Frank Romano and a full staff at the Museum of Printing welcomed more than 40 people associated with “Good, Fast, Cheap: Printed Words & Images in America before 1900” for a post-conference tour on Sunday, October 8. Near the museum’s entry, an eagle-crested Columbian, resplendent with gold details and the lever-and-weight system that maximized the machine’s impression force, hinted at the equipment in the galleries. The contents did not disappoint! [Read more]
Michael Russem discusses an Isaiah Thomas title page—with and without ornament. (Robert McCamant)
Friday, October 6, 3:15-5:00 pm ★ Lynne Farrington, “A Very Good Book Indeed: Selling Bibles by Subscription in Nineteenth-Century America” ★ Vince Golden, “Mistakes and Mishaps in Early American Newspapers and What They Can Tell Us” ★ Michael Russem, “Ornament and the Printed Book in America” ★ Emily Sneff, “The Substance and Style of the First Printing of the Declaration of Independence” [Read more]
Amanda Nelsen and Josef Beery presenting. (Robert McCamant)
Saturday, October 7, 10:15-12:00 pm ★ Amelia Hugill-Fontanel, “Multitudinous Tints: An Inventor’s Pursuit of Instantaneous Multicolor Printing” ★ Julie Mellby, “Printed, Pasted, and Published: Edward Wilson’s Photographic Magazine” ★ Amanda Nelsen and Josef Beery, “Flying and Rolling in the Hand-Press Period: Book Production Efficiencies” ★ Hilary Stelling, “‘The best and most universally approved system of illustration …’: Jeremy Cross’s The True Masonic Chart” [Read more]
Saturday, October 7, 1:30-3:15 pm ★ James Berkey, “Controlling the Press, Losing the Battle: Ambiguity, Agency, and Print in Civil War Soldier Newspapers” ★ Joshua Brown, “Rise and Fall: Political Cartoons, Caricature, the Civil War, and the Transformation of Visual Satire” ★ Christine Garnier, “Assembling the Runaway: Self-Liberation and Visual Games of the American Civil War” ★ Kate Phillips, “The Topsy-Turvy Networks of Civil War Era Illustrated Envelopes” [Read more]
American Antiquarian Society founder Isaiah Thomas portrayed by actor Neil Gustafson. (Photo: Robert McCamant)
Friday, October 6, 6:45-8:30 pm ★ Christina Kraus, “‘Pointing the moral’ or ‘adorning the tale?’ Illustrations and Commentary on Vergil and Caesar in 19th Century American Textbooks”★ Shawna McDermott, “Phrenology and Childhood: Visual Portrayals in the Periodical Press 1850–1900” ★ Amanda Stuckey, “A Library for the Blind: Tactile Literacy and the Nineteenth-Century Embossed Book” ★ Laura Wasowicz, “From Plantation Bitters to Mi Abuela Facil: McLoughlin Brothers as ‘Manufacturer’ of Children’s Picture Books” [Read more]
The American Printing History Association (APHA) is currently accepting applications for the 2018 Mark Samuels Lasner Fellowship in Printing History for the study of printing history. An award of up to $2,000 is available for research in any area of the history of printing, including all the arts and technologies relevant to printing, the book arts, and letter forms. [Read more]
Hi, I’m a doctoral student at Columbia University. I’m researching women printers and printers from minority backgrounds in the US and UK who worked during the long 19th century. [Read more]
I am trying to find the history of the printed picture i.e. Stone, Wood, Lead Block, Lead plate nail mounted, Brass plate nail mounted, Zinc plate nail mounted, Zinc plate glued mounted, and Polymer plate glue mounted. Is there any history for this? —Peter Merrill
Extending the upcoming 2017 APHA conference’s theme beyond North America, one can say that Arabic printing, in its early history, was not “Good, Fast, and Cheap.” It was quite the opposite. In spite of that, the technological and material limitations around which early Arabic printers worked prompted the search for innovative and unusual visual solutions to technical problems. Before turning to a couple interesting examples, a little should be said about the history of Arabic printing in general, or, more importantly, how it is distinguished from that of printing in Europe and America. While Gutenberg’s revolutionary work heralded printing in the modern world and is typically credited with the subsequent proliferation of printed books that democratized knowledge production, Arabic-script book production in the Islamic world took a different path. [Read more]
Betsy Raymond was a notable Northern California calligrapher and book artist. 
