President’s Annual Letter, 2021

Dear Member of the American Printing History Association,

You are cordially invited to the Annual Meeting at 2 pm (EST) on Saturday, January 29, 2022, to celebrate excellence in printing history and conduct the Association’s business. Annual meeting information will be e-mailed to members and posted on this site.

Our virtual program will honor Edward Petko, Brad Freeman, and the Women’s Studio Workshop, respectively, with two Individual Laureate Awards and an Institutional Award. We will announce the 2022 Mark Samuels Lasner Fellowship in Printing History recipient, report on the year, and hold elections. The Nominating Committee presents the following slate:

President: J. Fernando Peña (New York)
Vice President for Membership (2nd term): Harold Kyle (New York)
Vice President for Publications: Josef Beery (Virginia)
Vice President for Programs: Danelle Moon (California)
Treasurer: David Goodrich (New York)
Secretary: Meghan Constantinou (New York)
Trustees (1st term): Joan Boudreau (Washington, DC), Faride Mareb (New York), and Richard Minsky (New York)

Please renew your membership and update your member data, if you have not already done so. Your membership and additional donations ensure the continued vitality of APHA. The Board and volunteers have broadened programs, publications, and membership across ages, cultures, and geographic locations. I am deeply grateful to outgoing officers Amelia Fontanel, George Barnum, Virginia Bartow, and David Goodrich; the latter extends his service as we seek a new Treasurer.

Our virtual 2021 fall conference Impresos: Printing Across Latin American and Caribbean Cultures drew speakers and attendees from around the world. Juan Villaneuva shared his vision for a collaborative future with a presentation on Typefaces As Cultural Objects, Nicole Cecilia Delgado of La Impresora spoke on independent publishing in Puerto Rico, and the Center for Book Arts New York held a workshop with Nubia Navarro. Thank you to the Grolier Club for hosting Impresos and to our generous co-sponsors. Many programs can be viewed on APHA’s YouTube channel. Derrick R. Spires spoke on Nineteenth-Century Black Printing and the Matter of Black Life for the 2021 J. Ben Lieberman Lecture.

Thank you for entrusting me with APHA’s leadership. My second term as President has been challenging and humbling, and the aspirations of APHA’s founders have guided and encouraged me. They recognized the centrality of printing to humanity, the importance of a learning mindset, and the need for an organization embracing local, national, and international communities. I hope to leave a legacy worthy of our founding mission.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth Haven Hawley, APHA President
President@PrintingHistory.org

About the Author

Elizabeth Haven Hawley

Elizabeth Haven Hawley, PhD, is Associate University Librarian for Special Collections at Cornell University Libraries and previously was Chair of the Special and Area Studies Collections Department at the George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida. She is a historian of technology who specializes in analysis of print and socio-political aspects of print culture. She has served as visiting faculty in the History of Science and Technology Program and as Program Director of the Immigration History Research Center at the University of Minnesota, as well as adjunct faculty at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She has served as lab instructor for descriptive bibliography classes and as printer-in-residence for summer courses at Rare Book School (University of Virginia), and has been active as an officer and on committees of archives, bibliographical, and special collections professional organizations. Haven was APHA's president, 2018—2022.