Unconsciously, we’re all born into the world leaving remnants of ourselves as we travel through it: our fingerprints in things we touch and footprints on the paths of our travels. Technically, those remnants, via bodily oils from our fingers and tracks from our shoes, are unconscious ephemeral examples of letterpress impressions. But from a machine perspective, print itself: letterpress impressions on paper emanating from Johannes Gutenberg’s (c. 1400-1468) mid-15th century invention of the printing press which lasted until (photo) offset printing largely supplanted it in the mid 20th Century, forms an indelible record of the achievements of human history accurately recorded.

Today’s post is divergent from the sites primary focus of historical photography but entirely symbiotic in that the art and craft of letterpress printing derives from the perfect marriage of words and pictures, otherwise known as type and design. Although modern and even historical photographs and images printed in ink: think lithographs, ink-jet prints, newspaper photos and others are by the planographic process, intaglio printed images (copper plate engravings, gravures, etchings, etc.) are from recessed printing matrixes. Letterpress printing by itself is a relief process.

When I look back at my own professional arc of newspaper photojournalist and now historian and collector: a fortunate byproduct of being someone “of a certain age”, one vivid childhood memory still springs forth from my past leading me to believe my life would be informed by a bit of pre-destiny. This took the form of my ten-year-old self accompanying my mother on an appointment to collect a print order of musical programs for a club she was involved in. The rendezvous point was a small print shop located in the basement of a Connecticut suburban home the next town over. It was then when I experienced for the first time the wondrous smell of pungent ink and sounds of what I now surmise was a vintage Heidleberg Platen Press clacking away, puncturing the darkness and triggering my wonderment in that dimly lit basement so many years ago.

A good working definition of Letterpress can be found in the 2008 volume The Printed Picture by Richard Benson, (1943-2017) American photographer, printer, educator and dean of the Yale School of Art from 1996 to 2006:

Letterpress: “Relief printing from metal type and image-bearing halftone cuts in copper or zinc. Also the actual press used for relief printing.” (1.)

Technically, the foundational Relief process is best defined as “printing from the high parts”, with Wikipedia summarizing: “The non-recessed surface will leave ink on the paper, whereas the recessed areas will not.”

Let me tell you, those “high parts”, inked on paper, are a joy to behold, especially as ornament and text, the aforementioned “perfect marriage” within volumes I’ve collected over the years featuring (intaglio) photographic plates from the mediums artistic era spanning the late 1880s through the first several decades of the 20th century. But let’s skip ahead hundreds of years from Gutenberg’s era to the late 19th Century, when newly formed arts & craft societies in Europe and America made a new argument that hand-crafted work was far superior to the dreck of mass consumer products that were the output of the Industrial Revolution. As a collector interested in beautiful photography and design, the material output from this era is particularly satisfying to procure and reflective of the era in which it was made. 

Consider the first issue of an 1896 masterwork: Bradley His Book, with several pages scanned to accompany this post. This slim periodical was American artist and illustrator Will Bradley’s (1868-1962) art-nouveau letterpress-printed love affair “dedicated to the promotion of fine typography, design, paper, and printing”. (2.) The underpinnings for this new approach was inspired by some of the new thinking on art proposed by Oscar Wilde and his circle as well as ideas of social and design reform propagated by John Ruskin in England. When English textile designer, poet, artist, writer, and socialist activist William Morris (1834-1896) launched his Kelmscott Press in early 1891, the resulting volumes featuring this new era in design inspired Bradley. The proverbial torch passed, Bradley His Book was published the same year Morris died, and was:

“distinguished by the outstanding decorative illustrations that enriched the text and advertisements. Bradley himself wrote several short stories for the magazine, again following the example set by William Morris, who once said, “If a chap can’t compose an epic poem while he’s weaving tapestry he had better shut up; he’ll never do any good at all.” (3.)

