Conference speaker Todd Samuelson uses the pantograph to trace a pattern, at right, this defines the path of the router bit over the wood block, at left. (Ray Nichols)
Geri McCormick & Matt Rieck: “Making Wood Type Today: Using the Same Methods from Yesteryear”
9 am-noon thursday, october 22
Geri McCormick & Matt Rieck hosted a hands-on morning making wood type at Virgin Wood Type. The garage-sized workspace for the beginning stages of the production process was packed with boxes of wood ready for surfacing with shellac, shellaced-wood ready for cutting, and boxes of patterns. [Read more]
“Aurea Moguntia” – Golden Mainz. Hand-colored woodcut by Franz Behem, 1565. (Courtesy Mainz Stadtarchiv)
Gutenberg’s World: How Printing Arose in 15th Century Mainz
6 pm friday, october 23
Before explaining how she came to write the historical novel Gutenberg’s Apprentice, Alix Christie won the audience by divulging her background as a letterpress printer. This lends authority to her book wherein she imagines the circumstances that produced the 42-line Bible through the eyes of Peter Schoeffer, the young scribe-turned-printer in Johann Gutenberg’s workshop. With this the stage is set for a reexamination of the myth of the mistreated genius Gutenberg and his rapacious financier Johann Fust who foreclosed on the enterprise. Christie, a journalist, spoke eloquently about the inspiration for choosing the invention of printing as a topic for fiction: a theory posited by Paul Needham and Blaise Agüera y Arcas in 2001, that elemental punches and temporary matrices were used to cast the type for the 42-line Bible. Christie’s book assigns the development of both whole-letter punches and metal matrices to Schoeffer. She reminded us that Schoeffer, who was essentially the first master of the trade, was also responsible for inventing the title page, printing or publishing 300 books, and co-founding the Frankfurt Book Fair. These are accomplishments obscured by the popular, heroic version of the invention of printing.
John Fass in his room at the Bronx YMCA, ca. 1955. Right: The Hammer Creek Press Type Specimen Book, 1954.
In many of my conversations with my friend John De Pol, he reminisced about a man who was one of the earliest supporters of his efforts to engrave on wood. Working as a production assistant learning the printing trade at Lewis White’s shop in New York in 1950, he met John Stroble Fass during a visit to the office. Fass offered him a few of his small printed items, De Pol offered to make some wood engravings for future efforts, and an enduring friendship was begun. One has only to look at their collaborations to understand what a sympathetic relationship it was. Although I was exposed to John De Pol’s memories, I wasn’t exposed to any of Fass’ printing until the very end of De Pol’s life, when bookseller Aveve Cohen made me a gift of a Fass booklet with De Pol’s engravings, and a print made by Fass from two chestnut leaves. Armed with those two items, and a copy of the book that Mrs. Cohen put together as a tribute, I began my own search for the work of John S. Fass. [Read more]
I am just starting to support the usage of an 1873 Peerless letter press for the local Jackson Ella Sharp Museum. First item to be address is that previous operators failed to file the print type after use. My question is: Where can I locate a table relating the “nick” in the type body to its intended font? I have searched on the ‘net for three days w/ no luck. Thanks for your help. Paul Mc
The 40th annual American History Association Conference at Rochester Institute of Technology is just days away. It’s certain to be a thrilling weekend of presentations, workshops, tours and camaraderie. See the revised program.
The American Printing History Association is pleased to presents the 2015 J. Ben Lieberman Lecture “The WunderCabinet* The Curious Worlds of Barbara Hodgson & Claudia Cohen” to be delivered by Barbara Hodgson. The lecture is at 6pm, Tuesday, November 10, 2015 at UCLA Charles E. Young Research Library Main Conference Room. Free and open to the public. Reception to follow. Please RSVP by November 6. Hosted by UCLA Library Special Collections. Directions and parking. [Read more]
APHA is developing a history of printing timeline and would like your help to improve it. In accord with our mission, it includes all related arts and crafts: calligraphy, typefounding, typography, papermaking, bookbinding, illustration, and publishing. It also notes digital publishing, plus relevant laws and labor events. There are no plans to add graphics or manage external links. Please review and let us know what we left out or should cut. The editor welcomes all comments and suggestions.
We have a F.P.Rosback foot powered perforator with fixed punches. The back of the machine indicates that it is a No. 6 Special Model Adjustable Multiplex Punching Machine. We are trying to find more information about this machine but don’t know how to start. From what I can tell it was built when the company moved to Benton Harbor [MI] as it has the city name on the back of the face of the machine. Can you help me understand where to start to find more information?
Robert Oldham with J. J. Lankes’ 1845 Hoe Washington hand press at The Tampa Book Arts Studio. (Richard Mathews)
In North America, there are over 1,150 recorded hand presses of all types, makes, and vintages. They range from the press used by the first recorded English colonial printers, Stephen and Matthew Daye, in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1639 (now in the collection of the Vermont Historical Society), to the eighteen reproduction tabletop Albion presses built by Steve Pratt in Utah, between 2001 until his death in 2012. [Read more]
Specimens of Holly Wood Type, Borders, Reglet and Furniture, Manufactured by Hamilton & Katz, Two Rivers, Wisconsin, ca. 1884. Courtesy of the RIT Cary Collection.
The 40th Susan Garretson Swartzburg ’60 Memorial Lecture at the Wells College Book Arts Center will coincide this October with the 40th Annual American Printing History Association conference. Professor David Shields will deliver his talk “Muster Hundreds! Towards a People’s History of American Wood Type,” at 5:30 p.m. on October 21, at the Wells Stratton Hall Auditorium in Aurora-on-Cayuga, New York. This is one day before the APHA Printing on the Handpress & Beyond activities begin at RIT in Rochester, New York. Why not come a day early to enjoy both![Read more]
