The ultimate preservation of any field is due largely to the initial efforts by individual enthusiasts to save it when it is still unfashionable and being thrown away. Without these collectors and scholars, we would have and know very little indeed.
I'll list a couple of institutions noted for their type collections, but this is not primarily a list of museums. The best list of the current locations of the historic materials of typefounding is a blog entry by James Mosley, "The Materials of Typefounding: A Guide to the Present Location of Typographical Punches, Matrices, Drawings, Type Specimens and Archives": http://typefoundry.blogspot.com/2006/01/materials-of-typefounding.html, 2006-01-06. This is in large part a revision of his volume Handmade Type: Thoughts on the Preservation of Typographic Materials (Oldham, UK: Incline Press, 2006).
I'll also include a few people who were in management at various companies and who influenced their types in one way or another, but who are remembered less as Engineers, Managers, or Owners and more as scholars. Stevens L. Watts is a good example.
Beyond this, I'll include all others who don't quite fit in elsewhere - such as non-graphic artists whose works/installations precipitated the making of type (such as Sonya Lacey).
A number of the people mentioned here were important in the 20th century revival of "antique" (19th century ornamental) types.
This is a long list. That is a good thing.
[US] Prof. Ray Abrams
Type collector and participant in the 20th century revival of "antique" (19th century ornamental) types with his friend T. J. Lyons. Saxe {APHA 71 (1986)} says that Abrams' metal type collection, when dispersed, amounted to eleven tons.
[US] William T. Allan
Type collector and participant in the 20th century revival of "antique" (19th century ornamental) types. Saxe {APHA 71 (1986)} lists him with ca. 265 fonts of metal and 50 fonts of wood type. No specimen of this collection is known to me.
[US] John Anderson
Pickering Press. Director of Typographic Development, Lanston Monotype Machine Company [Clair Van Vliet, in Proceedings of the Fine Printing Conference at Columbia University (NY: School of Library Service, Columbia University, 1983): 79.] Shepherded Goudy Thirty through production. Co-ran, with John de Pol, the printing workshop at Fairleigh Dickinson University. [Stephen O. Saxe, e-mail 2012-09-14] See Fraser, James H. and Renée I. Weber. John Anderson and the Pickering Press. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Library, 1980).
[US] Maurice Annenberg
A commercial printer in Baltimore who, through two outstanding books, provided the necessary background information for the study of 19th century American type and typefounding.
[US] Bowne & Co., Stationers
A working museum at the South Street Seaport Museum in New York. They acquired the very important Frederick Nelson Phillips / Tri-Arts collection of historic 19th century type.
Their website is: http://southstreetseaportmuseum.org/category-s/1878.htm and ther supporters, the Friends of Bowne, are at http://friendsofbowne.wordpress.com/
[US] Henry Lewis Bullen
Often for American Type Founders, but really an industry unto himself.
[UK] Harry Carter
Perhaps the greatest historian of type of the 20th century.
Harry Carter and his son, the letterform designer Matthew Carter, are unrelated to the printer and letterform designer Will Carter and his son, the printer and typographical authority Sebastian Carter.
[UK] Sebastian Carter
Printer and typographical authority.
Sebastian Carter and his father, the printer and letterform designer Will Carter, are unrelated to the letterform designer Matthew Carter and his father, the great typographical historian Harry Carter.
[US] David C. Churchman
Type collector and typefounder. Died 2015-12-29 at age 82. An important figure in the preservation of typefounding materials. Purchased Sterling Type Foundry. Saxe {APHA 71 (1986)} lists him with ca. 450 fonts of metal and 100 fonts of wood type. (If you ever had the pleasure of visiting his "Boutique du Junque" you could well believe it.) Sterling Type Foundry has since passed on to Bob Magill. Churchman reprinted the 1916 Thompson Type Caster manual
[UK] Nicolette/Nicolete Gray
An outstanding scholar of lettering and type. The serious study in the 20th century of 19th century ornamented types begins with her work.
[US] David Greer
Type collector. Acquired the Lyons collection, one of the most important collections of type in the 20th century revival of "antique" (19th century ornamental) types. Saxe {APHA 71 (1986)} lists William Greer (father) and David Greer (son) with ca. 700 fonts of metal and 450 fonts of wood type (I'm not sure if this figure for the wood type includes the Lyons collection). He has put photos of his specimens from the Lyons collection online at http://www.flickr.com/photos/39182740@N04
[US] Herb Harnish
Type collector. Provided many of the 19th century types for which matrices were electroformed by Andrew Dunker, and thus contributed significantly to the metal type aspect of the 20th century revival of "antique" (19th century ornamental) types. Collection to David W. Peat Saxe {APHA 71 (1986)} lists him with ca. 400 fonts of metal and 100 fonts of wood type.
[US] Fritz Klinke
Printer, businessman, and scholar. Proprietor of N.A.Graphics,
[NZ] Sonya Lacey
An artist outside of the "Book Arts / Graphic Arts" tradition (with, e.g., sculptural and video works) whose 2016 installation "Dilutions and Infinitesimals" prompted the cutting (by Fraser Engineering) of David Kindersley's 1952 lettering design MoT Serif for the Mangaroa Foundry of the Printing Museum of New Zealand (cast on their Monotype Super Caster; Michael Curry, casterman.)
