The Black Art

John Pearsol Prints in Colors:

2009-05-25T13:24:03-04:00

Fortunately for beer drinkers everywhere, John Pearsol didn't just print long and tedious temperance screeds.

He also printed "fine"and "handsome" cards in colors, as his trade card proudly proclaims, above.

It was probably no coincidence that Pearsol chose a red rose for his business card. Ever since the medieval War of the Roses, Lancaster's floral mascot has been the red rose, while York's has been the white rose.

Even today, our "Welcome to Lancaster" highway signs say "The Red Rose City."

Lancaster's Tasmanian-Devil Lithography in Australia

2007-09-01T21:20:18-04:00

Cyberspace erases political borders. And that's good.

Today, Lancaster lithography often means Lancaster, Australia.

Today, when you say "Lancaster Press" and "Lithography" in the same breath it often means Kangaroos, not Amish.

Survival / Revival of lithography at the Lancaster Press in Australia is Here.

It's another good reason to like Aussies.

Joseph Hertgen's Cigar-Box Labels: Up in Smoke

2007-09-01T13:04:03-04:00

Joseph Hertgen was a rare bird. Joseph was one of the few Lancaster printers who mastered the art of printing color images by stone lithography.

In 1892 Joseph founded the Lancaster Lithographing Company, next-door to D. B. Landis's Pluck Art Printing Parlor on East Chestnut Street. (At the site of today's Brunswick Hotel.)

In the 1890s Joseph printed colorful cigar-box labels for Lancaster's cigar makers.

The labels I show here are from Joseph's cigar-label sample book, which he used to advertise his printing business.

Above: Joseph printed this cigar box label in the 1890s, during of the "Golden Age of Stone Lithography." For each color on this cigar label, Joseph had to hand-stipple that color's design onto a heavy slab of Bavarian limestone, which was then pressed against the paper with a lithography press.

This red-rose cigar label would have required at least 6 limestone slabs, one for each color.

Above: Joseph also printed blank cigar box labels, which could later be printed with the the cigar maker's text.

He stamped an embossed design onto this label to create a 3-D effect. He also applied bronze powder to the label, to look like gold leaf.

Joseph E. Hertgen: A Chromolithography Timeline:

1829: Joseph's mother, Mary Klingler, is born in "Germany" according to the 1900 U.S. Census. Meanwhile, Joseph's father "B Hertgen" is born in a German-speaking community in Alsace-Lorraine, which today is part of France.

Mid 1800s: Joseph's parents emigrate to Boston, Massachusetts, where Joseph's father is employed as an engineer.

1848: Many skilled lithographers flee political unrest in Germany, and turn New York City into a Mecca of chromolithography printing.

May 14, 1868: Joseph is born in Boston. Meanwhile Louis Prang, another German-immigrant printer, is turning Boston into another epicenter of American chromolithography.

1871 to 1881: Joseph is a young student. He returns to the Alsace two times, with his parents, to attend school there. He studies in Boston, when he is not in the Alsace.

Early 1880s: Joseph moves to New York City, to study lithography. During this time, New York was a leading center of German-American lithography companies: Schumacher and Ettlinger, the Knapp Company, F. Hepenheimer and Company, George Schlegel, Witsch and Schmitt. etc. They were all printing chromolithograph labels for American cigar manufacturers.

1889: Joseph marries Philopena Blum, of Jersey City Heights, New Jersey. They eventually have two children. (Later, in Lancaster, the family lives on East Orange Street, and attends St. Anthony's Catholic Church.)

1892: Twenty-four-year-old Joseph moves here to Lancaster. He founds the Lancaster Lithographing Company in the Foltz Building at 34-36 East Chestnut Street, next-door to D. B. Landis' print shop, at 38 East Chestnut Stree. (Landis is 5 years older than Joseph, and had been printing at this address for four years.)

ca 1898: Joseph moves his lithography business into larger quarters up the street, into the brand-new Davidson Building, which is located at 11-17 West Chestnut Street. The building was designed by Lancaster's premier late-Victorian architect, C Emlen Urban.

