On this day in 1828 was born the first of America’s great scholar-printers, Theodore L. De Vinne, in Stamford, Connecticut. De Vinne’s father, a Methodist minister, had six sons, four of whom became printers. The other two became bookbinders. De Vinne first visited a printing office when he was seven years of age, the occasion [...]

Alexander Duguid, who proved himself to be the fastest compositor in the United States, was born this day in 1856 in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. A little more than twenty-nine years later, in the second National Typesetting Tournament, staged in Philadelphia in 1886, Duguid matched himself against the great professional speed typesetters and beat them all, with [...]

William Shakespeare built his King Henry VI trilogy upon the life of that most unfortunate of English Kings, who was born upon this day in 1421. During Henry’s lifetime, the art of printing was established, but he was murdered in the Tower of London before it was brought to English soil. Shakespeare, however, in the [...]

William Blades, printer, bibliographer, and typographic historian, was born this day in the year 1824, in the London suburb of Clapham. A leading master printer and author of a number of books about printing, Blades is best known for his lifetime efforts to promote interest in the life of William Caxton, the first English printer. [...]

On this day in 1874 was born a man who never became a printer but whose life was devoted to the maintenance of the freedom of the printed word. Indeed, Winston Spencer Churchill may be credited as being one of the men of our times most responsible for our continued enjoyment of that freedom. As [...]

“Born in Nurnberg on 8 November, 1918, I spent my childhood in that factory town. My parents lived in a small settlement in the city’s southern section, and I roved the bordering woods with my schoolmates and was seldom to be found at home. I chased butterflies, caught salamanders and gathered flowers and stones.” So [...]

The Rev. Charles Henry Olive Daniel, Provost of Worchester College, Oxford, was born on the last day of September in 1836. One of the beloved teachers of his period and a scholar of note, he yet was able to devote much of his leisure to the operation of a press which he had begun as [...]

In the city of Paris on this day in 1712 was born into the family of the printer and typefounder Jean Claude Fournier, a son—Simon Pierre or as he is more commonly known, Pierre Simon. The younger Fournier made a unique contribution to typefounding, both in theory and practice, by inventing a system of type [...]

“The Typophiles of New York greet you, Sjoerd Hendrik de Roos, on this your seventieth birthday, & wish you a long continuance of health and years in which to minister to the arts of the book. May your dedicated craftsmanship in type design, in printing and in binding inspire in the rising generation of bookmakers [...]

Born in Baltimore, Maryland on September 12, 1880 was Henry Louis Mencken, one of the great American men of letters of our time. No matter how fine a reputation Mencken enjoyed as a writer, critic, philologist, he was most content to consider himself a newspaperman. As such he always had an affinity for printers, particularly [...]

“To bring together the posies of other men bound by a thread of one’s own choosing is the simple plan of the editor of the Bibelot. “In this way those exotics of Literature that might not immediately find a way to wider reading, are here reprinted, and, so to speak, resown in fields their authors [...]

A great and controversial historical figure was this day born in France in the year 1585. Armand Jean du Plessis de Richelieu lived to be a Prince of the Church and First Statesman of France under Louis XIII. Cast as a sinister character by many novelists and not a few historians, Richelieu thought first of [...]

The typographical equivalent of the one-armed paper hanger is undoubtedly the left-handed compositor, and for five centuries the term has been one of derision. “How many readers of The Inland Printer,” asked Sam G. Sloane in 1888, “ever saw a left-handed typesetter? By this I mean a typesetter who picks up the types, places them [...]

Born into a family of clothiers in Rochester, New York on this day in 1884, Elmer Adler proceeded slowly to the printer’s craft, taking thirty-six years to become involved in a printing office. But at his death in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1962, he was counted among a small group of men who have [...]

Born this day in the city of Boston in 1868 was a man whose career spanned the most important typographical trends of the last hundred years, and who lived long enough to be called the “dean” of American typographers, art directors, and designers. Will Bradley first handled type in his sixth year when his father, [...]

Non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere quare, Hoc tantum possum dicere, non amo te. Or rather freely paraphrased from the Epigrams of Martial, as it appeared in the widely read Tom Brown’s Schooldays: I do not love thee, Doctor Fell The reason why I cannot tell, But this alone I know full well, I do [...]

William A. Kittredge was born into the family of a Lowell, Massachusetts printer on this day in 1891. Just fourteen years later he was beginning his apprenticeship as a compositor at the Parkhurst Press, Chelmsford, Massachusetts. Afterwards he undertook the traditional journey, working as far away from New England as Elk River, Idaho. By 1914 [...]

In the tiny village of Hatchel (pop. 400) in Germany was born this day in 1854 a man destined to revolutionize the printing industry of his time. Ottmar Mergenthaler was the son of parents who were both teachers. It was their desire that he also train for that profession but since the boy was more [...]