Letterpress as Living History

At least in America, should we care enough or have reason to experience firsthand places bringing the past alive, our only contact with historical letterpress printing can indeed be found. Think Colonial Williamsburg, VA, Old Sturbridge Village in MA or the Shelburne Museum in VT. Here are places where a shop (many also dimly lighted!) oftentimes feature a vintage iron hand press. (letterpress) Invariably, these places might impart an American history lesson for tourists looking on, with a resident reenactor recalling American founding father and printer Benjamin Franklin’s role in publishing The Pennsylvania Gazette beginning in 1729. A newspaper man dear to my own heart, Franklin’s broadsheet promoted lively public discourse at the time-one of the factors leading to the eventual overthrow of the English King who ruled the American colonies-and with it, the founding of the United States which became a Constitutional Republic with Democracy as its’ backbone: something we do hope endures as I write this in the turbulent present. How’s that for the power and importance of letterpress?

Papermaking & Typography

With apologies to Bradley and the rest, the Industrial Revolution in America was key in producing the matrix for letterpress: paper, and in huge amounts. I live in New England and specifically Massachusetts, where the remains of hulking mill buildings can still be found most everywhere, but particularly alongside rivers, where they drew their power. Many have fallen to the wrecking ball, but in present-day Holyoke, MA, some of those buildings that were part of the 25 companies producing paper during the late 19th and early 20th centuries still stand: some vacant but others repurposed.

Known as “Paper City”, Holyoke would surpass even Berkshire county in Massachusetts, which was the largest producer of paper in the US through the Civil War. An interesting tidbit? Berkshire-based Crane Currency in Dalton, MA, initially founded by Zenas Crane (1777–1845) in 1801, is still in business today, continuing to provide the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing with specialized paper for U.S. currency since 1879. Another later figure to explore in the arts & craft aesthetic: Dard Hunter, 1883-1966: “American authority on printing, paper, and paper making, especially by hand, using sixteenth-century tools and techniques.” 

“Print is Dead” ⎯ Egon Spengler, Ghostbusters-1984

Thank goodness Egon was a fictional character. While print in the physical form continues to thrive in the 21st Century, modern typesetting is now mostly digital. Mass commercialization of letterpress printing in the form of newspapers, magazines and book publishing (Bibles and textbooks in particular) began in earnest in the late 19th Century with the 1884 invention of the Linotype machine by German immigrant Ottmar Mergenthaler. (1854-1899) These machines cast entire lines of type (words & sentences) at once, known as “slugs”: stereotypes of cast metal formed from the contact of assembled brass type matrices that had been locked into position before a molten mixture of lead, tin, and antimony was injected over them from the linotypes’s heated alloy reservoir. Discontinued by the 1970s, linotypes were used almost exclusively in the production of American newspapers. At several of which I worked for, these machines were on display in the corner of the front public lobby: dusty relics that once revolutionized letterpress publishing in the “hot-type” era.

Similar to the old Eastman Kodak Company, essentially a monopoly which became a trust in 1901 and controlled 90% of the marketplace, the companies that produced the actual metal type for letterpress printing decided to fight back, now that the Linotype and Monotype machines threatened their own near monopoly in the market. In 1892, the American Type Founders Company, a business trust, was formed. Collectively this entity was made up of 23 type foundries “representing about 85 percent of all type manufactured in the United States at the time.” From Columbia University Libraries we learn the ATF trust was formed “in order to compete with the new typesetting machines, the Linotype and Monotype” and would be  “the dominant American manufacturer of metal type from its creation in 1892 until at least the 1940s.” (4.) Interestingly, from 1914-1959, the trust was also in the businesses of manufacturing their own letterpresses for industry, with the popular Kelly series presses selling 11,000 units by 1949. (5.) Besides designer Will Bradley, who created many different type fonts for the ATF, another designer who worked for the trust became more famous: Frederic Goudy: 1865-1947, “one of the most prolific of American type designers” whose “self-named type continues to be one of the most popular in America.” (6.)

 

What’s Old is New Again

I’ve been without business cards for many years now, after running out of an initial batch of beautiful letterpress cards designed by Kirsten O’Loughlin. This was actually the inspiration for this post. “Get yourself some updated cards” I told myself and you can do a bit on letterpress for the blog. I’ve now got the updated cards in hand (free card with any Ebay purchase!) so deadline met. I’ve featured letterpress printing in oblique ways before on the site, although never in depth. In 2014, I featured a wood-engraved copyright label designed in 1897 by the important American furniture designer Harvey Ellis for amateur American photographer John Dumont. In 2018, as part of the  conference “PhotoHistory/PhotoFuture” held at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York state, I visited the Cary Graphics Arts Collection where I saw the famed Kelmscott/Goudy iron hand-press featured among other working presses in the Arthur M. Lowenthal Memorial Pressroom.

