American Wood Type, 1828 1900: Notes On The Evolution Of Decorated And Large Types And Comments On Related Trades Of The Period

From the book “This handsome, immensely readable survey willfascinate typographers, designers, printers, bibliphiles, and all those interested in American. It tells the complete story of wood type, beginning with the history of wood as a printing material, the development of decorated letters and large letters, and the invention of machinery for mass-producing wood letters. The 19th century heydey of wood type is covered in great detail; all aspects of design, manufacture, and marketing are explained and the evolution of styles is traced. Many related trades interacted with wood type production-lithography, letterpress, metalplate and wood engraving, sign painting and calligraphy, poster printing and typefounding-and these are also discussed. A brief epilogue on the use of wood letters in the 20th century documents a curious a hundred-year gap between the original wood letter designers and modern graphic designers and painters who once again realize the rich design qualities of wood type. The figure-ground properties of many 19th-century wood types show a visual sophistication very rare in any of the arts of the period. Wood letters represent the last large category of types to catalogued and classified. Their very numbers alone have until now discouraged the historian, although the need for a consistent classification has long been recognized. In this book more than 600 styles of wood type are classified and shown by period. There are more than 100 specimens of complete or partial fonts, reproduced just as proofed, with all the imperfections to be expected. Each specimen is identified by name, degree of completeness, and date of marketing. Typographic buff with wood type collections of their own will find these specimens, and the book in general, invaluable in identifying their own types.”