When I contemplate the roster of individuals who have preceded me in this award, I wonder about my suitability to join them. Though astonished, I am nevertheless grateful for this honor. I am also aware of the many who have labored in the APHA vineyard over what will soon be the past 50 years.  

I am going to use this platform for a brief meditation on our founding and subsequent trajectory.  Many could tell the history of APHA’s founding, but  I  have your attention at the moment, so here goes.

First, a personal note:

I fell in love with printing history in library school (the late, lamented School of Library Service of Columbia University) under the tutelage and inspiration of Terry Belanger and Susan Thompson. This was 1971–1972.  My enthusiasm was further cemented by the establishment of the Book Arts Press, a working pressroom that Terry set up so students could have hands-on experiences of the mechanics and equipment of letterpress printing on a nineteenth-century hand press.  (It is well known that the Book Arts Press morphed into the unparalleled Rare Book School.)

1972 was a good time to be in love with printing history for another reason too, because on the horizon a group of printing enthusiasts were contemplating the founding of this very organization.  

In November of 1973, Elizabeth and Ben Lieberman were celebrating, with a bunch of friends, the 21st anniversary of their Herity Press in the suburbs of New York City. (By the way, they owned the Albion press on which William Morris had printed the Kelmscott Chaucer.) Ben took advantage of this captive audience of printing devotees to propose the founding of a national organization to promote the history of printing—in all its aspects.  

Then, on May 15, 1974, a formal founding meeting was held.  I recall the discussion of the proposed name. It was important that the name not be confused with the Printing Historical Society in the UK. So we would be a Printing History Association and, to make the distinction even more obvious, our location would go up front:  The American Printing History Association, as distinct from the P.H.S in London. Our initials would be A-P-H-A.  I remember the woman (whose name I no longer recall, though she was a regular at the Typophiles) who asked, “How will we pronounce it: ‘Affa’ or ‘Ap-ha’?” Thank goodness, that took care of itself.  “Ap-ha” is almost impossible to say.

I want to read the purposes and objectives as stated in APHA’s incorporation application, so you can judge how well we now fit those expectations all those decades later:

1. Encourage the study of printing history, especially American printing history in its whole range—from a world context to national, regional, state, and local interests. “Printing” is to be understood as including all of the arts and technologies that lead to or stem from printing, the book arts, and letter forms. “Study” is to be understood as including the range from amateur efforts to professional scholarship.
2. Specifically, encourage such study through publications, exhibitions, conferences, information services, lectures, social events, etc., at both national and local levels.
3. Encourage the preservation of the artifacts of printing:  equipment and related hardware, software, supplies, and specimens of printing.
4. Encourage the development and maintenance of libraries and museums for the preservation and use of oral, written, and printed records and other source materials for printing history, including the artifacts of printing.

The objective—made clear from the outset—was to have as large and broad a membership as possible, of individuals coming from different backgrounds and having different particular passions about some aspect of a vast field.

Appropriately, the first president was Ben Lieberman himself. Ben had a Ph.D. from Stanford. He was a public relations executive. He held patents on printing equipment and wrote several books. In the 1950s he had founded the nationwide “chappel” movement, comprised of clubs of small-press printers.  He and his wife operated their private hobby press for more than 30 years. Ben was an idealist—very keen on freedom of the press.

Cathy Brody, a professor at the City University of New York, was not only the first Vice-President and the second President. She also wrote The APHA Letter, a bi-monthly news vehicle for the Association’s activities and items of interest.  She did so for 11 years before handing it over to Stephen Saxe and others.  It is a treasure chest of APHA history.

Moving abruptly to the present, the pandemic has taught us a couple of things. First, you don’t have to be in the same room with people to work with them on common goals and projects. There is no one “room where it happened.”  Without Zoom I would never have met Daniel Arbino, the brilliant guest editor of the Printing History 31/32 that you have probably just received. Nor would I have come to know and admire the leadership of Josef Beery, our V-P for Publications. (APHA, by the way, has been issuing the scholarly journal Printing History since 1979.  And it has not always been a smooth ride.) 

So on the one hand, we can use the internet to get together. On the other hand, real camaraderie is hard to achieve with people you know only as a small rectangle on your computer screen.  This is a cliché; everyone says it, I know. But it is also a real thing.  

There are two final thoughts on APHA’s history that I would mention in conclusion.  

First final thought:  one problem APHA had from the start that I believe and hope it has overcome:  New York-centricity.  It started in a natural way.  The founders lived in New York and environs. And, depending in how broadly you define “environs,” so did much of my generation when it came our turn to hold the offices. Chapters in other locations were anticipated from the outset. But that was a very difficult system to achieve, and it didn’t really make us a national organization. For years, all our annual conferences took place in New York City. To me it seems clear that we finally outgrew that geographic prejudice (if that’s not too strong a descriptor)—that New York-centricity.  Conferences now take place far and wide. As does the annual Lieberman Lecture. Geography no longer has to be an impediment when planning events. With the 2021 annual conference and the latest issue of our journal, we have reached beyond a totally anglophone existence—beyond the dominant culture—beyond our national borders. Again, oddly, how much do we have to thank the pandemic for that change?

Second final thought: From the beginning, APHA was conceived as a very big tent to include scholars and practitioners – serious printers and hobbyists – people interested philosophically in the influence of printing on the development of world history (we could say “print culture” – the sociology of print) as well as folks focused on metal type,  paper, and ink—people who love the technology of printing and people intent on the aesthetics of the printed result.

In casting such a wide net, I think APHA stands alone among the participating bodies in Bibliography Week.

So thank you very much for this award.  And let me propose a challenge:  you be the judge. “Is APHA living up to its potential?” “Why or why not?” DISCUSS.

2023 APHA Individual Awards