The second-generation cards again feature the arts & craft inspired lotus flower which has become one of this site’s signature branding efforts. It’s by the hand (or rather computer mind) of designer Jay David, (responsible for the design of PhotoSeed) and takes up all the real estate of the new card’s verso- or recto- you decide. The one absolute change for me was to make “PhotoSeed” all one word, as my impression the old site design lead to some confusion in that words Photo and Seed were stacked on top of each other.

Letterpress printer Allison Chapman to my rescue. Shop local is something we try to adhere to, and although she lives in the middle of the country the argument can be made anyone hanging their letterpress shingle is local and worthy of your business, as no “big box” stores are ever anticipated to get in on the action. Along with husband John and daughter Ava, they run Igloo Letterpress from their home studio in Worthington, OH. Its been an active venture fueled by some well loved vintage presses since 1996. Like many old-time endeavors made new again, with examples including the resurgence of the wet-plate collodion photographic process and wet darkrooms in general in the 21st Century, Letterpress printing became a “thing” a bit earlier, in the 1990s. Here, Wikipedia informs us “renewed interest…was fueled by Martha Stewart Weddings magazine,  which began using pictures of letterpress invitations in the 1990s.” I’m not too sure on that one as small-press “craft” printers have always been part of the underground economy- in all parts of the world. In the present century, one thing is for certain: all those letterpresses not cast aside or sold for scrap in the 1970s for new-fangled photo-offset presses are still being sought out from their (presumably) dimly lit warehouses and basements in the present.

Wonderfully, for those adventurous enough, especially of the younger persuasion, risk takers will be rewarded by rejecting the modern-instantaneous for the slower and satisfying embrace of the tactile, hands-on approach in making something permanent and truly tangible: Letterpress: ink by type on paper.

Letterpress Resources to Explore: Academic

Champaign, IL: Skeuomorph Press & BookLab is an experiential studio for teaching and researching the history and art of the book at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. 

Boston, MA: Huskiana Press:  experiential letterpress studio for students, faculty, and community members at Northeastern University. 

Rochester, NY: Rochester Institute of Technology Cary Pressroom in the Student Hall for Exploration and Development (SHED) 

Letterpress Resources to Explore: Public

Two Rivers, WI: Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum: “the only museum dedicated to the preservation, study, production, and printing of wood type. With 1.5 million pieces of wood type and more than 1,000 styles and sizes of patterns, Hamilton’s collection is one of the premier wood type collections in the world.” 

Carson, CA: The International Printing Museum: “a dynamic museum devoted to bringing the history of printing and books to life for diverse audiences. The Museum is home to one of the world’s largest and most comprehensive collections of antique printing machinery and graphic arts equipment.”  

Haverhill, MA: Museum of Printing: “dedicated to preserving the history of printing, graphic arts, and typography while showcasing their continuing influence on our culture. In addition to many special collections and small exhibits, the Museum contains hundreds of antique printing, typesetting, and bindery machines, as well as a library of books and printing-related documents.”

Atlanta, GA: Robert C. Williams Museum of Papermaking: “melds art, history, technology and industry from historical and global perspectives. Museum visitors follow the path of paper from the earliest examples of writing materials, to the Chinese discovery of how to make paper, to the paper mills of Europe, and the high-tech machinery of today’s modern paper industry.” 

Nashville, TN: Hatch Show Print: “From 1879 through most of the twentieth century, Hatch Show Print’s vibrant posters served as a leading advertising medium for southern entertainment, ranging from members of the Grand Ole Opry like Bill Monroe, Minnie Pearl and Ernest Tubb, to rock & roll impresarios such as Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry.”  

Chillicothe, OH: Dard Hunter Studios: (The Mountain House and Dard Hunter Studios are open for tours. The Dard Hunter Library and Archives are also available for research. Please contact us for more information.) 

