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PAGE INTRODUCTION 5

INTRODUCTION

A study of type founding and of the development of presses and other printers' machinery in America presents many interesting considerations. If the attempt were made to give in detail the story of American type founding and the accomplishments of the notable American type founders, and at the same time to chronicle the improvements and inventions which American genius has contributed to the machines and processes used in printing and the allied industries, a very large book might readily be produced. While such a book would not be without interest and would certainly have very great value, it would be valuable mainly as a work of reference and would lack the interest which ought to attach to a book of the sort contained in this series. It has seemed to the writer best, therefore, not to attempt to collect an encyclopedia of information, but to give a brief sketch of the development of types and presses in the United States, with a special view to the beginnings in both departments. It is greatly to be hoped that a more competent hand may later be set to the production of such an encyclopedic volume as has been indicated, but such a work does not belong in this series.

In these matters, as in so many others, we find a definite course of development going on. Originally American dependence upon Europe was complete. The political dependence of the colonies in those days was much more thorough-going than anything we know at present. The political and economic ideas of the eighteenth century were so different from those with which we are familiar that it is difficult for the ordinary man who is not widely read in the literature and history of that period to understand them at all. Briefly it may be said that the prevailing idea, not only in England, but elsewhere, was that all colonies should be governed from the mother country; that they should send their raw materials to the mother country and receive all of their manufactured products from the mother country; and that they should not trade directly with any other part of the world, but that the mother country should act as a receiving and forwarding station for trade in both directions. This dependence extended much further than to politics and business. The American colonists, for example, got their literature, their art, their fashions, and many of their ideas from the mother country. The nearer the good people of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia could get to the ways of thinking, speaking, dressing, and acting which prevailed in London, the happier they considered themselves.

Accordingly we find that at first type and presses were all imported. Later we find that although type founding was being successfully carried on in this country, foreign models, especially in type, long continued to be followed. In machinery, American independence very soon asserted itself. Although some important machines and presses were not invented in this country, many were invented and nearly all were materially improved in American hands. This remark applies to the machines for producing type as well as to other mechanical operations. In the matter of type faces and typographical design America followed English models until comparatively recently. Indeed, it may be questioned whether there are more than a very few type faces now in use in this country which can be said to be American inventions. Many type faces have been designed, however, which were modifications and improvements of European designs. So true is this that probably the greater part of the type in use in this country would be considered as of American design, although its indebtedness to Caslon, to Baskerville, to Bodoni, or to Jensen, as a remote original, might be recognized. As a matter of fact, the original designing of letter faces, regardless of any previously existing design, has been of very rare occurrence in this country. Within the last generation, however, we are pretty well emancipated from this following of foreign originals. We still study the products of the foreign type foundries and printing offices, but as sources of suggestion, not as models for imitation.

The great American printing houses of today are more and more the masters of their own craft, not the imitators of others. This condition is also true of the type founders and manufacturers of machines and materials used in the industry. The sentiment of independence is bound to become more marked, and the originality of American printing more pronounced, with the development of a generation of better printers.

During all the early years of American printing, as has already been said, all type used was imported. The first type cast in this country appears to have been made by Christopher Sauer, in Germantown, Pennsylvania, about 1735. Sauer was one of those Germans, colloquially known as Pennsylvania Dutch, who were an important element in the population of the colony of Pennsylvania and are still numerous in the State. Sauer printed books, and in 1739 we find him beginning a newspaper, all or nearly all in German. As an auxiliary to his printing business he seems to have cast his own German type or at least a part of it. His work had no particular commercial importance, but deserves record as the beginning of type founding in America.

In 1768 a Scotchman named Mitchelson came to Boston bringing the tools for type founding with him. We have no record that he ever cast any type. Probably he lacked capital to go into business and there was no one to employ him.

In 1769 Abel Buel submitted to the Legislature of Connecticut a document printed from the first English type known to have been made in the United States. This sheet, which is still in the archives of Connecticut, is printed in a very well-cut long primer roman of Buel's own casting. We have no evidence that Buel ever cast a great deal of type, but his personality is so interesting, and his character so typical of the proverbial "Connecticut Yankee" that it is worth while to recall the story of his life.

