality in order to further women’s rights.
By October of 1868 Lewis and about forty others had formed the very first all women labor union in America, Women’s Typographical Union No. 1. Before organizing, women’s financial threat to the men was easily overcome by the power of the union. But once the women organized into their own union, the threat became legitimate. Members of the ITU were well aware of the havoc competing unions could wreak on wages, so instead they swallowed their pride and invited the Women’s Typographical Union to apply for a charter from the ITU.
The first issue of The Revolution (January 8, 1868)
The Women’s Typographical Union was soon forced to prove their union loyalty when in January 1869 the New York No. 6 Union led a strike against the book and job printers who employed low waged non-union female typesetters. One of these firms was Gray and Green Printers, the feminist leaning financial backers of Susan B. Anthony’s “The Revolution” newspaper, where Augusta Lewis happened to be employed. Even worse in the Union’s eyes, Gray and Green Printers offered a crash two-week training program for women typesetters, essentially training rat printers. Susan B. Anthony saw the strike as an opportunity “to train women as compositors, it was the only way women could get experience in the trade” and to “open the way for a thorough drill to the hundreds of poor girls, to enable these women to earn wages with men everywhere.” Augusta Lewis protested and was fired. Although Augusta and the Women’s Typographical Union had cut ties with the mainstream suffrage and women’s rights movement, they had gained respect within the union itself, which is what Augusta thought was the best method to pursue gender equality. Susan B. Anthony considered August Lewis a union dope and Augusta Lewis saw Susan B. Anthony as an enemy of working women. Despite this splintering, both women would continue to pursue women’s equality throughout their lives in the way they thought best.
As for the Women’s Typographical Union No. 1 it burned bright and briefly, coming to an end by 1878. Walker Rumble put it best, observing that for the union “instead of welcoming women the tactic now enveloped the occasional extraordinary woman absorbing her but offering diminishing opportunities for most women to enter the trade.” Despite their efforts, the members of the Women’s Typographical Union No. 1 still lived in a society that made women choose between a family and career and many of them chose to marry, including Augusta Lewis. According to “Neither Printer’s Wife nor Widow: American Women in Typesetting, 1830-1950,” a historical study written in 1980, “Today two popular views of the situation exist: the union view of the typographers as pioneer egalitarians, and the feminist view of the union as destroyer of the first and best opportunity women had to participate in a remunerative skilled trade. As far as they go, both views are correct, yet the matter is still more complex.” The prologue to this being that in 2021 women are dominant in the field of printing and produce some of the best contemporary work there is. To this we say Happy Women’s History Month and keep teaching the next generation of amazing women printers to honor those that came before us.
Women compositors working at The Victoria Press London, England
Sara Halpert has been the Museum Manager at The International Printing Museum since 2015. Before that she worked as a tour guide at Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument, the former headquarters of the suffrage organization “The National Woman’s Party.” She was thrilled to combine her love for printing and women’s history into writing this piece.
Main resources for this article came from “The Swifts: Printers in the Age of Typesetting Races” by Walker Rumble and “Neither Printer’s Wife nor Widow: American Women in Typesetting, 1830-1950” by Mary Briggs.
Sunday January 17th, 2021 is Ben Franklin’s 315th Birthday! Everywhere you look at The Printing Museum you can see the influence of Franklin from some of his original prints to the Gordon Job Press. He is the Father of American Printing, but he had many, many other sons. Because of the diversity of his life and accomplishments, it seems as if every sector of society claims Franklin for their own. The electricians claim Franklin for their own with his experiments with the kite and batteries; politicians pay homage to him as one of our Founding Fathers and as a diplomat and ambassador; even the fireplace industry gives out a “Franklin Award” because of his pioneering work in perfecting the fireplace!
Today we’re going to focus on the postal carriers who remember him for his improvements in postal service and title as the first Postmaster General. For this reason, and all his other accomplishments, the United States Post Office has issued over one hundred and thirty stamps depicting Benjamin Franklin! In fact, Benjamin Franklin was featured on the very first 5 cent stamp seen here.
At the International Printing Museum we have a small collection of just a few of the many stamps featuring Benjamin Franklin.
This stamp was issued in 1955 on Benjamin Franklins 250th birthday
The oldest one in the Printing Museum Collection is this 1903 Franklin Stamp
This stamp was issued in 1947 commemorating 100 years since the issuing of the first stamp US stamps, one which featured Ben Franklin and the other with George Washington. The various transportation vehicles in the background demonstrate all the different ways the post office has used to deliver letters throughout the ages.
1927
This 1972 issued stamp highlights Franklin’s contributions as a Founding Father and Diplomat
1955
This stamp was issued in 1976
Like many professions and communities, the world of printers comes with it’s own set of terms, phrases, and names that are specific to the printing trade. Some of them, like Uppercase and Lowercase, seeped into the larger culture (though few people actually know the origin of the terms uppercase and lowercase originates from the use of an upper case to store the Capitol Letters and a Lower case to stow the small letters). Other terms are rarely, if every, used anymore as the profession of printing moved into new technologies and the last generation of occupational hot metal printers dwindles. It’s a shame too because some of our favorite jargon really ought to be used more.
