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 mid-1980s, the organization has sought venues further afield. Conferences typically consist of a day or two of formal papers, presentations, and panels combined with tours of local collections, studios, and other spots 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.
2023 Conference
“The Printed Weird: Book History from the Margins” Oct. 13–15, Harry Ransom Center, U. of Texas at Austin. Details TBA.
The following is a complete list of APHA conferences. Conferences from 1976 to 1988 were held in New York City.
| Year | Theme | Host/Venue | State, City |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | The Printed Weird: Book History from the Margins | Harry Ransom Center at the 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 | WI, Two Rivers |
| 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 | 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 Public Library, and Newport Art Museum | 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 Library | CA, Los Angeles |
| 2006 | The Atlantic World of Print in the Age of Franklin | University of Pennsylvania and the 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[Not a formal conference | 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 | 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 | 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, New York | NY, New York |
| 1989 | Colonial New England Printing | Harvard University | MA, Cambridge |
| 1988 | The Book Arts in Philadelphia, 1785-1840 | The Library Company of Philadelphia | PA, Philadelphia |
| 1987 | Government Printing in the Western Hemisphere: Technology, Design, Politics | NY, New York | |
| 1986 | The Printing Surface | NY, New York | |
| 1985 | Printing Without Type | NY, New York | |
| 1984 | Eighteenth-Century Anglo-American Printing and Publishing | NY, New York | |
| 1983 | Twentieth-Century American Typography and Typographers | NY, New York | |
| 1982 | Nineteenth-Century America: Book Trade Technology and Social History | NY, New York | |
| 1981 | The Mark of the Printer: Fine Commercial Printing in the Machine Age | NY, New York | |
| 1980 | The Permanence of Ephemera | NY, New York | |
| 1979 | The Renaissance Book | NY, New York | |
| 1978 | The Decorated Book/The Crystal Goblet: A Reconsideration | 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 |