With Thomas MacKellar in the chair, a meeting of the typefounders of the United States began on this day in 1886, in the Spencer House at Niagara Falls, New York. The press release stated: ‘The representatives of twenty of the largest and best foundries in the United States were present, and never was there a [...]

George Bruce, one of the best of the American typefounders, died on July 5, 1886, just four years after the printing of what, is considered to be one of the finest type specimen books produced in the United States—the 1882 catalog of the Bruce Type Foundry. Coming to these shores from his native Scotland in [...]

In a letter written upon this date in 1886 from New Brunswick, New Jersey, John F. Babcock, a compositor in the office of The Fredonian wrote of the earliest known contests of speed in typesetting in the United States. The letter was addressed to William C. Barnes, one of the great “swifts” of the period: [...]

Whenever contemporary pressmen discuss “wild” printing presses, the conversation invariably turns to the Hoe Patented Ten Cylinder Type-Revolving Press, illustrations of which appear in most histories of printing. The inventor of the machine, Richard March Hoe, died on this day in 1886 in Florence, Italy. He was the inventive genius of the Hoe family of [...]

The second National Typesetting Tournament ended March 27, 1886 in Philadelphia, with a compositor named Alexander Duguid establishing a record for fast typesetting which has never been surpassed. Among the contestants were the professional swifts, men who engaged in contests for cash prizes in all parts of the country. During the last decades of the [...]

Young typographic designers are frequently cautioned to be careful about the size of the types which they specify in their design. They are told that if they must err, to do so in favor of using larger sizes for body composition of promotional copy, particularly if the message is addressed to a high-priced audience, which [...]

The Typothetae of the City of New York met on the evening of January 18 in 1886 to honor two printers, Benjamin Franklin and Mark Twain. The white-shirted audience who attended the affair, held at the grand old restaurant, Delmonico’s, ostensibly to honor Dr. Franklin, was not above allowing the humorist to share the proceedings, [...]