“Typography may be defined as the craft of rightly disposing printing material in accordance with specific purpose; of so arranging the letters, distributing the space and controlling the type as to aid to the maximum the reader’s comprehension of the text. Typography is the efficient means to an essentially utilitarian and only accidental aesthetic end, [...]

In Leipzig, Germany, upon this day in 1902, was born Jan Tschichold, one of the fine typographers of our times. Just eighteen years later he was teaching calligraphy at the Graphic Arts Academy of Leipzig. In 1923, after attending the Weimar Bauhaus exhibition, he was carried away by the strong protest against the established values [...]

“I was born at Walthamstow in Essex in March 1834, a suburban village on the edge of Epping Forest, and once a pleasant place enough, but now terribly cocknified and choked up by the jerry-builder.” So wrote William Morris in 1834 referring to his birth upon this day. Born to enjoy a reasonable affluence, Morris [...]

“There is no such thing nor can there be such a thing as ‘the ideal book.’” So began an essay on the ideal book, written by Porter Garnett, of the School of Printing at Carnegie Institute of Technology and founder of the Laboratory Press. He was born on March 12, 1869 in San Francisco. After [...]

Goudy was among the last of a breed of type designers who regarded type as something artistic as well as functional. March 8 will mark a most significant event—the centenary of the birth of the great Frederic W. Goudy. Today, with the printer attempting to keep pace with the astonishing technological changes now taking place [...]

Born on this day in 1865 in Bloomington, Illinois, Frederic W. Goudy lived to be the best known American printer of his times. He achieved international renown as a letterer, a type designer, and a typographer. He was also the operator of a most distinguished private press, the Village Press. Fred Goudy came late to [...]

On this day in 1837 was born a man who became one of the great literary critics of his time—William Dean Howells. Beginning as a compositor in his father’s country printing office in Ohio, Howells received very little schooling. He is an outstanding example of the self-educated man. He served as U.S. Consul in Venice, [...]

In the city of Providence, Rhode Island, Daniel Berkeley Updike was born upon this day in 1860. With no practical background as a printer, he was destined to become one of the great American printers, and with no formal education as such, to become an outstanding scholar of printing, responsible for the revival of interest [...]

Residents of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in the City of Washington, D.C. have from time to time been prevailed upon to say a few words about printing, generally about the time of Benjamin Franklin’s birthday. It is rare indeed that any President of the United States has mentioned the art prior to his elevation to the [...]

The first person ever to print on a train was born on February 11, 1847. As he was to become the greatest inventive genius of his time, it is unfortunate that his interest in printing was of short duration. The present electronic upheaval in the craft might have come a half century earlier had Thomas [...]

Born on this day in Troy, Ohio, in 1844 was the American inventive genius, Tolbert Lanston, the producer of the successful typesetting machine, the Monotype. Leaving school at fifteen years of age, Lanston worked in Ohio and Iowa before volunteering for service with the Union Army during the Civil War. After this term he was [...]

“Abel Buell of Killingworth in Connecticut, Jeweller and Lapidary, begs leave to acquaint the Public, and the Printers of the Several Colonies, that he hath already entered upon the Business of founding Types, which as Soon as he can furnish himself with Stock, will sell for the same price at which they are purchased in [...]

“Amidst the darkness which surrounds the discovery of many of the arts, it has been ascertained that it is practicable to trace the Introduction and Progress of Printing, in the northern part of America, to the period of the revolution.” Thus a printer named Isaiah Thomas who was born on this day in 1749, stated [...]

If any printer doesn’t know that his patron saint was born upon this day in 1706, he must be a hibernating mammal, as each year the printing industry uses Benjamin Franklin‘s birthday as an excuse to stand up and shout, “Look at me, I’m a printer, too!” Possibly a hundred years ago this date was [...]

The chronological account of the life of Jan van Krimpen states that he was born upon this day in 1892, that he died on October 20, 1958, and that between these dates he was a typographer specializing in the design of books and was, in addition, a type designer. When typographers discuss among themselves the [...]

“I wish you would resolve henceforth to write one such article per week,” wrote publisher Horace Greeley to Bayard Taylor, born this day in 1825,” and sign your own initials or some distinctive mark at the bottom. I want everyone connected with the Tribune to become known to the public (in some unobtrusive way) as [...]

Born into the family of a French printer on this day in 1730 was François Ambroise Didot, who was destined to become the most influential member of one of the most distinguished families ever to practice the printer’s craft. Along with his younger brother, Pierre François, F.A. Didot fully established the family reputation in the [...]

Henry George Bohn, English linguist, bookseller, publisher, and art connoisseur , was born upon this day in 1796. He achieved distinction in all of these endeavors until his death in his eight-ninth year. Appearing before the Philobiblon Society in April, 1857, he gave a long and curious lecture concerning the history of printing. It was [...]