Buel appears to have been born in Connecticut, not far from 1750, and apparently early learned the printing trade. With more than his share of youthful irresponsibility, though he appears not to have been a really bad man at heart, he proceeded to counterfeit the State currency of Connecticut. This was not a difficult operation, as the early colonial currency was printed from ordinary type with stock ornaments upon ordinary paper by means of the ordinary printing press. The first definite record that we find of him is that he was pardoned in 1766 from a life sentence for counterfeiting these bills. The lesson that he got on this occasion seems to have cured him not only of counterfeiting, but of printing, as he apparently never again did either, although it was by no means the last time that he found himself at odds with the authorities.

He then invented a method of polishing crystals and precious stones. The amount of this valuable material in the hands of the good people of Connecticut was apparently not sufficient to afford him a livelihood, and we find him next engaged as an undertaker and a singing master. In this latter connection he was summoned before the authorities by certain good people who were greatly scandalized because while in charge of a church choir he had introduced the use of a bass viol into the services. This was deemed little short of blasphemy, but apparently no technical charge could be sustained against the culprit.

Buel early interested himself in the cause of the freedom of the colonies. Meantime he had evidently been experimenting in type founding, for the petition of 1769 sets forth that the petitioner has discovered the art of casting type, but that he lacks the capital and is, therefore, unable to go into business commercially. He accordingly petitions the Legislature to advance to him the necessary funds. The Legislature voted him a loan of ?100 for seven years and promised him ?100 more after he had been carrying on the business successfully for one year. As we shall see in a moment, before the year was out Buel's interest transferred itself elsewhere and we hear no more of his type casting. When the seven years were up Mrs. Buel paid back the ?100. Where and how she raised it is something of a mystery, as she asserted when she made the payment that she did not know where her husband was. He was not permanently lost, however.

We hear of him next, after the war was over, being appointed to make a map of the coast from Maine to Florida and then appointed master of the mint for Connecticut, where he devised and erected the machinery for striking the copper cents then coined. One wonders if the master of the mint often thought of his youthful conviction for counterfeiting the money of the same community.

Later, when the world was becoming interested in cotton spinning under the stimulus of Arkwright's invention, Buel went to England to learn how to spin cotton. He came back, bought some machinery, and set up in New Haven the second cotton mill in America, the first being Samuel Slater's mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. This seems to have been the last shift in Buel's varied life. He died in 1825 at the age of about seventy-five. He was an interesting product of his time and its conditions and as such his story deserves record, for it must be remembered that he was not a "sport," but a "type."

In 1774 Jacob Bay attempted type founding in Philadelphia, but he also was apparently only an experimenter.

In 1775 an experiment was made which, from the conditions and from the character of the maker, we should expect to find successful, but which failed nevertheless. At this time Benjamin Franklin brought out from France a full set of tools and punches and undertook, with his son-in-law, Bache, to establish a type foundry, there being then no type founding done in this country if we may except what was being done in Sauer's establishment. The Franklin-Bache foundry was well equipped with roman, italic, Greek, and Hebrew matrices. Bache had received some instruction from Fournier, the great French type founder, from whom Franklin had purchased the tools. They had for their workman a man named Frederick Geiger. Geiger was what is known as a "redemptioner," or a man who in return for his passage money to America, his board, and a small amount of money wages agreed to be the bond servant of his creditor for a certain period. These arrangements were very common at this time and reflected no discredit upon the young men who made them. Geiger was a mathematical instrument maker by profession, but became with study and practice a very expert matrix cutter and founder. Franklin had brought him out and he served his time with Franklin, but appears to have left him as soon as his time was out and to have gone to the Philadelphia mint. Like many another skilled mechanic, however, he became interested in the search for a perpetual motion machine and finally died an insane pauper.