[US] T. J. Lyons
A printer and early collector of both metal and wood type from the 19th century. From the 1920s through the 1980s he was an important figure in the preservation and transmission of this type. In his own printing he used rubber stamp making technologies for creating rubber copies of these types for use (to conserve the originals); some of his types were also re-issued for photocomposition and photolettering by Visual Graphics Corp. (Photo-Typositor) and Compugraphic equipment.
[US] William Maccoun
Type collector. Saxe {APHA 71 (1986)} lists him with ca. 115 fonts of metal and 150 fonts of wood type.
[US] Morgan
Willard D. Morgan, and sons Douglas and Lloyd. Wood type collectors. Saxe {APHA 71 (1986)} lists them with (well) over 2500 fonts of metal and ca. 700 fonts of wood type. Collection to the Smithsonian.
[UK] Stanley Morison
Scholar and author. Perhaps the Henry Lewis Bullen of the 20th century. Project manager in the creation of Times New Roman, which was drawn in 1932 by Victor Lardent.
[UK] James Mosley
Noted scholar of type, with a particular interest in early punchcutting and matrix making. He has the distinction of writing the only blog on the entire Internet which is worth reading: http://typefoundry.blogspot.com/
[US] David Norton
Type collector. Saxe {APHA 71 (1986)} lists him with ca. 510 fonts of metal and 100 fonts of wood type.
For some time he was working on a "McGrew for the 19th century," but his death cut this project short.
[US] David W. Peat
Type collector, typefounder, and publisher. Peat and Son Typefoundry (P.A.S.T.). Publisher of a series of well-produced reprints of often very rare 19th century type specimen books. Saxe {APHA 71 (1986)} lists him with ca. 750 fonts of metal and 200 fonts of wood type.
[US] Frederick Nelson Phillips (Tri-Arts)
Printer. Collector. Phillips' Old Fashioned Type Book. (1945.) Frederic Nelson Phillips, Inc. offered composition and reproduction proofs from antique type. Saxe {APHA 71 (1986)} lists him with ca. 1200 fonts of metal and 180 fonts of wood type. Collection to Bowne & Co., Stationers.
[US] Jane W. Roberts
Printer and type collector. Saxe {APHA 71 (1986)} lists her with ca. 175 fonts of metal type.
[US] Elrie Robinson
1883-1955. Collector. Important early participant in the 20th century revival of "antique" (19th century ornamental) types, especially through his Horse and Buggy Printing (1939). Collection via the Carl and Lilly Pforzheimer Foundation to the the New York Public Library (briefly) and then (sans books? the Pforzheimer books are still at the NYPL) to SUNY Purchase, NY.
[US] Stephen O. Saxe
Type specimen collector, type collector, printer, scholar, author, and editor. The edition of Loy that he co-edited with Johnston, with comprehensive showings of type and substantial notes and appendices, is one of the most useful reference books available on 19th century American type. He also edited a new edition Annenberg's Type Foundries of America and their Catalogs, which is the basic desk reference for the history of American typefounding.
[US] Dan X. Solo
Collector and author/editor. Re-issues of 19th century types for photocomposition and photolettering.
[US] Martin and Penny Speckter
Type collectors. Saxe {APHA 71 (1986)} lists them with ca. 150 fonts of metal and 40 fonts of wood type.
Martin Speckter wrote a lovely Disquisition on the Composing Stick (NY: The Typophiles, 1971). Typophiles Chap Book No. 49.
[US] William O. Thorniley
Type collector. Saxe {APHA 71 (1986)} lists him with ca. 665 fonts of metal type. Collection to West Coast Paper Co., Seattle.
[US] Daniel Berkeley Updike
Proprietor of the Merrymount Press, Boston. Remarkable for his ability to dislike entire centuries of type and printing.
[US] Gregory Jackson Walters
Prominent collector of typecasting machinery and distinguished private typecaster and printer.
[US] Stevens L. Watts
Printer, type foundry executive. At ATF 1919-1955. d. by 1968. Port Royal, VA. In 1950s/1960s had revival castings done by ATF from ATF mats under the name Kittypot Castings.
[US] John K. White
Initiated and supervised the making of typeface for the Cherokee syllabary, cut by W. Malowski at the Triangle Type Foundry to a design by Torvald Faegre. A brief obituaty in the Cherokee Phoenix. Vol. 30, No. 9 (September 2006) gives White's dates as 1937-2006. (Ironically, the same page of this newspaper shows the Cherokee syllabary in a non-italic typeface which is not the one Faegre designed.)
[US] Lilian and Parker Worley
Type collectors. Saxe {APHA 71 (1986)} lists them with ca. 500 fonts of metal and 100 fonts of wood type.
De Vinne was, indeed, a great scholar, but he was also a type designer. He's filed, therefore, in ../ Type Designers.
All portions of this document not noted otherwise are Copyright © 2011-2012, 2022 by David M. MacMillan.
Circuitous Root is a Registered Trademark of David M. MacMillan.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons "Attribution - ShareAlike" license, version 4.0 International. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ for its terms.
Presented originally by Circuitous Root®
