APHA’s Oral History Project records the voices, knowledge, and insights of printers, illustrators, designers, and members of allied trades. We are interviewing senior members of these trades, so that their experiences and skills will not be lost. We will question and record well-known individuals as well as those less likely to write their own stories: including but not limited to job printers, dot etchers, typographers, linotype operators, and others whose skills became obsolete during the computer revolution.

In addition to collecting historical material, we would like to register current developments in the printing trade by documenting the careers of digital type designers, computer typesetters, contemporary graphic artists, managers, and owners of printing businesses. We also want our project to extend to members of all the book production professions.

We follow the guidelines and standards enumerated by the Oral History Association and the interview techniques outlined by the Indiana University Oral History Research Center. An interviewers’ manual has been prepared and deposited with a number of individuals and institutions. We plan to have the interviews transcribed by Tapescribe, an oral history transcription service, based at the University of Connecticut.

All materials originating from our project will be deposited at the Columbia University Oral History Research Office where they are available to researchers according to the restrictions stipulated in APHA’s “Agreement with Interviewees.”

interviews to date

For further information contact Alice Beckwith, the Project Chair oralhistory@printinghistory.org