The International Printing Museum curator, Mark Barbour, arrived in Los Angeles from Chicago with a truckload of antique printing presses and artifacts, only days before the state and national governments issued COVID19 stay-in-place orders. Among the donated items from Jerome Kosoglad in memory of his father a Chicago equipment dealer and collector, was a rare French stone lithographic press from 1870 with a printing stone used to print a famous Norman Rockwell edition. Also included was an 8’ wood type collage apparently created by an unknown Los Angeles artist (Santa Monica Blvd is spelled out in one part, as well as an image of the famous Los Angeles Ambassador Hotel).
And then there was the old crate with six carefully packed hand painted windows. Knowing next to nothing about the windows other than they depicted scenes from printing history and were hanging in Leonard Kosoglad’s private warehouse museum in Wheeling (Chicago) IL, since the 1980’s. Mark commented that the mystery of the windows intrigued him enough to give focus to the long truck drive across the country; only one of the windows was visible when the crate was loaded in Chicago and the images on the glass were stunning re-creations of early printing presses and famous printers.
Leonard Kosoglad and his International Printing Equipment Co. shop (1946)
Each window pane was carefully removed from the crate and set side by side in the Printing Museum gallery. We discovered each window was themed: Early Printing, Type, Papermaking, Lithography, Calligraphy, and Bookbinding. The images were taken from early books and illustrations, but the overall style of the painting and layout was distinctive. Mark began to look in detail at each glass panel for clues and information. Two of the panels had the signature of the artist, Edgar Miller, another had a date of 1961, and a third had a “Dedicated to The Society of Typographic Arts.” As the dust came off, the mystery of the windows slowly began to be revealed.
Our internet research uncovered wonderful details of this lesser known Chicago artist, designer and architect. Born in 1899 and dying in 1993, Edgar Miller was a superb and prolific graphic artist, designer, master craftsman of many disciplines but especially stained glass. Several innovative buildings he designed have survived, as well as interiors to many private homes, restaurants and buildings throughout Chicago. Because of his raw talent in so many artistic fields, Edgar Miller was given glowing contemporary descriptions of “the blond boy Michelangelo,” “a new luminary,” and “one of the most versatile artists in the America.”
We discovered the Edgar Miller Legacy, a Chicago non-profit, and contacted Zac Bleicher, Executive Director and Founder. Zac was elated that we had uncovered the “lost Edgar Miller windows.” Zac mentioned that they disappeared from their tracking some years ago. Our conversations filled in some important collaborating and missing details of the story.
Edgar Miller was a leader in the use of graphic art in advertising. His work included commissions from most of the leading printers and ad agencies in Chicago. He had a long relationship with many of the typographical masters of the time, explaining his connection to the Chicago-based Society of Typographic Arts, Chicago’s oldest professional design organization started in 1927, to whom he dedicated the windows.
The six windows were commissioned in the early 1950’s by Veritone Printing Company, a leading Chicago printer. They were completed by 1961, matching both the date on one window and the painting of a modern lithographic press from that same year. Each window highlights a different theme related to printing and graphic arts, from early and modern printing presses, bookbinding, early writing methods and typography. Edgar explained in a contemporary article that he used sign paint on sandblasted glass, a method which required him “to be careful about mistakes – NO ERASING! A true artist could easily disguise any ‘mistake’ by compensating from one line to the next. “
IPEC Inc. was one of the largest distributors of Heidelberg Machinery in America. Leonard Kosoglad, who acquired the Edgar Miller windows, is in the center behind the press.
Following Veritone’s bankruptcy and liquidation in 1984, the windows ended up at IPEC Inc. in Wheeling, IL. Besides selling used printing equipment, Leonard Kosoglad of IPEC also maintained a small museum of printing at his warehouse. Leonard son, who followed him in the business, just donated these spectacular windows to The International Printing Museum, in Carson, along with the other remaining artifacts from his father’s museum, including the 1870 French Stone Lithographic Press.
We plan to have the windows up on display at the International Printing Museum shortly for our guests to enjoy. To Find Out More About Edgar Miller, please visit The Edgar Miller Legacy website. And if you ever visit Chicago and have time for a tour of the Edgar Miller House, Zac Bleicher will be an excellent guide for your discovery of this unsung American artist.
Click to zoom into the images below to take a closer look at the amazing details of these windows.
Outbreaks, endemics, and pandemics were regular occurrences in America during the 18th century. And the printing industry served to announce, educate, and debate the best ways for the average citizen to survive these occurrences. Evidence of such can be seen in the broadside above.
The earliest American engraver and the first Boston printer, John Foster, printed the Brief Rule pictured above. He was born in South Boston. After graduating from Harvard College in 1667, he became a teacher in Dorchester. In addition to teaching, Foster also taught himself printing and by 1675, left teaching to open a print shop in Boston. The broadside pictured was printed in 1677 during one of six smallpox epidemics in Boston from 1636 to 1698.
Smallpox and measles were just a few of the viral infections colonial Americans faced. During the Revolutionary War, George Washington and his Continental Army suffered a threat that proved deadlier than the British, a smallpox epidemic, lasting from 1775-1782.
