Although the Printing Office of Colonial Williamsburg does not attempt precisely to re-create any particular colonial printing shop, it does represent the craft as it was practiced in the mid-1700s. Here the twentieth-century American is invited to pause and look about him. Perhaps, if he is in a receptive mood, he may sense the spirit of the talented William Parks, keeping a watchful eye over apprentices and journeymen while type is set, presses are inked, and impressions are pulled from the press. Perhaps he can discern some Virginia planter making his way to Parks’s bookshelf, to buy Allestree’s The Whole Duty of Man or Bayly’s The Practice of Piety to take with him to his plantation and read during winter evenings.
Entering the Printing Office, the visitor finds himself in a typical Williamsburg structure of the eighteenth century. Fireplaces on each floor of the shop warm the workers in cold weather and dry the printed sheets of paper hung on overhead racks. Many-paned windows provide most of the shop’s illumination during daylight hours, and also a place—in the bays on Duke of Gloucester Street—for the printer to post signs and samples of his work. At night and on dark days candelabra hanging from the ceiling and tin sconces against the walls hold candles whose smoky flames blacken the plaster as they help to light the working areas.
On the street floor are the post office, stationery, and bookselling counter—one of the important areas of the normal colonial printing office, since it combined three of the most important sidelines. Along with the shelves of books for sale, some bound in leather and some in temporary paper covers, there is a mail rack with slots for letters and newspapers.
A bookbindery. In this view, several important binding operations can be seen. (a) Beating folded sections of a book so that they will lie flat. (b) Stitching folded sections to the heavy cords that hold the book together. (c) Trimming the edges of a freshly sewn book on a ploughing press. (d) Pressing freshly bound books in a large standing press. BELOW. (1-3) The blocks and hammer used by the binder. (4) The sewing frame. (5-6) Twine. (7-12) Parts of the sewing frame. (13-14) Wood or bone folders. DIDEROT.
On the same floor is the printer’s “counting room” or what would nowadays be called his “accounting department.” Here he kept the numerous business records called for by the cumbersome bookkeeping systems of that day, penned business letters, and perhaps wrote out in longhand the material he intended for publication in the Virginia Gazette. Eighteenth-century printers often engaged in several other businesses at the same time—importing goods of almost any kind, selling farm products on commission, and trying anything that might turn a penny.
Excavation of the Printing Office site and careful study of the surviving eighteenth-century foundations and brick flooring gave evidence—in the form of reinforced footings—as to where at least one press may have stood. This was in the lower floor of the building, where again today the shop’s printing operation is concentrated. There the three presses mentioned earlier occupy the center of the room, all of them in working order. Large racks for the storage of type line the wall, surmounted by open, slanting cases of type in current use. The cases contain a complete set of Caslon letters, from the diminutive Nonpareil (6-point) to Six Line Pica (72-point), which is one inch tall. Usually the printer employs the Pica (12-point) and English (14-point) sizes, which were customarily used in colonial times. He and his colleagues identified type sizes by name only; since the present point system was not in use then.
Printer’s ink and its ingredients—varnish, lampblack or vermilion, and linseed oil—are kept in saltglaze jugs. Other vessels contain drinking water, and the wetting trough is filled, ready for dampening paper before printing. On the floor, weighted boards atop stacks of wetted paper keep the sheets from curling as the dampness permeates evenly throughout the pile.
Title page of AN INQUIRY ..., printed by Alexander Purdie. Written in the midst of the Stamp Act controversy, this influential pamphlet presented a reasoned view of the colonists’ position. It appeared before Purdie formed a partnership with John Dixon.