The Alexander S. Lawson Archive

March 10

ASL archivist — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 07:00:36 +0000

“Hearing / Before the / Committee on the Library / House of Representatives / Seventy-first Congress / Second Session / on / H.R. 6147 / A bill authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to pay to the Joint Committee on the Library the sum of $1,500,000 for the purchase of the collection of three [...]

Printers To Observe Goudy Centenary March 8

ASL archivist — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 07:20:30 +0000

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 in the [...]

Archivist’s Note 14

ASL archivist — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 07:19:58 +0000

In support of the Typocurious’s 2010 theme “Type Designer of the Month,” the Lawson Archive will post a non–Printer’s Almanac article or two each month relating to whomever the type designer of the month is. The entire month of March is dedicated to Frederic W. Goudy. Here, from the February 1965 issue of The Inland [...]

March 9

ASL archivist — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 07:00:04 +0000

A slyly inserted item appeared in the New York Tribune under this date in 1868, concerning its rival, the World: “On Wednesday night the compositors of the World quarrelled over a ‘fat take,’ and during the row accidentally pied a ‘saving galley,’ containing the following words: —146 Grants, 122 drunken louts, 40 Greeleys, 6,000 Tribunes, [...]

March 8

ASL archivist — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 07:00:29 +0000

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 his [...]

March 7

ASL archivist — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 07:00:53 +0000

“This book has been a conspiracy. Building it has been an adventure, an experience, a headache and a pleasure . . . mixed up day by day.” So wrote Paul A. Bennett in the introduction of a book put together for a single purpose, presentation to Frederic W. Goudy on this day in 1935, [...]

March 6

ASL archivist — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 07:30:36 +0000

The British periodical, The Printer’s Register, dated on this day in 1868, contained the following item: “The Typos and Artemus Ward—The Chicago Evening Journal says that the National Typographical Union at its session in Washington, adopted a resolution directing that the funds now in the hands of the late secretary and treasurer, collected for the [...]

March 5

ASL archivist — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 07:30:45 +0000

In a letter written to the editor of The American Printer on this day in 1921, a printer from Pittsburgh tried to express his attitude toward his work. Undoubtedly the personal philosophy of James E. Creech has been matched by countless other printers who remain completely anonymous, particularly in the days when men accepted simpler [...]

March 4

ASL archivist — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 07:30:27 +0000

On March 4,1921, Warren Gamaliel Harding was inaugurated as the twenty-ninth President of the United States. Upon his nomination the previous summer, he was referred to in the trade press as “Our Printer President,” the first presidential nominee to be so honored. “Senator Harding is practical in every department of the newspaper game,” said George [...]

March 3

ASL archivist — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 07:30:31 +0000

The Library of the Congress was assured of continuous growth by an enactment of Congress on March 3, 1865 which required that one copy of each work copyrighted in the United States was to be deposited in the library within one month of the date of publication. The same act extended protection to photographs and negatives. [...]