What’s Going on at the Museum
Fall 2022
The Museum of Printing is open to the public Saturdays, from 10am to 4pm.
We are happy to open at other times .NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 2022
See the glory of Christmas in print — from one of the first American Christmas cards to Holiday books to the old Sears Wish Books, and more.
Exhibits
- The First Math Books Printed in America
See first editions of Pike’s Arithmetic and other 18th century math books. They were needed to deal with each state’s currency value and the switch to the Julian calendar.
- The History of the American Almanac(k)
See a collection of these unique publications from the 1800s and early 1900s.
- A Century of Graphic Design
In 1922 William Addison Dwiggins coined the term. Peruse two giant volumes that document 100 years of “graphic design.”
- The Best-Read Army in the World
In 1943, the War Department and the publishing industry created an extraordinary program: 120 million small paperbacks for troops to carry in their pockets. See the Museum’s collection of them.
♦ Contact us:
Admission to all Museum events is free for members (join here).- The First Math Books Printed in America
History of Desktop Publishing Selected as Honorable Mention
History of Desktop Publishing by Frank Romano (with Miranda Mitrano) has been awarded Honorable Mention by the jury of the 18th International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB) Breslauer Prize for Bibliography.
The ILAB Breslauer Prize for Bibliography is the world’s leading prize honoring outstanding work in the field of bibliography and book history. The award is sponsored by the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers. The 18th edition of the prize was awarded in September, 2022 at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, England.
The 2022 winners are:
- 1st Prize: Jack Baldwin, A Catalogue of Fifteenth-Century Printed Books in Glasgow Libraries and Museums, 2 volumes (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2020).
- 2nd Prize: Ernst Fischer; Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels – Historische Kommission. (Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2020–21).
- 3rd Prize: Renaud Adam, Vivre et imprimer dans les Pays-Bas Méridionaux (Des Origines à la réforme), 2 vols (Turnhout: Brepols, 2018).
- Honorable Mention: Frank Romano (with Miranda Mitrano), History of Desktop Publishing (New Castle, Delaware: Oak Knoll Press, 2019).
For the full ILAB press release, see: https://ilab.org/article/celebrating-outstanding-works-of-bibliography-and-book-history-impressions-of-the-ilab-breslauer-prize-ceremony-2022
The book is available through the Museum of Printing gift shop in soft or hard cover as well as through the publisher, Oak Knoll Books: https://www.oakknoll.com/pages/books/133734/frank-romano-with-miranda-mitrano/history-of-desktop-publishing
History of the Ludlow Typograph
Frank Romano’s latest book is now available! It is called History of the Ludlow Typograph and covers the remarkable tale of a device that is still in use by letterpress printers around the world today. Romano writes about the people, the company, the machine, and the type library that established typographic tastes.
Born at the beginning of the 20th century, the active production lifespan of the Ludlow Typograph lasted just over 80 years, but its impact has continued. In the last decade of the 20th century as typography evolved from metal to film to digital, many of the fonts in use were based on hot metal libraries. One of the major trendsetters for typographers was the Ludlow Typograph.
At 535 pages and with over 400 illustrations, this book digs deeper into the history of the Ludlow Typograph than any previous book. Interested in reading it? You can find it in our gift shop, or just click the red DONATE button at the top right of the page and make a donation to the Museum of Printing. You will then receive this landmark book as a gift ($75 for the hardcover version and $45 for the softcover version).
The Museum of Printing Unveils Plans for a Linotype Service & Repair Directory
As part of its Linotype Legacy initiative, the Museum of Printing is creating an international directory of people who repair Linotype and other hot-metal typesetting machines. If you offer such services, or if you know of someone who does, please submit contact information via this web form: linotype-professionals-signup-form.
We also ask that you share this information broadly through social media, using the hashtag #LinotypeRepair.
We believe that by gathering this information we will be able to achieve one of the key goals of the Linotype Legacy initiative, which is to make it easier to find those who can service and repair Linotype machines.