Fortunately for the Americans, General Washington had some personal experience with smallpox. In 1751, while visiting the Caribbean island of Barbados, Washington wrote that he “was strongly attacked by the small Pox.” Due to his experience, Washington knew that smallpox spread only from person to person. He also knew it could take up to fourteen days before a person exposed to it would show symptoms. Thus, people had to be quarantined for up to two weeks, and quarantined soldiers made it hard for a general trying to fight a war. In addition to his personal experience with smallpox, Washington was also familiar with a medical procedure recently introduced to the colonies.
For centuries it was understood that some diseases never re-infect a person after recovery. As far back as 200 BC, the Chinese experimented with “variolation” or inoculation to fight disease. The procedure was commonly carried out by rubbing powdered smallpox scabs into superficial scratches made in the skin. The patient would develop sores identical to those caused by naturally occurring smallpox, but this usually produced a less severe disease than that acquired naturally. The patient would then be isolated for two to four weeks. By the end of the quarantine, the symptoms would subside, indicating successful recovery and immunity. This knowledge of variolation traveled through Asia into the Middle East and to Africa.
In 1706, Puritan minister Cotton Mather heard from Onesimus, his enslaved West African servant, “that he had undergone an operation, which had given him something of ye Small-Pox, and would forever preserve him from it.” He had described the process of variolation.
In 1721, when the residents of Boston once again began to fall ill with smallpox, Mather circulated information about variolation to the Boston medical community by pamphlet. Within days of reading the booklet, Zabdiel Boylston, a Boston physician, inoculated his son and two servants. William Douglass, a physician, trained in Europe, strongly opposed inoculation because it had not been tested or proven to be a safe procedure.
By 1722, variolation had become a flashpoint among the colonists. Just like today with the anti-vaccination movement, there were those in the 18th century who fought against inoculation. The inoculation controversy played out publicly through pamphlets and newspapers such as the Boston Gazette and The New England Courant.
The main arguments against variolation were on religious grounds. Some believed it was a direct affront to God’s innate right to determine who was to die, and how and when death would occur. Others thought smallpox outbreaks were punishments for the sins of those who contracted the disease.
The Courant, at the time, was under the leadership of 16-year-old Benjamin Franklin. The newspaper published satirical articles about Mathers and inoculation in the months following the epidemic. Despite the controversy, Mather and Boylston continued with the process during the Boston smallpox outbreak.
On February 22, 1722, it was officially announced that no new cases of smallpox appeared in Boston. The final figures from the outbreak supported the use of inoculation. Boylston’s 247 inoculated patients had a 2% death rate versus the 15% of people who died if they got smallpox naturally. After the outbreak, Boylston went to London, where similar experiments were taking place. By 1726, he published a very carefully documented book, An Historical Account of the Smallpox Inoculated in New England. It was the first systematic clinical presentation by an American physician.
Even with mounting evidence of the benefits of inoculation, many colonialists were still uncomfortable with the idea. The practice was banned in many colonies. Even Benjamin Franklin continued to oppose inoculation, but that would soon change. In 1736, Franklin’s four-year-old son, Francis Folger Franklin, died of smallpox. In his autobiography, Franklin said, “In 1736 I lost one of my sons, a fine boy of four years old, by the smallpox taken in the common way. I long regretted bitterly and still regret that I had not given it to him by inoculation. This I mention for the sake of the parents who omit that operation, on the supposition that they should never forgive themselves if a child died under it; my example showing that the regret may be the same either way, and that, therefore, the safer should be chosen.”
After his son’s death, Franklin began to study Epidemiology, “that which comes upon the people.” Franklin researched smallpox cases in Boston. He compared the number of deaths attributable to smallpox “in the common way,” and people who received variolation.
Based on his research, Franklin promoted variolation in his 1750 Poor Richard’s Almanack. He also argued against one of the main arguments that variolation was immoral because it interfered with God’s will. Franklin said it was “impious to reject a Method discovered to Mankind by God’s good Providence, whereby 99 in 100 are saved,” compared with the “natural” mortality of one in seven.” Franklin’s belief in the power of variolation moved him to recruit the distinguished British physician, William Heberden, to write a pamphlet describing smallpox inoculation and its consequences.
According to Franklin, “In 1758, I encouraged my friend Dr. William Heberden, F.R.S., to prepare a pamphlet that might provide to many the means and encouragement they required to inoculate their children. This was done by that good man, and the results, Some Account of the Success of Inoculation for the Smallpox in England and America, was published on February 16, 1759. I wrote the preface for this pamphlet.”
In addition to writing the multi-page preface, Franklin sent 1,500 free pamphlets to Philadelphia to persuade impoverished parents to variolate their children. In 1774, he raised money for free inoculation of the indigent.
Luckily for the colonists and the Revolutionary Army, General Washington embraced the science-based medical treatments promoted by Franklin. This was not a popular stand, though, especially in Washington’s home state of Virginia, where variolation was illegal. Also, the Continental Congress ordered Army surgeons not to perform variolations.
Washington, however, was a firm believer in science-based medical treatments. He even went so far as to persuade his wife, Martha, to undergo the procedure in May 1776.
