NNEEWWSSSpring 2009

DEAR FRIENDS

After over a decade of service to the Museum, Ex-ecutive Director Gardner LePoer has retired.Gardner had a heart operation last Fall and was

up and about within a week. The Board of Directors andhis many friends wish him the best in his retirement.

UUppccoommiinngg eevveennttss aatt tthhee MMuusseeuumm ooff PPrriinnttiinnggPaul Moxon will hold a VVaannddeerrccooookk MMaaiinntteennaanncceeWWoorrkksshhoopp at the Museum on Saturday and Sunday,MMaayy 22 aanndd 33. This is an in-depth review of the partsand functions of the Vandercook and the mechanics essential for troubleshooting. Whether you use studiopresses, own your own press, or are thinking of buyingone, this workshop will provide excellent direction foryour future press work, so bring your photos and/or bro-ken parts. The workshop is limited to 10 people and thecost is $200 for each registrant for this 2-day event.

More details will be available shortly on our web-site. Please let us know your interest by emailing workshops@museumofprinting.org

This Spring we are having another TTyyppee SSaallee of re-dundant metal and wood type. It also includes type cabi-nets, some with type, type cases, and other items,including presses. Friday and Saturday, MMaayy 1155 aanndd 1166.

Our 6th PPrriinnttiinngg AArrttss FFaaiirr is presently scheduledfor Sunday, JJuunnee 2211. This is always a wonderful day forthe entire family. Plan to attend.

Browse our improved website. Bill Whitley andCliff Garber are expanding the site with lots of new in-formation, a calendar of events, PDFs of all newsletters,many new links, and more interaction for visitors.

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AA vveerryy ssppeecciiaall ‘‘tthhaannkk yyoouu’’ ttoo PPRREESSSSTTEEKK ffoorr pprriinnttiinngg oouurr nneewwsslleetttteerr oonn tthhee DDII pprreessss

LLOOGGOOGGRRAAPPHHIICC TTYYPPEEWWRRIITTIINNGG

The Museum of Printing has an extensive collec-tion of typewriters. The most interesting is aJapanese language typewriter based on moveable

type. The Japanese language is written with three differ-ent types of scripts: modified Chinese symbols calledkanji, and two syllabic scripts made up of modified Chi-nese characters, hiragana and katakana.

The Latin alphabet, romaji, is also often used inmodern Japanese, especially for company names andlogos, advertising, and when entering Japanese text into

a computer. Western-style Arabic numerals are used fornumbers, but traditional Sino-Japanese numerals are alsocommonplace. There are tens of thousands of sym-bols, but in 1946, the Japanese government identified1,850 symbols for daily use. In 1981, the list was in-creased to 1,945 symbols—Joyo Kanji (Kanji forDaily Use).

The Museum’s Nikkei typewriter has symbolshoused in small slots—35 down and 70 across for atotal of 2,450. The symbol is printed via a ribbononto paper mounted on the cylinder. The symbolsmay be a complete kanji symbol or strokes that canbuild one. They are called ideograms which reflectstheir morphemic and phonetic nature (words and sylla-bles, not ideas). They are also called logographs, from theGreek “word” and grapho (“to write”). Native terms areChinese hanzi, Japanese kanji, and Korean hanja.

THE FRIENDS OF

THE MUSEUM OF PRINTING

BBOOAARRDD OOFF DDIIRREECCTTOORRSSSALLY ABUGOVJOHN BARRETT

BRIAN FRYKENBERG, SecretaryHOWARD HANSEN, Curator

JOHN IVASREBECCA KRZYZANIAK

THEODORE LEIGH, TreasurerLARRY OPPENBERGJOHN ROGERS

FRANK ROMANO, PresidentLOUIS ROSENBLUM

BILL WHITLEY, Vice President

WILLIAM E. BONSER, Director EmeritusGARDNER J. LEPOER. Immediate Past Director

800 MASSACHUSETTS AVE.NORTH ANDOVER, MA 01845

978-686-0450MUSEUMOFPRINTING.ORG

PHOTOTYPESETTING ROOTS WE LOVE VISITORS

We are always happy to host visitors. Recently, wehosted an international group: (below, left to right)

Robert McClements, British printing consultant, KatherineO’Brien, editor American Printer magazine, Frank Romano,Eddie Hagen, Director, VIGC (Belgian printing researchorganization) and Gardner LePoer, retired MOP Director.

In-between the cold type era (typewriters with proportion-ally-spaced type) and the electromechanical phototypesettingera (also known as the 2nd generation) was the very strange hot-metal-typesetter-that-set type-photographically (now called the1st generation).

No photos exist of the original Mer-genthaler Linofilm which painted the ref-erence side of matrices white with blacklettering and then photographed the line.The Linofilm became a 2nd generationphototypesetter using film grids. The In-tertype Fotosetter emdedded a film nega-tive in the belly of each matrix and photographed each one afterthe line was set. A “Fotomat” is above right.

The Monotype Monophoto was described by Compu-graphic co-founder Bill Garth as “the only machine ever in-vented with no stationary parts.” The Stinehour Press inVermont was the last US user.

Both the Intertype Fotosetter and the MonotypeMonophoto are in the Museum’s collection.

One of our good friends is Ralph Archbold. You maynot know him by that name but you do know him

as the most famous portrayer of Ben Franklin. Time mag-azine called him the “definitive Ben Franklin” and he trulylives the part. Recently, Ralph, aka Ben, married the por-trayer of Betsy Ross. The mayor of Philadelphia officiated

at the ceremony andhundreds of people at-tended the event. Ourbest wishes to the happycouple. We hope tohave Ben visit the Mu-seum of Printing in thenear future.

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The Museum of Printing and the Hoosac Stores BuildingThis nondescript building at left sits just yards awayfrom the USS Constitution. Why is this building ger-mane to The Museum of Printing? Because it is therepository for almost 200 tons of additional printingartifacts that have been stored there for 21 years at nocharge by the US Park Service.

Hoosac Stores was built in 1875 as part of a trans-portation system that brought goods to the Charles -town, Massachusetts docks, storage, train transport toNew York State, and the Erie Canal to points west.There are virtually no windows and the first thing yousee when you enter are cannons from Old Ironsidesand a machine for making rope.

The printing artifacts stored there are rare andnot available anywhere in the world. Over time, TheMuseum of Printing would like to display them and telltheir unique story.

A panorama of the Boston skyline is visible from the dock in Charlestown,Massachusetts. Here the mighty and venerable Old Ironsides is host to thou-sands of visitors each year. These visitors are remarkably close to the artifactsof the history of printing housed in an old building nearby.

There is a Goss web press, in pieces, and 12 linecasters. There may be everyBell Gothic Linotype matrice ever made. There are early phototypesetters (Star,Photon, Mergenthaler, and Compugraphic). The Museum of Printing has thelargest collection of phototypesetting devices in the world.

There are printing presses of all kinds from Kelly to Heidelberg. There areMonotypes, Ludlows, and Vandercooks. One Vandercook press is for proof-ing process color. There is a multi-ton streotyping system. There is an entirehandset metal font of the Chinese language.

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