The Museum of Printing’s Linotype Legacy fundraising initiative was begun in December of 2019. The latest development in the Museum of Printing’s Linotype Legacy work is a series of 10 videos with master mechanic Dave Seat. These can be viewed on our YouTube page.
White House Chronicle Visits the Museum of Printing
Haverhill, MA (July 5, 2021) – Nationally syndicated columnist Llewellyn King, the executive producer and host of the weekly PBS news and public affairs program White House Chronicle, visited the Museum of Printing recently and interviewed Museum of Printing President Frank Romano about printing technology and the history of the newspaper. Also on hand was the producer and co-host, journalist Linda Gasparello.
The episode, entitled “American Newspaper Printing from Hot Type to Computers,” began airing on July 2, 2021 and will be seen on many PBS stations. It can also be viewed on demand at https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/569972704.
Museum of Printing acquires major vintage type collection
T. J. Lyons collected Victorian wood and metal type from the 1820s to the 1880s. He amassed over 2,500 unique typefaces for his small print shop in Allston, Mass. Eventually the collection was housed at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston, and will now reside at the Museum of Printing in Haverhill, Massachusetts.
The Lyons Collection joins the vast typographic and printing resources of the Museum of Printing.
“Tom Lyons spent two years in the AEF Airforce during World War I,” said his grandson Steve Lyons, “and he returned from France for a stint in an advertising agency, where he was inspired by a freelance designer, George Trenholm, who used Old Fashioned Ornamented Typography. T.J. moved to his own print shop in 1924. When the Great Depression struck, printers began dumping the old ornamented type, and TJ went all in to build his collection.”
This type was then in demand by ad agencies anxious for type that would stand out. What is old becomes new again.
Some of his type was made into film and digital fonts by VGC and Compugraphic in the 1960s and 1970s, but it all exists as individual pieces of wood and metal, to be set by hand, one letter at a time.
“This collection cries to be used,” said Museum of Printing president Frank Romano, “and the Museum will have workshops and student projects that use this type for design and print projects.”
A permanent wood type exhibit will show the beauty and uniqueness of these fonts, but, more importantly, we will see the harmony of type and ink and paper, as they come together to produce typographic art.
The World Cup of Printing History with Jim Hamilton
In this Print Media Centr podcast, Jim Hamilton, Museum of Printing board member and social media volunteer, shares his perspective on the #worldcupofprintinghistory Twitter hashtag that the museum ran during the Women’s World Cup in 2019 (and also in 2018 for the Men’s tournament).
https://podcasts.printmediacentr.com/podcast/the-world-cup-of-printing-history-with-jim-hamilton/
Mimeograph Machines
In the days before inkjet printers and Xerox machines, multiple copies were made on mimeograph machines.
In 1876, Thomas Edison filed the first US patent for autographic printing by means of a duplicating press with an electric pen for cutting stencils. A subsequent patent followed, and then Chicago inventor and businessman, Albert Blake Dick, took it to the next level. He merged his efforts with Edison’s, improved the stencils and licensed the patents. In 1887, the A. B. Dick Company released the Model “0” flatbed duplicator selling for $12 ($284 today). Dick named the machine the Edison Mimeograph and it was an immediate success. The company went on to become the world’s largest manufacturer of mimeograph equipment.
Awesome wood type
This font, beautiful in its size, color and simplicity, is on display in our art gallery. The Museum is fortunate to hold an extensive wood type collection that has been acquired over many years, including several sizable and relatively recent donations of significance. Stay tuned for future posts. . . .
Download our Letterpress Presses poster (pdf, 1.8 MB)
Download our Image Carrier Poster (pdf, 684 KB)
Programs are supported in part by grants from the Georgetown, Groveland, Haverhill, Lawrence, Merrimac, Middleton, North Andover, West Newbury Cultural Councils, local agencies which are supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.