As a believer, Washington was in a tough situation. Even if he ordered the troops to be inoculated, he’d have to wait for them to complete quarantine of fourteen days before they could fight. Washington weighed his options. The disastrous defeat at Quebec moved him to action.
Washington had sent General Richard Montgomery and 10,000 soldiers to fight the British defenders of Quebec City. Later, when referring to the battle, Massachusetts statesman John Adams said, “The smallpox is ten times more terrible than Britons, Canadians, and Indians together.”
Due to the epidemic, Washington lost a third of his soldiers at the battle of Quebec. During the rest of 1776, smallpox would continue to plague Washington. Finally, on January 6, 1777, Washington told Dr. William Shippen, his leading medical officer, and the Continental Army’s Medical Director, “Necessity not only authorizes but seems to require the measure, for should the disorder infect the Army. . . we should have more to dread from it, than from the Sword of the Enemy.” A month later, in February of 1777, Washington informed the president of the Second Continental Congress, John Hancock, that “I find it impossible to keep it from spreading thro’ the whole Army in the natural way.” Washington ordered all troops inoculated. This act alone may have saved the Revolution.
The timing of the inoculations was strategic. During winter, there was less fighting because more extensive military campaigns took place during warmer weather. This also gave the soldiers time to recover from the effects of inoculation. By the end of 1777, some 40,000 soldiers had been inoculated, and the infection rates dropped from about 20 percent to 1 percent. The drop in infection rates convinced the skeptical Continental Congress to repealed bans on variolation across the colonies. This was the first significant piece of American public health legislation. By winning the war against smallpox, the United States was able to fight and win the Revolution. A new nation was born.
We may have seen a different outcome if not for the printing of broadsides, pamphlets, and newspapers that guaranteed an educated and informed citizenry.
One week before the national COVID19 shutdown in March, the International Printing Museum’s Curator Mark Barbour was in Chicago. He was there to load up a Penske truck with gems of printing history, several of which he was working on acquiring for nearly 15 years. The donor of the artifacts was Jerome Kosoglad of Wheeling, IL (suburb of Chicago), who, with his late father Leonard, operated IPEC Inc., dealers in used printing equipment. Over the years, Leonard added unique printing presses and artifacts to his personal museum, many of which he acquired during liquidation of printing plants.
c. 1870 French Stone Lithographic Press, possibly used to print the Norman Rockwell print titled “Looking Out To Sea.”
When Mark visited IPEC about 15 years ago, the equipment business now operated by Jerome was in decline and many of the old presses from Leonard’s collection were no longer there. In the warehouse, against a far wall with plenty of dust covering it, Mark spotted the gem he was after for the Printing Museum: a mid-19th century wooden lithographic press, something missing in the Museum’s story on printing history.
At that time, Jerome was not ready to part with this beautiful press, and so it sat until March of this year when Mark arrived with a truck. The business was closed, the building sold and now Jerome was ready to make a donation in memory of his father Leonard whose history with selling printing machines in the Midwest dated back to the 1940’s.
Nameplate from the 1870 Lithographic Press, built by J. Busser in Paris
Measuring in at nearly 8’ long, the lithographic press remains in remarkable working condition given its age of 150 years. The press was made in France by J. Busser and sold to lithographic printers throughout Europe and even America. Presses of this style were used to print many of the color posters of the 19th and early 20th centuries. It is estimated that about 15 of these presses have survived in America, often still used by artists to print limited edition lithographic posters.
And the 24” x 30” lithographic stone displayed with the press is the second gem in this acquisition. The drawing on the stone is of Norman Rockwell’s famous painting, “Looking Out to Sea.”
Filling up the Penske truck with the litho press, windows and more printing presses for their journey westward to the International Printing Museum.
Leonard and Jerome both believed it to be drawn by Rockwell himself, which would explain their reluctance to part with the press and stone all these years. Mark’s recent research concluded that Rockwell never worked in stone lithography; however, Rockwell did commission both lithograph and collotype prints of many of his paintings to be sold in the 1960’s through the early 1980’s. The Norman Rockwell Museum indicated that he commissioned this particular single color lithograph from one of two stone lithographic printers in New York City. The press and the stone probably came from that shop many years ago. They will now continue their long relationship at the International Printing Museum as part of the Leonard Kosoglad Collection.
Next to the press in the Kosoglad warehouse all these years, well-packed inside a wooden crate, were six hand-painted windows depicting the history of printing. Only one of the windows was partially visible, detailing a few beautifully painted scenes from 15th century printing shops. Intriguing to be sure, but Mark was not sure what they were or even the details of what was on each pane. The mystery would have to wait until the truck was unloaded a week later back at the Printing Museum.
That crate turned out to be another set of gems with a story all their own. We discovered we had windows painted by the famous Chicago artist, Edgar Miller.
(L) Jerome Kosoglad of Wheeling, IL, who donated the stone litho press, wood type collages and Edgar Miller windows, in memory of his father Leonard of IPEC Inc. (R) Printing Museum Curator Mark Barbour seated in a vintage barber shop chair (also donated by Kosoglad whose father sat in the chair every week), next to the large wood type collage.
