Annual Conference

Since 1976, the American Printing History Association has organized an annual conference on a selected theme in printing history. In the early years, the annual conference was invariably held in New York City, but since the late 1980s, the organization has sought venues further afield. Conferences typically consist of a day or two of formal papers, presentations, and panels, as well as tours of libraries, galleries, and other local points of interest to historians of printing. There are also plenty of opportunities for socializing and fellowship.

Conference presentations are summarized on the APHA website. Prior to 2013, they were summarized in the Newsletter and many have been published in APHA’s semi-annual journal, Printing History.

The following is a complete list of APHA conferences from 1976 to the present.

Year	Theme	Host/Venue	State, City
2024	APHA @ 50: Printing History Past, Present and Future	Grolier Club, Center for Books Arts, and The CODEX Foundation	NY, New York and CA, Berkeley
2023	The Printed Weird: Book History from the Margins	Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas	TX, Austin
2022	Making Artistic Noise: Printing and Social Activism from the 1960s to the Present	Rare Books LA	CA, Los Angeles
2021	Impresos: Printing Across Latin American and Caribbean Cultures	Grolier Club	Virtual
2020	Awayzgoose	Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum	Virtual
2019	One Press, Many Hands: Diversity in the History of American Printing	University of Maryland, College Park	MD, College Park
2018	Matrices: The Social Life of Paper, Print, and Art	University of Iowa Center for the Book	IA, Iowa City
2017	Good, Fast, Cheap: Printed Words and Images in America before 1900	American Antiquarian Society	MA, Worcester
2016	The Black Art & Printers’ Devils	Huntington Library	CA, San Marino
2015	The Hand Press & Beyond	Rochester Institute of Technology	NY, Rochester
2014	Paper on the Press	Mills College	CA, Oakland
2013	Seeing Color/Printing Color	Grolier Club	NY, New York
2012	At the Crossroads: Living Letterform Traditions	Columbia College	IL, Chicago
2011	Printing at the Edge	University of California, San Diego	CA, San Diego
2010	Learning to Print, Teaching to Print	Corcoran College of Art + Design	DC, Washington
2009	The Book Beautiful	Redwood Library, Newport Art Museum, and Newport Public Library	RI, Newport
2008	Saving the History of Printing	Grolier Club and Columbia University	NY, New York
2007	Transformations: The Persistence of Aldus Manutius	University of California, Los Angeles Libraries and Getty Research Institute	CA, Los Angeles
2006	The Atlantic World of Print in the Age of Franklin	University of Pennsylvania and Library Company of Philadelphia	PA, Philadelphia
2005	[r]Evolution in Print: New Work in Printing History & Practice	Mills College	CA, Oakland
2004	Picture This: The Art and Technique of Illustration	University of Delaware	DE, Newark
2003	New Work in Printing History	Grolier Club	NY, New York
2002	A New England Wayzgoose	Museum of Printing History	MA, North Andover
2001	Transatlantic Type: Anglo-American Printing in the Nineteenth Century	Washington University	MO, St. Louis
2000	On the Digital Brink	Rochester Institute of Technology	NY, Rochester
1999	Fine Book Design in the Twentieth Century	Grolier Club	NY, New York
1998	Chicago Printing History	Newberry Library	IL, Chicago
1997	Twentieth-Century Book Design	Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas	TX, Austin
1996	Twentieth-Century Traditions of Fine Printing in California	Huntington Library	CA, San Marino
1995	Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Printing: The Book in Jefferson's Virginia and the Early Republic	University of Virginia	VA, Charlottesville
1994	APHA at Twenty: Celebrating the Past, Looking to the Future	Pierpont Morgan Library	NY, New York
1993	The Humanist Printer	Brown University	RI, Providence
1992	Printing and Publishing History at Princeton: Materials and Methodologies	Princeton University	NJ, Princeton
1991	A Washington Wayzgoose	Library of Congress	DC, Washington
1990	The Printing of American Newspapers from 1690 Into the Future	Columbia University	NY, New York
1989	Colonial New England Printing	Harvard University	MA, Cambridge
1988	The Book Arts in Philadelphia, 1785-1840	Library Company of Philadelphia	PA, Philadelphia
1987	Government Printing in the Western Hemisphere: Technology, Design, Politics	Columbia University	NY, New York
1986	The Printing Surface	Columbia University	NY, New York
1985	Printing Without Type	Columbia University	NY, New York
1984	Eighteenth-Century Anglo-American Printing and Publishing	Columbia University	NY, New York
1983	Twentieth-Century American Typography and Typographers	Columbia University	NY, New York
1982	Nineteenth-Century America: Book Trade Technology and Social History	Columbia University	NY, New York
1981	The Mark of the Printer: Fine Commercial Printing in the Machine Age	Columbia University	NY, New York
1980	The Permanence of Ephemera	Columbia University	NY, New York
1979	The Renaissance Book	Columbia University	NY, New York
1978	The Decorated Book/The Crystal Goblet: A Reconsideration	Columbia University	NY, New York
1977	Printing Revolutions: The First Two and What They Can Teach the Third	Columbia University	NY, New York
1976	Typographic America: A Bicentennial Perspective	Columbia University	NY, New York

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