The committee reviewed thirty-one applications for the 2025 Mark Samuels Lasner Fellowship in Printing History, MSL Fellowship for short. The range of projects and varied experience brought to each provided a fascinating insight into the current state of research in what is broadly understood as print history. Reaching a decision to make one award has many challenges, and the committee considers many factors—feasibility (can the project be done and does the researcher have the background to realize the project), impact (will the outcomes be of value to the field), and overall merit (will the work advance our historical knowledge).
Our decision was to award the MSL Fellowship to Craig Eliason for his project, A Ledger of Lettering: Launching Research on Non-Typographic Letterforms. The plan is ambitious and Eliason proposes a project that “looks at letterform norms outside of typography, from around 1880 to 1960.” Research questions that will guide his research include: “What styles, standards, and practices develop for letterform design in these fields, and how do they compare to each other? To what extent do the conventions of lettering that take root in these crafts and industries emulate contemporary or historical type designs, and to what extent do they show independence from type? Does the formalization of lettering practices in this era represent a professionalization of handwriting?” Much of the research will be at the Letterform Archive in San Francisco, and the ML Fellowship will provide funding for travel and accommodations on site. Eliason’s proposed outcome will be a book surveying these letterforms.
Eliason brings extensive knowledge of the history of typography to his work, along with considerable experience in type design. For more than fifteen years, he has published scholarly articles on such topics as “Typefounding Classification,” the work of Adrian Frutiger, and done conference presentations on Giambattista Bodoni’s “Exotic” writing systems, “Didot and Fashion,” and “Teaching Type Design to Non-Designers.” The combination of this work with his experience in teaching and designing makes him well-prepared to engage with the “Ledger of Letterforms” project which, when completed, will provide a valuable resource for other researchers, teachers, designers and students interested in the relationship between handwritten and printed letterforms.
Craig Eliason is a Professor of Art History at the University of St. Thomas in Saint Paul, Minnesota where he has been on the faculty since 2002 after completing a PhD in Art History at Rutgers University in New Jersey earlier that year.
The Book/Print Artist/Scholar of Color Collective was founded by Tia Blassingame in 2019 in response to observations on how the book arts field: “largely ignored or erased the involvement of non-white peoples and communities in book history, print culture, letterpress printing, papermaking, etc.”
The Collective builds “community and collaborations with BIPOC book/print practitioners and scholars.” To date, the Collective is over 40 members strong representing individuals in Egypt, the Americas, Europe, and India, and has presented, exhibited, completed residencies, taught workshops, and published worldwide.
Collective members are “passionate about book history, print culture, and the endless potential of artists’ books as vehicles of social change and cultural conveyors that uplift our communities, and tell our stories, histories.” Not all members of the Collective are BIPOC; what unites the group is community and “our shared interest and passion in artists books as potential vehicles for social change, racial unity that sort of binds us.” The Collective is at once a professional network and an international creative knowledge base. Honoring the Collective further establishes APHA’s commitment to championing the work of twenty-first century makers and scholars in the greater printing history community.
Susan J. Goldman is recognized for her ongoing distinguished contribution to the study, recording, preservation and dissemination of printing history. In addition to being an award-winning artist, she is a master printmaker who owns and runs Lily Press in Rockville, MD. An equally gifted filmmaker, she is dedicated to the documentation, preservation and conservation of printmaking history, evidence of which can be seen in the video archive she has been creating by virtue of her Printmaking Legacy Project ®. The Project’s website hosts an abundance of individual video interviews and documentaries about remarkable print artists with whom she has worked. Her most recent documentary, “Black Printmakers of Washington, DC: Percy B. Martin & Michael B. Platt”, was released in February 2024 and is being screened at print-related events throughout the country.
APHA’s Annual Award for 1982 was presented to John Tebbel, well-known as a publishing historian by reason of his four-volume History of Book Publishing in the United States (R. R. Bowker). These four volumes, encyclopedic in their scope, were published in 1972, 1975, 1978 and 1981. They comprise a survey of the entire American publishing scene from 1639 to 1980. As part of the program. Mr. Tebbel delivered a stimulating and thought-provoking address on “Sources and the Writing of History,” recounting some of the problems that challenged him during his research and writing of his history of the publishing industry. The talk was enthusiastically received by the large number of members present. It is hoped that Mr. Tebbel’s talk can be published and made more widely available. C
Members of the Fellowship Committee this year were Haven Hawley, Chair, and Johanna Drucker and Miriam Intrator as members. We are pleased to provide information about the winner of the 2024 Mark Samuels Lasner Fellowship in Printing History. We received fifteen applications, and competition was again extremely strong.
The American Printing History Association has awarded the 2024 Mark Samuels Lasner Fellowship in Printing History to Nilkantha Pal. Pal’s project is titled “Children’s Magazines in Colonial Bengal: Childhood, Child Readers, and the Bengali Print Market, ca. 1880–1950.” His research project combines a detailed study of the printing technologies of children’s literature with an examination of how such works constructed the concept of childhood.
In his application, Pal described his scholarship as “investigating the printing sphere for Bengali children, the aesthetic or material aspects of their reading materials, particularly children’s magazines, their production and circulation processes”. He will be extending his research on this topic through archival research at the British Library, with the support of the award.
Nilkantha Pal is a PhD Research Scholar in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Mohali and holds an M.A. in History from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, one of the leading universities in India.
Congratulations to Nilkantha Pal on this award.
On behalf of the Fellowship Committee, I would like to thank the entire group of applicants for the 2024 Mark Samuels Lasner Fellowship in Printing History and wish each of you well in your printing history work. We received a number of very strong applications, and we regret that our Association has only one award to provide. We are grateful for the opportunity to learn about the research of many wonderful scholars.