A book first published in 1721 is currently being reprinted. Since the COVID-19 outbreak in Britain, it’s been hard to get your hands on a copy of Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year.
The name Defoe may sound familiar. He’s the author of other fictional accounts of calamity and woe such as Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders.
When the Black Death once again threatened the European Continent in 1721, DeFoe decided to write an account of the plague of 1665 to alert people to what was about to happen. A Journal of the Plague Year is a story of “panic buying, mysterious illness, quack remedies, and fake news.”
The book is no doubt a work of fiction since DeFoe was only five years old when the plague hit London in 1665. It’s thought he used his uncle’s stories and memories of the epidemic to write the book. Some of the accounts in his work may sound very familiar to us today.
As of the writing of this blog, much of Europe and North America are under “stay at home” orders. In Defoe’s account, we learn of a house in Whitechapel that was “shut up for the sake of one infected maid.” According to Defoe, occupants of the house “obtained no liberty to stir, neither for air or exercise, forty days.”
We also learn of the watchmen who were posted at the doors of houses that were infected by the plague. They were there to get needed supplies for the occupants and to prevent the occupants from leaving.
DeFoe also describes the dead-cart and the bellman that would call out several times, “Bring out your dead.”
We know about these events due to the work of the publisher of Defoe’s book. If you look closely at the bottom of the title page of the original book (see above image), you’ll see, “Printed for E. Nutt, 1722.”
John and Elizabeth Nutt were printers and booksellers in London in the early 18th century. John died in 1716, and Elizabeth took over the printing business and continued to be listed as a printer on title pages until 1741.
As her business grew, Elizabeth brought her daughters, Catherine, Sarah, and Alice, into the business where they manage various bookstores and newspaper outlets around London.
A recent essay from Sharon Achinstein, Plagues and Publication: Ballads and the Representation of Disease in the English Renaissance, also echoes situations familiar to us today. She describes how the plague fractured the community. “Courts closed, trade, theaters, and fairs were ordered to cease functioning.” She says, “The precautions ordered that citizens become prisoners in their own houses, left to live or die on their own.”
We also learn about events that took place during the plague due to the work of engravers like Nathaniel Parr. His engraving, seen here, shows three men loading plague victims from the street onto a cart. Two of the men are smoking pipes to protect themselves. In the background to the right, a figure with a bundle over his shoulder is walking under an arch.
Bookseller and publisher Thomas Astley published this image. He was located at the Rose, St. Paul’s Churchyard, London, where booksellers overflowing from Fleet Street were known to gather.
The work of Nutt and Parr are examples of print as a record of the event, but print also shaped the event.
Printing in London predates the plague of 1665 by nearly 200 years. William Caxton, an English printer, translator, and publisher, learned how to print while working in Cologne in 1470. Upon returning to his native England from Germany in 1476, Caxton established England’s first-ever printing press in the almonry of Westminster Abbey Church.
Caxton was a prolific printer printing nearly all the English literature available to him in his time, including the first printed edition of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales.
As printing was a well-established industry in 1665 London, you can imagine the number of handbills, broadsides, and publications that contained opinions about how and why the city was enduring yet another plague. To be honest, the dissemination of fake-news was equal to or greater than today’s social media posts.
According to Achinstein, ballads, such as the one seen here, were thought to help spread the plague. Prominent Puritan William Prynne thought that “Such songs, such poems as these are abundantly condemned, as filthy and unchristian defilement, which contaminate the souls, effeminate the minds, deprave the manners, of those that hear or sing them enticing them to lust…”
Other Puritans, like Thomas Vincent, believed that, because Londoners were leading lives of debauchery, God used the plague to serve as a warning to the unbelievers.
Some believed that the paper that the ballads were printed on helped spread the plague. This idea comes from the fact that people knew the disease would spread from place to place and, since the distributors of the ballads also moved from place to place, perhaps the paper with the evil printed words was the cause of the pestilence.
Other printed works served as a reminder to the sick to remain in their houses. There were engravings of new plague hospitals with guarded gates and gallows for offenders against the quarantine.
Without a doubt, the most important printed works to come out of the plague of 1665 were the Bills of Mortality. These were large printed broadsides with lists of the individuals who had recently died.
Plague data were first published as weekly broadsides during the epidemic of 1596-1598. They continued to be printed on and off for through the 19th century.
To prepare the bills, took a lot of work. First, parish clerks compiled a weekly count of the burials in his parish. He then sent his report to his guild, the London Company of Parish Clerks, who would compile a report for the Lord Mayor. The report was then used to impose quarantines and board up houses.
Some of the printed Bills of Mortality were nailed to posts for public consultation. Others were available for the cost of a penny. Some extant copies of the bills have been found folded in such a way to allow an individual to fit the broadside into a jacket pocket. This would be helpful when traveling around London. Based on the information, you could avoid areas of the city that were heavily impacted by the plague.
To keep control of all the records and to make sure the bills were published promptly, in 1625, the Company of Parish Clerks was authorized to set up their own printing press. If you look closely at the Bill of Mortality above, you’ll see the printer to the Company of Parish Clerks was ‘E. Cotes living in Aldersgate-street.’