1905: Joseph's "Hertgen Lithographing Company" now relocated to Lititz, and becomes Lititz Lithographing Company. Company officers are: Dr. J. C. Brobst, P. B. Bucher, W. M. Keissling, H. Reist Landis ...and Joseph.

1922: The company expands its business to focus on the manufacture of paper boxes. In 1922 the company soon becomes known as Lititz Paper Box and Printing Company.

1930: The company becomes the Simplex Paper Box Corporation. The company later moves to Hellam, Pennsylvania.

Today: The Simplex Paper Box Company's website is down, and no one answers their phone. (Did they close shop?)

Joseph's boxes are gone, but his chromolithograph cigar-box labels survive.

Above: In 1905 Joes moved his lithography printing company from Lancaster to Lititz. That same year he purchased this full-page advertisement in the book Historical and Pictorial Lititz.

This business was located in a shop on Water Street, near the railroad.

This book was published and printed in Lititz by John Zook and his Express Printing Company.

1942: Bill Young Poses for Marjory Collins

2007-06-09T15:32:06-04:00

In 1942 photographer Marjory Collins used her camera to transform a small-town newspaper publisher into an icon of American photography, here in my hometown of Lititz.

Marjory was a photographer with the Farm Security Administration. She was hired by the federal government to photograph rural America.

While another FSA photographer, Dorothea Lange, was becoming famous for her photographs of Dust Bowl migrants, FSA photographer Marjory Collins was creating her own fame by photographing unsung American workers such as Bill Young, publisher of the Lititz Record Express newspaper.

Today (and forever?) Marjory's photos of Bill Young's print shop are archived online at the Library of Congress photo archive, here.

Above: The town of Lititz's most-famous, chain-smoking newspaper publisher, William Neiles Young (Bill Young). For 24 years Bill was the Lititz Record Express owner, reporter, editor, and printers' helper, from 1938 to 1962.

Above: Bill feeds the Lititz newspaper in his folding machine. In 1942 Bill only had four employees, so he had to be a newspaper jack-of-all-trades.

Above: Bill smiles for Marjory.

Above: Checking for errors.

Above: Bill waits for newspapers to come off the press, so he can take them to the folding machine. This shop also did job printing including "underwear labels and hunting signs," according to the Library of Congress photo archive, where these photos are archived, here.

Above: Bill's newspaper office: Still-life with stockings.

Above: Newsboys no longer deliver Lititz newspapers from the Record-Express Building.

The newspaper recently relocated its office to Ephrata, another important epicenter of Lancaster County printing history, where the Lititz Record Express continues its legacy today. The newspaper is here.

Above: Marjory Collins, the photographer who immortalized Bill Young and his Lititz newspaper in 1942.

The Ephrata Cloister: .....the First Font on the First U.S. Type-Specimen Broadside

2007-06-06T10:00:11-04:00

Above: Letters M and S, from the 1748 Märtyrer Spiegel (Martyrs' Mirror). (I used some red Photoshop ink to jazz up these letters.)

Peter Miller, of the Ephrata Cloister, used this display font in his 1748 Martyrs' Mirror, the largest book printed in Colonial United States.

This font is hugely important to the history of American printing, because it also appears as the first font on the first type specimen printed in Colonial United States: the ca. 1740 broadside printed by Christopher Saur in Germantown (near Philadelphia) to advertise his printing services.

Today, one of those Saur broadsides is in Philadelphia, in the collection of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

These ornate letters M and S appear throught the Martyrs' Mirror, a book about Christian martyrs.

Saur identifies these large letters as "Sabon." They were designed by an anonymous typographer in Germany, at the Luthersche type foundry in Frankfurt.

...so that makes this the First Photoshopped edition of the First font of the First U.S. type specimen. (I'm riding this font as far as I can take it.)

Above: Alle Menschen sind Erde (All Man is Earth)

Detail of the first type-specimen advertisement printed in Colonial United States. It is a broadside printed by Christopher Saur in Germantown, near Philadelphia, ca. 1740. Peter Miller used this same "Sabon" font in his 1748 Märtyrer Spiegel (Martyrs' Mirror).