The 2023/2024 Institutional/Group Honoree is Self Help Graphics & Art (SHG). Some members may recall that the 2022 APHA conference (“Making Artistic Noise”) featured “Community Building Through Art and Activism: the Legacy of Self Help Graphics” with Dewey Tafoya and Marvella Muro from SHG. Not only is SHG impacting local creative life in greater Los Angeles, but they have also, through conference presentations and other programs, extended “community” to include Latine- and Chicano/a/x-identifying people throughout the Western hemisphere.
SHG embodies diversity, inclusion, and fostering belonging through print and creative expression. SHG has supported local artists; focused on art as a vehicle to advocate for social justice; and offers exhibitions, classes, a biennial printmaking fair, residencies, mobile art studios, and free workshops for teens in underserved Los Angeles communities. Through their outreach, SHG promotes community education to share printmaking techniques and history across diverse Los Angeles communities. It is our belief that work created at SHG—and the archival record of the organization itself—will impact special collections in the United States and this hemisphere in decades to come. Ultimately, SHG is a story of community fusion and the power of freedom of expression to build unity and influence. We believe this will mark the first time APHA has awarded an organization led by Hispanic, Latine, and Chicano/a/x individuals. The award also, coincidentally, comes as SHG celebrates its fiftieth year of operations.
The 2023/2024 Individual Laureate is Kadin Henningsen. Kadin Henningsen (he/him/his), compared to nearly all past APHA awardees, might be considered an “early career” educator, printer, and historian. However, the Committee believes that Henningsen’s scholarship focusing on transgender book history is innovative and extremely important in greater efforts to recover and encourage study of authors and practitioners previously excluded from the bibliographic canon. Henningsen’s curriculum vitae showcases his extraordinary track record of presentations, publishing, and awards. Kadin’s commitment to print history is also evident in his work as a printer, print media teacher, and restoration of nineteenth-century printing presses. As a printer, Henningsen’s work supports his scholarship, and also adds a wonderful visual element to book history. Kadin Henningsen is the kind of active, engaged, and community-minded printer and scholar that will attract new members to APHA. Awarding him as the 2023/2024 Individual Laureate supports efforts toward including diverse perspectives and experiences among APHA members and programming.
“Documenting the Engraving of Display Matrices on a Modified Preis Engraver: The Process of Jim Walczak at Sycamore Press and Typefoundry”
The process of typecasting in the United States is quickly becoming a lost art. A handful of small commercial foundries are in operation, with few making their own new designs. Val Lucas of Bowerbox Press proposes to document and pass on the process for creating new casting matrices for metal types so that printers may continue using traditional methods for new designs. One of the few typecasters able to create new matrices is Jim Walczak of Sycamore Press and Typefoundry.
Walczak began casting printing type in 1985 and has kept alive many of the processes used in this craft. He acquired a batch of equipment, including a modified Preis Panto Utility Engraver from typecaster Paul Hayden Duensing in 2006. Jim continues to use this machine to create custom designs and replacement sorts, and there is no existing documentation on his engraving process.
The fellowship will support research to fully document Jim’s current engraving process and piece together Duensing’s process from sparse notes and a few published articles to allow the continuation of this process for creating new matrices and help keep this branch of typefounding alive. The project would entail spending time at Jim’s shop, documenting his steps from beginning drawing to finished matrix ready for the caster. Lucas will document the process with video recordings, and written process notes that can be used as a guide for repeating this process in other shops. Lucas would like to create a written, illustrated guide, as well. Fully documenting Jim’s process will add to the pool of knowledge in the small remaining typecasting community.
Tipoteca Italiana Fondazione, founded in 1995, is a museum, archive, library, and “working studio print shop” in Cornuda, Italy. Sandro Berra, Director of Tipoteca, presented on his organization’s efforts to “encourage the dialogue between past and present” and “discover and experience the beauty of letterpress” as part of a panel with Mark Barbour of the other 2023 institutional awardee, the International Printing Museum. Open to the public for tours, workshops, and research, Tipoteca is the first international organization to be selected for APHA’s Institutional award.
The International Printing Museum in Carson, California, was established in 1988, and brings “the history of printing and books to life.” Home to “one of the world’s largest and most comprehensive collections of antique printing machinery and graphic arts equipment,” the Museum not only hosts tours, workshops, and classes, but serves as community hub by hosting the annual Los Angeles Printers Fair, now in its fifteenth year. At APHA’s 2020 Awayzgoose, Director Mark Barbour presented, as part of a panel on preserving the history of craft and printing, with another 2023 awardee, Tipoteca’s Sandro Berra.
Fritz Klinke is a restorer of historic buildings, restaurateur, holder of master blueprints for Vandercook press components, and proprietor of NA Graphics “for all your printing needs.” His resources have helped outfit startup presses and keep existing presses operating. He falls into the somewhat odd but valuable category that 2022 APHA honoree Dr. Edward Petko did: he is a grand enabler and champion. A pillar of the print universe as much as of his home base, Silverton, Colorado, Klinke is, therefore, recognized for his unique capacity to enable and equip the letterpress community.
Irene Tichenor is a print historian whose masterwork centers on printer and typography scholar Theodore Low De Vinne (1828–1914). Author of No Art Without Craft: The Life of Theodore Low De Vinne, Printer, Tichenor has served as APHA Trustee, Vice President for Publications, and President (2000–2002). She is a member of the Grolier Club, past vice president of the Bibliographical Society of America, and holds a PhD and an MLS from Columbia University.