For some reason, the Franklin foundry was not successful. It has been conjectured that one reason may have been that Franklin was very much influenced by French models in his designs, and that the printers and the reading public were so accustomed to English type faces that they did not take kindly to the new forms. Curiously enough American printers have never taken kindly to French type faces although many of them, from Garamond down, are very beautiful. Some of the French types designed, not far from 1875, seem to have become Americanized and are among the most legible and beautiful in use, but the American printers have never been very willing to use them. Whatever the reason, the Franklin foundry was added to the list of unsuccessful attempts at type founding.

One more attempt was to be made before type founding was permanently established in America. This time the attempt was successful, but not permanent. In 1783 John Bain sent his grandson to Philadelphia with an outfit of type founder's tools. Bain had been associated with one of the famous type founders of the time, Alexander Wilson, of Glasgow. Wilson not only had a market in Scotland and England, but also in Ireland and in North America. Bain had been chosen by lot to start a foundry in Dublin, but after remaining there a time he went to Edinburgh, whence he turned his attention to the other side of the Atlantic. Encouraged by the reports from his grandson, Mr. Bain soon went, himself, to Philadelphia. He was further encouraged by the firm of Young & McCullough, then a leading house of Philadelphia printers. In 1785 he opened business under the quaint title of John Bain & Grandson in Company. Their work was good and the firm was immediately successful, theirs being the first commercially successful attempt to cast type in America. Bain, however, died in 1790, and the business was soon given up by his family.

About the same time that Bain began business Adam Gerard Mappa made an unsuccessful attempt to start a foundry in New York. Mappa was born in Belgium in 1750. He spent his early life in the army, from which he retired after twelve years of service with the rank of lieutenant. He then purchased a part interest in the old firm of Voskens & Clerk. This firm was established some time before 1677, and had long been one of the principal sources of supply of type for England. As pointed out elsewhere in this series many of the types used in England for a long period came from continental foundries, particularly Dutch. Shortly after the purchase the Government underwent important changes, in consequence of which Mappa left the country. He landed in New York somewhere about 1787, bringing with him his complete outfit of tools and matrices. He had a number of very handsome Dutch and German faces, some ordinary roman type, and seven varieties of Orientals. For these last Voskens & Clerk undoubtedly had found considerable use, but America was as yet far from needing any considerable supply of Oriental types. Mappa's capital had apparently been absorbed in his purchase and lost in emigration. In 1798 he was very ready to take himself and his equipment into the service of Binney & Ronaldson. Probably Mappa had no practical knowledge of type founding and very little interest in it, for he left the service of Binney & Ronaldson in 1800 to go into that of the great Holland Land Company. He seems there to have found his place and served in important positions until the end of his life.

So far our story has been one of failure. There is, however, plenty of evidence that the time was ripe for success. The new country was growing rapidly. The Americans, then as now, were insatiable readers, especially of newspapers. The demand for type was constantly increasing. America was becoming more and more independent, more and more desirous of supplying her own wants, and more and more impatient of the inconvenience, expense, and delay involved in ordering such merchandise as type from England. If the persistency and courage of the elder Bain had been shared by his family unquestionably fortune would have been easily within their grasp, but they paid the penalty of their lack of good business qualities.

We come now to the story of the first permanently successful type foundry in America, a foundry which continued in vigorous existence until the erection of the Jersey City foundry of the American Type Founders Company, with which it was merged. There met one day in an ale house in Philadelphia two men whose lives were thenceforth to run together. I suspect that they were drawn together in the first place by the fact that they were both Scotchmen, and that in their first contact they showed each other the qualities which bound them together. They were Archibald Binney and James Ronaldson. Binney had learned and practiced the trade of type founding in Edinburgh, Scotland. Ronaldson was a biscuit-maker, out of business because of the burning of his establishment, but with some ready money in hand. It seemed to Binney that here was a heaven-sent opportunity to combine his knowledge with Ronaldson's capital and enter under the most favorable circumstances the business of type founding. At this date there was no active foundry in America. The successful Bain concern had been closed out. The Sauer business, if active at all at this time, was only an adjunct to a printing office, while Mappa was finding it impossible to get started. They accordingly agreed to enter the business as equal partners, Binney putting in his tools, which were appraised at 8.88, while Ronaldson put in the same amount in cash.