 

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1. p. 323. The glossary including the definition for letterpress comes from Benson’s 2008 volume The Printed Picture, published to accompany the exhibition of the same name in the Edward Steichen Photography galleries at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in the fall of 2008 through the Spring of 2009.
2. Excerpt: American Art Posters of the 1890s, in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, including the Leonard A. Lauder Collection Catalogue by David W. Kiehl Essays by Phillip Dennis Cate, Nancy Finlay, and David W. Kiehl: The Metropolitan Museum of Art distributed by Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York, 1987, p. 16
3. Will H. Bradley Biography: from the online resource nocloo.com, celebrating the Golden Age era of children’s book illustrations, 1890-1930.
4. ATF, from Wikipedia accessed 2025
5. ATF, Ibid
6. Frederic Goudy, from Wikipedia accessed 2025

At PhotoSeed, we celebrate the life of Ann McElroy Spencer, 1929-2021, one of our most profound influences.

Words often fail at times like these, but I wanted to take a few moments to recount one remembrance in the very rich life of my mother, Ann McElroy Spencer, 1929-2021, who passed last week. And it has a photography angle! On a late spring day about 20 years ago, I discovered the true secret of her selfless character, qualities reaffirmed to me in her final years by her fellow residents at the assisted living facility she called home.

On that day, she suggested we take a walk around my old neighborhood, where I had grown up but had long since departed for a career in newspaper photojournalism and, in my mind, greener pastures. To my surprise, the walk this day took us up a long steep hill, a bit distant from the route I was expecting. After reaching the summit and turning left, I was hesitant about where the journey would ultimately lead, but she seemed intent, and I did not question, happy to be sharing some good one-on-one time with her.

Shortly, we found ourselves in front of an unknown mailbox, in front of a house that was also unknown, at least to me.  It was in the next moment, however, that she produced an envelope from somewhere, and proceeded to open the mailbox and deposit the letter within. I casually asked what she was doing and she matter-of-factly stated that earlier that spring, on a previous journey past this mailbox, she had made a mental note to bring along her camera in order to take pictures of flowers growing near it. “A very beautiful display,” or something to that effect, is my recollection of her intent, and reason enough to capture their beauty for eternity, thanks to photography’s magic. She had made prints and placed them in that envelope, intent on sharing them with whomever retrieved the mail at that address—folks that, to the best of my knowledge looking back these many years, were complete strangers. That was my mom.   David Spencer-

The Piano Lesson

by Ann Spencer

She was always there, waiting, just inside the door. I came lingeringly up the walk, book-bag bumping against my leg. She opened the door and I sidled past into the dim hall that seemed to smell of old things. “Five minutes late!” she said. I smiled weakly. I followed her into the living room, brushing against the heavy brown velveteen portieres, which helped keep the room warm in winter. She waited silently while I took off my coat and dropped it on the horsehair sofa. The armchairs, each with their antimacassars, stood guard, like sentinels, in their appointed places. Somewhere a clock chimed the quarter hour. It was risky to be late. It was rude to allow her to wait, in expectation, behind the etched glass window of the front door. Promptness was a virtue.

Ida Conrad Babb was Conservatory trained and was one of the two piano teachers in our small New England town. It was the depths of the Depression, and the money she made by giving lessons provided for her groceries: she had no car. She was tenacious of her pupils and held herself stiffly, as if the loss of even one student would cause her to crack and send her to the poor farm on East River Street. I recall her across the gulf of the years, not unkindly, but with some trepidation. She was one of the few adults in my life at the time who evaluated my work. I felt sorry for her- in my way. She was my first piano teacher.

We approached the piano which was housed in an alcove off the living room- a large instrument tucked into a little space, almost like an afterthought. Pulling out the music from my bag, I put Henri Hertz- Scales and Arpeggios on the piano rack. “Well,” she said, “let’s commence with the scales. We have to warm up the fingers first,” and she’d smile so that her slightly protruding teeth showed. I started off, thinking to myself that yesterday when I had practiced scales, I’d said to mother, “Henry Hertz when I do these!” and she had laughed. Now I dutifully sawed through the music- not much facility there- certainly no joy. I was sure she’d give me a “Fair” this week on my report card.