Ellen Cotes was the widow of printer Richard Cotes. Ellen took over the shop when Richard died in 1652 and continued printing until at least 1670. She had a good size shop with three presses, nine pressmen, and two apprentices.
In addition to the official Bills of Mortality, there were other broadsides that were printed and disseminated throughout London during the plague of 1655. London’s Lord Have Mercy Upon Us broadsides contained poetry and medical prescription information along with engravings and statistical information. The stats were gleaned from the contemporaneous Bills of Mortality.
The issue of London’s Lord Have Mercy Upon Us pictured here contains a recipe to keep one from infection.
A cheap medicine to keep from infection
“Take a pint of new milk, and cut two cloves of garlic very small, put it in the milk, and drink it in the morning fasting, and it preventith from infection.”
The perfect antidote to your quarantine blues! Spend your time inside with some great films about or featuring printing and presses.
The quintessential film about printing, and the only one that focuses purely on printing, a love letter to printing and journalism. To get an idea of just how into printing this film is, it opens by scrolling through an image of every daily US newspaper’s nameplate, which is quickly followed by the producer’s name in type on a composing stick held by a statue of Gutenberg. The story revolves around two rival newspapers on New York City’s Park Row in the 1880’s. The movie goes into great detail explaining print shop terminology and imagery with a young Printers Devil serving as the audience stand-in. It even features a completely fabricated, but enjoyable, version of Ottmar Mergenthalers invention of the Linotype. You should watch this film for the dialogue alone which includes gems like “There are four subjects one should never argue about; Anthropology, bird calls, romance, and, of course, Newspapers”, “Mr. Spiro, escort this wench back to her slaughterhouse before I throw her out of here right on her front page” and, the perfect pick up line for a printer, “What’s a job printer like you doing with such a big press?”
Stream on Amazon Prime
This film starring Will Smith is about a man determined to help 7 people, one of which is Rosario Dawson, who is operating a garage letterpress business, printing specialty announcements and cards. Following medical treatment, she can barely operate her vintage press, nearly smashing her hand in the press in the process. If only she could get the other press in the shop working, the automatic letterpress that she refers to as “The Beast” aka her Heidelberg Windmill. Will Smith manages to fix the Beast, wins her affection and love is born. Not only does this film feature our presses but the writer Grant Nieoporte was inspired by his wife Jill, a book artist who bought a press from the Museum years before.
Streaming on Showtime
Rent on a number of different sites
Cary Grant plays a newspaper man married to Irene Dunne about a loving couple and their attempts at starting a family through adoption. Not to mention a great lesson on how to fix a Linotype.
Free Youtube
Streaming on Amazon Prime
The movie that answers the question “what if James Bond was a friar in a 1300’s abbey?” This feature starring Sean Connery focuses on the printer’s predecessor, the Scribe and the Illuminator. A fantastic portrait of life as a medieval scribe with a little bit of mystery, adventure, a young Christian Slater, and a truly evil F. Murray Abraham.
Streaming on Sundance Now
Speaking of young actors named Christian, a young Christian Bale stars in this film about a ragtag crew of Newsies who fight back against the greedy Joseph Pullitzer in a classic tale of the little guys (in this case literally) winning the day. The real hero of the story though is the C & P Platen press the Newsies use to print up their broadsides. All the presses and equipment featured in Newsies are from The Printing Museum’s collection! If you like your printing presses with a side of high kicks and tap dancing this is the film for you.
Streaming on Disney+
Rent on a number of different sites
What kind of list of printing movies could not include a good counterfeiting scene? Based on a true story and starring Burt Lancaster, Mister 880 is about a counterfeiter who evades federal authorities by only printing one dollar bills. Fun fact, when 20th Century Fox bought the movie rights to this story, the real counterfeiter received more money than he had ever made as a counterfeiter.
Rent on Amazon
Made it through all our film recommendations already? No problem, here are just a few of our favorite feature length documentaries about printing and the graphic arts industry. Happy viewing friends!
A completely charming documentary hosted by a completely charming Stephen Fry. He, and just about everyone else in the film, aren’t afraid of hiding their absolute joy at retracing the footsteps of Johannes Gutenberg. They follow the life of Gutenberg and the many steps it took for him to turn out those famous Gutenberg Bibles. Stephen travels around the world to rediscover the art of papermaking, illuminations, and type casting (with friend of the Museum Stan Nelson, formerly of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History). A great look at Gutenberg and his press aka “The Machine That Made Us”
Watch Free on Top Documentary Films
Originally made in 1994 this film covers a much wider range of history. From the origins of humanity and cave drawings to cuneiform and papyrus and then into Gutenberg and the advancements of printing. It has a short update added in 2014 to include the advancements of the 20 years between 1994 and 2014. The film ends by coming full circle, mentioning the pictograph plaque that was added to the Pioneer Space Craft that has been sent to drift in space indefinitely hoping that some extra-terrestrial will find this picture art and get some impression of humanity from it.