With this they started business, the first entry in their account book being November 1, 1796. We learn that they rented a frame house on "Cedar Street atwixt ninth and tenth streets" at .33 a month. In 1800 the frame house was valued at .00 and cost .09 1/2 "to shove it to its present location." It must be remembered that at this time a half-cent coin was in circulation and that accounts were kept down to a quarter of a cent. At the time of the moving of the house the firm bought the property and built a new house on the same lot. The new house cost ,500 and they paid a year ground rent, apparently for additional land not included in the purchase. Entries in their first account book show that one or both members of the firm lived in the house. They started with a small assortment of type, but of the most important faces. These faces appear to have included brevier , bourgeois , long primer , small pica , pica , and some two-line letters. They probably employed as matrix cutter one F?rst, a die maker in the Philadelphia mint, who afterward cut a medal bearing Binney's face on the obverse and an appropriate design on the reverse.

At an early period, as we have seen, they took over Mappa and his outfit, and in 1799 they bought the tools of the Bain concern, paying 0 for them. In 1806 the excellent Franklin outfit was in the hands of a man by the name of Duane. Duane became interested in Binney & Ronaldson and offered to lend them any of the Franklin tools and matrices which they desired to use. Ronaldson was so impressed with the superiority of a part at least of the Franklin equipment that, fearing that Duane might change his mind and not being willing to take any chances, he himself borrowed a wheelbarrow and moved the material over to Cedar Street in the middle of a very hot summer day.

Binney & Ronaldson were enterprising, thrifty, and obliging. They did good work, took good care of their customers, and were immediately and permanently successful. They prospered greatly from the beginning and both of them made fortunes, as fortunes went in those days, within twenty years.

A study of their account books is extremely interesting. Among other things they give the names of 114 customers who found their way onto their books in the first five years of the business. It would hardly be worth while here to give the names of these customers, but it is interesting to see where they were. They were located as follows:

Philadelphia 49 Pennsylvania 6 New York City 22 Albany, New York 1 Delaware 4 Virginia 7 New Jersey 2 Maryland 4 District of Columbia 2 Connecticut 1 Massachusetts 1 Georgia 1 Augusta 1 Tennessee 1 Location not given 12

In 1811 Binney invented an improved type mold which increased the output of the caster fifty per cent and saved labor. He experimented with a machine for rubbing type, but in this was not successful.

In 1812 Binney & Ronaldson published a specimen book which is interesting as showing the development of their business. This book shows eleven faces larger than pica, fifteen kinds of body type, the smallest being pearl , two sizes of Anglo-Saxon, four sizes of Greek, four sizes of Hebrew, two sizes of German text, six sizes of black letter, three sizes of German, four sizes of Oriental letter, one size of script and 120 kinds of "flowers" or borders, the greatest number of these being on English body. It is not unlikely that some if not all of the foreign letters may have come from the Franklin and Mappa stocks. We know that Franklin had Greek and Hebrew and that Mappa had German. Mappa's Orientals did not appear. Probably even if Binney & Ronaldson still had the matrices it would not have been worth while to include them in their specimen book. The preface says that they were obliged, contrary to their inclinations, to imitate European taste. Evidently America had not yet become independent except politically. They gave two examples of erroneously formed faces in long primer and small pica, which were really condensed faces as we should now call them. They appear to have invented the dollar mark $ in 1797 and the abbreviation l?b? for weight pounds in 1798.

In 1819 Mr. Binney retired with an ample competence. Mr. Ronaldson ran the business alone for a while, but in 1823 he was succeeded by his brother Richard, who conducted the business for ten years.

In 1892, when the American Type Founders Company was organized by the consolidation of some twenty foundries, the MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan Company entered the combination and became the Philadelphia branch.

