BANQUET PROGRAM
As arranged in Boston in 1865
The changing styles of typography as applied to commercial headings are well set forth by the group on the fifth page of this chapter. The first specimen is a “plain” billhead of 1870. The second is a billhead of 1893, when the compositor was taught to corral all excess wording in an enclosure of rules at the left side of the heading proper. In this specimen there is a touch of ornamentation and a showing of seven different type-faces, one of which is the then conventional script for the date line. The third specimen of the group, a letterhead which won first prize in a contest held in 1897, reveals further development of simple typography. Only one face of type is used (Tudor black) and there is no ornamentation excepting a few periods on each side of the word “The.”
During the nineteenth century no type foundry did more toward influencing the typography of the general job printer than the one known at the time of its absorption by the American Type Founders Company as MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan, of Philadelphia. The reproduction of a few clippings from its specimen book of 1885 may recall memories to the printer now of middle age.
The Free Press business card has peculiar interest to the author. It was set and printed by him during dull hours about the year 1889, when his thinking apparatus was controlled by influences from the underworld of typographic practice.
There is another phase of late nineteenth-century typography which should be mentioned. It seems that printers had developed a longing for pictures, color and decoration. The process of photo-engraving not having been perfected, job printers shaped brass rule into representations of composing-sticks, printing presses, portraits and architectural designs, and cut tint blocks from patent leather and other material. The skill exhibited by many printers is remarkable; beautiful combinations of tints were produced. It will be difficult for many persons to believe that the “Boston Type Foundry” design (shown on a preceding page) was originally constructed with pieces of brass rule, but such is the fact. It was composed by C. W. L. Jungloew in 1879, and is truly a wonderful example of the work of the printer-architect. The perspective obtained by the designer is a feature. Black, gold, and several tints were used in the printing.
“IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS”
From a specimen book of 1885
Interesting as are these wonders of the curved-rule period, they are not artistic in the true sense of the word; examples of skill indeed, but not art as it is today understood.
We now come to one of the most interesting periods in the history of printing, a period which may well be termed the “Modern Renaissance.” As was intimated earlier in this chapter, the invention of printing machinery served to lead typography away from art. The printers of that time thought they were doing artistic work when they set their jobs in fancy type-faces, twisted brass rule, or printed in many colors. They did not know that art-printing was simplicity—and something else. The apprentice was taught to set type as was his journeyman instructor before him. Any inspiration he received came from the typefounders, and even that was often interpreted wrongly.