Watch Free on YouTube
An in depth look at the history of the amazing machine known as a Linotype. Viewers not only get a glimpse at the history of the machine but also useful tutorials on its mechanics and a sense of just how impactful this machine was on everyday life. The film doesn’t shy away from the reality of the machines future, it includes a devastating scene of a linotype being made into scrap metal. However, something tells me this film has more than inspired a new generation to take the preservation of the machine into their own hands.
Rent or Buy on Linotype: The Film Website
Etaoin shrdlu is the first two columns on the linotype keyboard and was often used as filler text in the case of a typo when using a linotype. “Farewell etaoin shrdlu” is a fascinating look at the inside of the New York Times print shop on July 1, 1978, the last day of hot type at The Times. It’s an in depth look at how a Newspaper shop worked with linotypes and how it worked once the switch to computers were made.
Watch Free on YouTube
A tribute and document of the modern letterpress community. It shows the wide array of current printers from the old hats to the new practitioners. We were lucky to have the Director and many of the stars at our screening of the film in 2017 during the APA Wayzgoose that took place at the Museum. If you were looking inspiration to take up letterpress printing (or retake up an old printing hobby), this is it.
Available for Digital Download, Blu-Ray & DVD
Stream on Amazon Prime
Stream with an LA Library Card on Kanopy
In Argentina, facing the advance of new technologies, the print shops are closing. At the same time, a group of young people rediscovers the greatest technical innovation in the history of the written word: typesetting printing. But will it be difficult for them to learn the trade since it has always been passed down from master to apprentice – and they are outsiders? The last graphic mechanic of the country will be in charge of teaching them so that this ancient technique can withstand the passage of time.
View for Free on Vimeo
A profile of the Hamilton Wood Type Museum in Two Rivers, WI. which is located in the factory building of the Hamilton Manufacturing Compnay that made wood type until 1985. With an overwhelming collection of woodtype, dedicated staff, and workshops, the Museum is dedicated to advance the understanding of our printing and design heritage. The film gives you a peek at the work that the Museum does and its outstanding collection. The film started as an effort to increase awareness of the Museum and keep it running, and it has done that, plus much more.
Rent or Buy on Amazon
We imagine this pick might cause a little controversy, as Helvetica is not the most liked of fonts. Just ask our Curator Mark who’s not a fan. However, it’s quite something to be both internationally despised and celebrated. Follow the history of the font and how it came to be one of the foremost fonts used in the modern age. Its title sequence pays homage to the font’s letterpress roots as well. Plus, it features friend of the Museum Erik Spiekermann.
Rent or Buy on Amazon
Stream with an LA Library Card on Kanopy
Narrowing this list down to just a few films was difficult as there is a plethora of great videos about the graphic arts. If you enjoy these films continue to explore all the short form documentaries that can be found on Youtube, Vimeo and other streaming sites.
Look out for more viewing suggestions coming soon!
From the beginning of printing with movable type in Europe, women were employed in the industry. In fifteenth and sixteenth-century Italy, there were more than fifteen female religious houses that were sites of book production. Almost two-thirds of these were located in Florence.
One such location was the Convent of San Jacopo di Ripoli in Florence. It was here that nuns produced liturgical manuscripts throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance.In the 1470s, a printing press was established at their house. This was only the second printing press to be located in Florence and the first to produce a substantial body of work. According to the records of the San Jacopo di Ripoli
print shop, much of the convent’s typesetting was done by a nun, Suor (Sister) Marietta. During the nine years the convent was in business, this print shop printed over 100 secular and religious titles (12,000 volumes) as well as pamphlets and broadsides.
Further north and a few years later, another woman was making her mark in the printing industry.
In 1470, Johann Heynlin and Guillaume Fichet established the first printing press in Paris. They first set up shop at the Sorbonne and then moved to Rue St. Jacques. Within three years, two of their apprentices set up a competing printing press on the same street. Due to the proximity of the Sorbonne, many other booksellers and printers also set up shop here.
One such printer and bookseller was Pasquier Bonhomme. Yolande Bonhomme, his daughter, had various responsibilities within her father’s shop. In due time, she married a highly successful printer, Thielmann Kerver. When he died in 1522, Yolande assumed control of his print shop located on the Rue St. Jacques in Paris. She specialized in illustrated Books of Hours (private prayer books for lay worshippers). In 1526, she became the first woman to print an edition of the Bible. At the time of her death in 1557, her press was one of the most successful and respected in Paris.
In the colophon on the final page of a French devotional book printed by Bonhomme (pictured here), she wrote, “Imprime a paris par Yoland bonhomme de mourat a la rue saint Jacques a la licorne.” Roughly translated, it says, “Printed in Paris by Yoland Bonhomme de Mourat at Rue Saint Jacques at the sign of the unicorn (the company’s logo).
To learn more about the #GirlsWhoPrint and #PrintHerStoryMonth initiative visit GirlsWhoPrint.net
Sarony & Major. “The landing of the Pilgrims, on Plymouth Rock, Dec. 11th 1620.” c1846. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.
In 1638, as Puritans continued to leave England for the new world, one particular immigrant had an idea different from all the rest. Reverend Jose Glover had a plan to bring a printing press to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He secured passage on the ship John of London for himself, his wife and five children, servants, and household furnishings. He also brought a printing press, 240 reams of paper, and a case of assorted type.