Now that we have told the story of this great house in detail, we may go back to consider some more of the early firms. The success of Binney & Ronaldson was due to a combination of personal qualities and favorable conditions. The increase of printed matter was very great. Americans have always been a newspaper-loving people, and after the independence of the colonies the founding of new newspapers went on apace. It must not be forgotten that all printing in the early days of the last century was done with foundry type, hand set. The demand for type, therefore, was not only large, but was increasing. Up to the outbreak of the war of 1812 the few type foundries in America were regularly from three to four months behind their orders, so greatly did demand outrun production.

Under such circumstances Binney & Ronaldson could not have the field to themselves. In 1805 we find Samuel Sower & Company at work at Baltimore. Sower belonged to the family of Christopher Sauer, and used the material of the old firm with additions. He made some fonts of roman and italic and appears to have made a specialty of small type faces such as diamond , brilliant , and excelsior .

In 1809 the second permanently successful foundry was started by Elihu White and a man by the name of Wing in Hartford, Connecticut. Here again we have a sample of characteristic Yankee courage, resource, and ingenuity, qualities which have enabled Americans at all times to accomplish the apparently impossible. Neither White nor Wing knew the business of type founding. They had certain ideas of their own and for the rest they apparently worked backward from the finished type. Their attempt was to cast several letters at once, to be afterwards separated, instead of casting the letters singly as was the general practice. Probably partly for that reason and partly because of ignorance, perhaps also because of their confidence in their ability to improve on accepted methods, they did not use the approved moulds. The attempt to cast letters by wholesale, as it were, was not successful and their entire progress was slow and unsatisfactory. After many failures, they sent a man to Philadelphia in order that he might learn the trade secrets. In those days type founding, like many other trades, was to a great extent a secret trade and one of the chief duties of the workman was to keep his employer's secrets. Their attempt to steal the trade failed and they were thrown back upon their own resources again. Finally, however, their efforts were crowned with success and they began to turn out commercially successful type. In 1810 White separated from Wing and went to New York, where he and his brother Julius established a business under the firm name of E. & J. White. From this time on they were steadily and brilliantly successful.

In 1820 they opened branches in Buffalo and in Cincinnati to meet the requirements of an expanding trade. The business remained in the family until 1854, when it was bought out by three employees who continued it under the later well-known firm name of Farmer, Little & Co.

Another famous name in the annals of American type founding appears at about the same time as that of White. This was the name of Bruce. David Bruce was born in 1750, in Wick, Caithness, Scotland. When a mere boy Bruce was impressed into the British navy after the bad old custom of that day and served for a while in the Channel Fleet under the command of Lord Howe, afterwards well known, together with his brother General Howe, for their part in the Revolutionary War. After he left the navy Bruce was apprenticed to a printer. He came to New York in 1793 and obtained work on a newspaper. Shortly afterward he sent for his brother George and apprenticed him to a printer.

In 1806, after George had become a journeyman printer, the brothers were offered by publishers the printing of Lavoisier's Chemistry. The fact that they had no plant, no equipment, and no money did not deter them from accepting the offer. Bruce managed somehow to secure a place and a press, and he borrowed a font of type. He introduced the standing press for dry pressing his sheets, and he turned out so good a piece of work that the publishers offered him all the printing that he could do. From this start he set up a successful business.

In 1811 Bruce, with his usual business acumen, recognized the importance of stereotyping and went to England to study it. As we have seen, however, it was not easy to learn other people's trades in those days and Bruce met with great difficulty. He did, however, succeed in learning something from a Scotch workman, perhaps helped by a certain sense of kinship, which is common among the Scotch, and returned home to make experiments for himself. Times were not favorable for keeping business running, to say nothing of starting new business. The conditions preceding the war of 1812 were disastrous for business in the United States. American commerce was crushed between the upper and nether millstones of England and France, who had been at war for many years and were attempting to fight each other's commerce and industries as well as each other's soldiers. The condition was very similar to that which preceded the entrance of the United States into the great war of 1917, excepting that it continued much longer and, owing to the comparative weakness of the United States, was much more serious than the later difficulty. The war did not mend things industrially and its close in 1815 left the United States in a bad business condition for a good many years. Nevertheless, the courage and persistency of the Bruces enabled them to weather the storm, and they not only held their own but developed along new lines.