A dog barked somewhere in the back of the house, and I ploughed on through the other studies. “Mind your fingering.” “Commence again- play it at half-tempo.” And again: “You’re not practicing this étude as you ought,” she’d say, reproachfully. Never any praise. It was a relief when she said, “Get that folder, Ann, on top of the piano.” I moved carefully- not much space- and tentatively set aside the framed photograph of her brother killed in World War I. The street she lived on bore his name. I took the folder which contained the pieces. She leafed through the contents and selected one. Now I could sit in her seat by the window and she would sit at the piano and demonstrate how the piece should be played. Spare, erect, hand held above the keyboard- never would she allow them to droop- she played the short composition with fluidity and grace. “Your turn now, “ she said. She seemed happy to restore the piano to me. Never once did I hear her in recital.

After the lesson and after she had meticulously graded my report card- “Fair” for scales and arpeggios, “Very good” for the memorized piece- she told me to go to the kitchen- would I see the dog? to get a note for my parents which would be on the kitchen table. Entering the room, I was suddenly aware of her husband, smoking a pipe in the failing light of a winter’s afternoon. He knew my father, yet he spoke no greeting: a dusty plant, neglected, in a dark corner. I was a little afraid. “Hello,” I said, grabbed the note and didn’t wait for a response.

The tree at the end of her front walk still bore its leaves- sere, clicking against each other in the January wind. “That tree wun’t lose its leaves until spring,” she said. I stumbled back home across the frozen ruts of the two fields which separated our house from hers.

The following week, I commenced piano studies with the other teacher in town. He was a jolly man who emphasized popular tunes over études.

Last August I had the uncommon opportunity to purchase five photographs ca. 1905-1910 that were still in their original picture frames taken by William T. Knox, (1863-1927) then president of the Brooklyn Camera Club.

Additionally, three of them were in beautiful wood frames made by his fellow club member James E. Underhill, 1870-1914, who I discovered had made his living as a fine picture framer since around 1900 in New York City at his shop at 33 John Street, at the corner of Nassau Street.

In my 20+ years of collecting photography, and with a definite impression the “bloom is off the rose” when it comes to the intersection of internet commerce, it seems to me today more difficult to acquire vintage photographs of artistic note still in their original frames. This is a pity, because framed photographs left undisturbed from 100+ years ago can often reveal the more honest intent photographers wished for their work to be seen and appreciated- for the time they were created no doubt, but also on a higher aesthetic level.

On a technical note, PhotoSeed does minimum conservation on framed works when they enter the collection. The mantra of “do no harm” as well as the realization of being temporary custodians of an archive is embraced. When in doubt about proceeding with photographic conservation, advice given me many years ago from a George Eastman Museum conservator to basically just leave things alone when unsure of how to proceed is something I’ve always kept in mind. Of course, the financial realities of proper conservation standards will always be at the forefront for collectors, both private and institutional.

Frame Conservation: A Few Ideas

For framed works, conservation on my end typically includes the removal of acidic frame backing materials and replacement with acid-free mounting materials that come into direct contact with the physical print. Embedded dirt and other foreign matter is then carefully removed and or wiped away from the frame itself, with original finishes showing the passing of decades left deliberately intact and never stripped off. Finally, everything is put back together for storage or display: the original glass from the frame is also cleaned on both sides and then carefully put back into place. If cracks are discovered or worse, replacement with a custom cut piece of window glass will typically suffice.

Digital Presentation on PhotoSeed

For digital presentation on this website, the frame is then photographed separately and the print scanned. I use Photoshop to combine the two-leaving the original framing glass out. Purists may object to this but I’m not changing the physical object in any way-just taking advantage to present you with an optimum web experience. Of course, the joy of collecting is being able to appreciate a vintage photograph in the very best form possible: in person. Never the less, I’ve included a small photo along with three other conservation snaps in this post showing a small display of conserved and “reframed” works from this archive. Other examples can be found here.

Intriguingly, I have owned a platinum portrait of William T. Knox, showing him to be quite the dapper gentleman- mustachioed, and sporting a bow tie taken about the same time he was club president, for many years prior to my collecting any of his actual photographs. This was  by Charles F. Clarke, 1865-1912, (American, born Nova Scotia) an amateur and business agent for the Forbes Lithograph Company of Springfield, MA.

You can see all of Mr. Knox’s framed works in the collection here, which includes a professional chronology for his friend the framer and fellow Brooklyn Camera Club member James E. Underhill.  Happy hunting!   -David Spencer