Unfortunately, Reverend Glover never lived to see his dream of setting up a print shop in the new world fulfilled. During the voyage from England, Glover contracted a fatal illness, probably smallpox, and died.
Once the ship arrived at the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Reverend Glover’s wife, Elizabeth, took matters into her own hands and went to work on setting up shop. Mrs. Glover purchased a house for Stephen Day, an indentured locksmith, who was under financial contract to her husband. The press was placed in one of the rooms of this house. Most historians believe that it was in this house, in 1639, that Stephen Day and his son Matthew printed The Freeman’s Oath broadsheet.
In 1640, after the printing of The Freeman’s Oath and an almanac, Stephen and Matthew began work on the first book published in the American colonies, The Whole Booke of Psalmes.
On June 21, 1641, Elizabeth married Henry Dunster, the first president of Harvard. For the next two years, Elizabeth maintained control of the press. It wasn’t until her death in 1643 that her land and property, including the printing press, was passed on to Dunster and subsequently to Harvard College. During the same year, Matthew Daye replaced his father as the official operator of the press after the elder Daye was briefly jailed for fraud.
On November 26, 2013, a copy of The Bay Psalm Book sold for almost 14.2 million dollars, the most costly book in the world at the time.
Women printers also figured prominently during the American Revolution, due in some part to the help of Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin.
As a young boy of 12, Franklin was indentured to his older brother James. Beginning in 1721, James, his wife, Ann, and brother, Benjamin, worked together to publish the first independent American newspaper, the New-England Courant. That early print training benefited both Benjamin and Ann later in life.
In 1731, Benjamin Franklin took his training and experience in the printing industry and turned it into a franchise. Franklin helped his best employees, and others interested in the industry, start their own printing business. He would buy the equipment and pay the rent on the shop for six years. At the end of six years, his partners had the option to buy Franklin out and run the business on their own or maintain the partnership. By the time he retired as America’s first millionaire, Franklin’s printing empire had reached from New England to the Caribbean.
In 1734 Franklin entered into a business agreement with Lewis Timothy. Later, when discussing Lewis’ business sense, Franklin wrote, “He was a man of learning, and honest but ignorant in matters of account; and, tho’ he sometimes made me remittances, I could get no account from him, nor any satisfactory state of our partnership while he lived.”
Five years into their six-year agreement, on January 4, 1739, the South-Carolina Gazette noted that Lewis Timothy had died due to “an unhappy accident.” Following the death of her husband, Elizabeth Timothy became the first woman publisher of a newspaper in America. For seven years, she published the South Carolina Gazette in Charleston, in partnership with Franklin. And, in essence, became the first female franchisee.
While Franklin was not impressed with Lewis Timothy’s business sense, he felt the opposite of Elizabeth’s ability to run a print shop. “Her accounts were clearer, she collected on more bills, and she cut off advertisements if payments were not current,” said Franklin.
Franklin even mentioned Elizabeth in his autobiography. He said Elizabeth operated the Gazette with “regularity and exactitude… and managed the business with such success that she not only brought up reputably a family of children but at the expiration of her term was able to purchase of me the printing house and establish her son to it.”
Benjamin Franklin’s early training led to his business success. In much the same way, his sister-in-law, Ann Franklin’s printing experience, provided her with a solid business background that would serve her well. At the same time, it brought Benjamin Franklin full circle, back to his printing roots.
In 1727 James and Ann Franklin moved to Newport, Rhode Island, and opened the colony’s first print shop. By 1732 the couple started the Rhode-Island Gazette. James was the editor, and Ann worked as an assistant printer. Ann knew how to both set type and operate the press. According to Dorothy A. Mays, in her book, Women in Early America: Struggle, Survival, and Freedom in a New World, “Ann was an active participant in her husband’s print shop.”
In 1735 James became ill, and his brother Benjamin came to Newport for a visit. Benjamin promised James, who was on his deathbed, he would bring up his six-year-old son, James Jr., in the printing industry. After James succumbed to his illness on February 4, 1735, Ann’s extensive printing and business experience allowed her to take over the business. Soon thereafter, James Jr. or Jemmy, as he was called, went to Philadelphia with his uncle.
Within a year of her husband’s death, Ann secured the lucrative position of the official printer for the Rhode Island assembly. In her post, she printed the colony’s charter granted by Charles II of England. She also printed sermons for ministers, advertisements for merchants, as well as popular British novels.
While Ann Franklin ran the printing business in Newport, Jemmy studied with a private tutor along with his cousin in Philadelphia. In 1740, at the age of 10, he signed his Indenture papers and became apprenticed to his uncle Benjamin.
Ann Smith Franklin, now a master craftsman, trained her two daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, as typesetters and shopkeepers. After serving his apprenticeship, Jemmy returned to Newport, and in 1748 he became a partner in his mother’s printing business. Their company continued to produce books, almanacs, pamphlets, and legal announcements.
Look closely at the Acts and Laws image and you’ll see “Printed by the Widow Franklin…”
Ann Smith Franklin died in 1763 and was buried in the Newport Common Burying Ground and Island Cemetery.