In 1814 and 1815 Bruce produced the first two sets of stereotype plates made in America. They were a common school testament in bourgeois type and a 12mo Bible in nonpareil. Bruce invented a machine for planing the backs of the plates to make them of uniform height. This was a great improvement and was so successful that it is said that of the entire two sets of plates only a single plate needed a slight overlay.

In 1828 William M. Johnson had invented a type-casting machine in which a pump forced the liquid metal into the mould, giving the type a sharper face than was possible with hand casting. The machine was a step in the right direction, but was crude and imperfect. White took it up and tried to improve it, but he did not succeed in removing its fundamental defects. The types were not cast solid. Being hollow they were light and too weak to withstand the pressure of the presses. The first successful type-casting machine was made by David Bruce, Jr., in 1838, in development of the Johnson idea. George Bruce bought David Bruce's patents and used the machine until 1845, when David Bruce made further improvements and produced the type of machine which is now in general use not only in this country but in Europe, where the method was soon adopted.

James Conner, a printer of New York, began business as a stereotyper in that city in the year 1827. His was the first stereotype edition of the New Testament. He also earned a good reputation as the publisher in the United States of the Bible in folio form. To the business of stereotyping he soon after added that of type founding, in which he was remarkably successful. With the aid of Edwin Starr, then in his employ, he made the electrotype matrices which enabled him largely to increase the stock of his foundry. After the death of James Conner, in 1861, the foundry was managed by his sons and grandsons, who finally merged the business in that of the American Type Founders Company.

Type foundries were started in Albany, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Louisville, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and in New York, where there were at least seven foundries. This led to over-production, competition, and the failure of many weak concerns, a condition of things which was not entirely remedied until the organization of the American Type Founders Company in 1892.

In 1840 Augustus Ladew and George Charles opened at St. Louis the first foundry west of Cincinnati. This firm continued in successful operation until it was merged into the American Type Founders Company at its organization.

In 1806 Robert Lothian, of Scotland, tried and failed to establish a type foundry in New York. His son George B. Lothian, who had been taught the trade of stereotyping in the stereotype foundries of John Watts, of New York, and B. & J. Collins, of Philadelphia, had also received instruction from his father and from Elihu White in type founding, undertook to establish a type foundry in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was an unsuccessful enterprise and Lothian returned to New York. In 1822 he undertook to make type for the old firm of Harper & Brothers. The face of Gr small wood which a slender youth had just left, and was hastily approaching them. As yet, however, he was so far from them that they were unable to distinguish his features or his dress, and to discern whether he was an armed soldier or a peaceable wanderer.

"It is, doubtless, a French soldier, and his comrades are lying in ambush," murmured P?ckler, placing his hand on his sword.

"If he wants to attack us, he had better say his death-prayers," said Schill, calmly. "There are two of us, and each has one uninjured arm."

The youth had meanwhile drawn nearer, and they saw that he did not wear any uniform.

"He is very young," said P?ckler, "and a civilian. He has apparently not yet seen us. That bush yonder is concealing us from his eyes. Let us stoop a little, and, as the path lies beyond, he may pass by without noticing us."

They knelt down behind the bush, but, while doing so, took their swords, and prepared for an attack. Then they held their breath and listened.

Profound silence reigned around, and nothing was to be heard but the quick steps of the wanderer, who drew nearer and nearer. Suddenly this silence was interrupted by a fresh and youthful voice, singing the air of a popular song.

"Ah, he sings," murmured Schill. "He who can sing to-day, must be very harmless, and it is not worth while to kill him."

"Hush! hush! let us listen to his song. He is now singing words to the melody. Just listen!"

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