From the book to the streets

From the book to the streets:

Large type in public spaces

Edited by Julia Blume, Pierre Pané-Farré

and Fred Smeijers

Published by the Hochschule für Grafik und

Buchkunst, 2014
© 2014 Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst,
The Authors and Photographers
institutbuchkunst@hgb-leipzig.de
Contents
ISBN 978-1-901677-44-3
Foreword  6
Printed by:
DZA Druckerei zu Altenburg GmbH
Photographic city walk 8
Design:
Alex Gwynne
Treaties
Photographs:
Jakob Argauer, Johannes Ernst
Urban space literature or characteristic
characters in Leipzig  14
Julia Blume
Manipulated postcards: Mirrors of their time?  19
Luise Bräuer
The riquet elephant  22
Pascal Renger

Fragments 24

Articles
‘The largest type in England’:
wood lettering for jobbing printing 1800–1830  33
Rob Banham
Stencil dies: New tools for an old trade  45
Eric Kindel
What came after black and red? The development
of chromacity in letterpress posters by the
German speaking print industry from 1827–1865  66
Pierre Pané-Farré
Putting letters next to each other:
A historical overview  85
Fred Smeijers

Bibliography 106
a
‘The largest type in England’:
wood lettering for jobbing
printing, 1800–1830
Rob Banham

The explosion of new display types in Britain in

the nineteenth century has been well documented,
most notably by Nicolete Gray and James Mosley.
This article will focus not on the design of these
new foundry types but on letters cut in wood for
use in jobbing printing. Commercial wood types
were not widely available until the 1830s and in
the preceding thirty years many printers cut their
own wood lettering. A distinction can be made
between wood lettering, which each letter is cut by
hand, meaning that every character is different,
and wood type, which is cut mechanically and pro-
duces identical copies of each character. Printers
using wood lettering pioneered many of the new
letterforms which later appeared in metal. Wood
lettering was also produced at larger sizes than
metal type – one family of printers even claimed
that their letters were ‘the largest type in England’.
The period 1800­–1830 saw the industrial
revolution in Britain reaching its peak. Countless
technological improvements and the shift to mass
production created a rapidly expanding world of
commerce, which was able to take advantage of
improved transport systems to enable goods to
reach customers across the nation. This had an

33
 1 The population of England and Wales
increased from around 9 million in
1801 to 14 million in 1831 [Mitchell, b. r,
British Historical Statistics (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1988) p. 11].
Rising literacy levels are more difficult
to measure. Statistics on the numbers
of people who could sign their name are
not reliable indicators of literacy because
many more people could read than write.
Circulation numbers for newspapers
and periodicals do not account for the
fact that most readers were found in cof-
feehouses, meaning that several people
would read each copy sold. However, the
proliferation of printed advertisements at
the beginning of the nineteenth century
suggests that a good number of house-
holds had at least one member who
was able to read and understand them.
Improvements in education meant that
reading was part of everyday life for the
majority of Britons by the second half of
the nineteenth century: ‘Never before in
English history had so many people read
so much. In the middle class, the reading
circle was the most familiar and beloved
of domestic institutions; and as cheap
printed matter became more accessible,
hardly a family in Britain was without
its little shelf of books and its sheaf of
current periodicals, whether church
papers or the latest hair-raising episodes
concocted by Holywell Street hacks.’
[Altick, R. D., The English Common
Reader (Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 1957) p. 5].
2 For a detailed account of the develop-
ment of modern types see Morlighem, s.,
The ‘modern face’ in France and Great
Britain, 1781–1825: typography as an
ideal of progress, PhD thesis (Reading:
University of Reading, 2014).
3 Twyman, m. Printing 1770–1970
(London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1970)
p. 68.
34 Rob Banham
enormous impact on demand for jobbing printing; 4 Twyman, m. John Soulby, Printer, boldness of his types, and the resulting increase in
companies with products to sell needed to advertise, Ulverston (Reading: University of the amount of ink on the page [figs. 1–2].
Reading/Museum of English
and to shout louder than their competitors. The Rural Life, 1966). The printing of these new designs at ever larger
audience for such advertising was also growing rap- sizes was facilitated by developments in technol-
idly as both population and literacy levels increased.1 ogy for the production and printing of type, in the
As far as typefaces were concerned this form of machine-made paper, inking rollers, new
meant larger and bolder designs were needed. printing presses, and the sanspareil matrix. As
The second half of the eighteenth century had far as jobbing printers were concerned the latter
seen the introduction of a variety of new ‘modern’ two inventions were arguably the more critical.
types, such as those produced by Bodoni and the
Didots.2 By 18oo the high contrast of the strokes in
these designs had become more extreme and as a
result they were somewhat bolder in appearance
than the earlier ‘old’ faces. Jobbing printers who
wanted large type for bills and posters could buy
the same designs in display sizes, but these were
still based on letterforms designed for continuous
text, not jobbing work. The few decorative types
the founders offered were produced in relatively
small sizes and were arguably better suited to title
pages than to posters. However, this was all about
to change: ‘In the course of the first two decades
of the nineteenth century the whole patern of
jobbing printing changed with the introduction of
large, bold, eye-catching types which were designed
specifically for the purpose of advertising.’3
The visual impact of these larger and bolder
types is illustrated by Michael Twyman in his book
on the printer John Soulby.4 In the first decade of
the nineteenth century John Soulby Snr was print-
ing bills and notices using a range of about twenty
different types. His type specimen shows sizes
up to 16-line pica, but the largest type used in any
surviving examples of his work is only 7-line. In
the 1820’s his son, John Soulby Jr, was printing the 2 Theatre bill for Ulverston theatre. John
same kinds of documents. None of his types were 1 Theatre bill for New Theatre, Ulverston. Soulby Jnr (1826) 368 × 159 mm. Soulby
John Soulby Snr (1808) 419 × 184 mm. Snr uses a larger type in 1808 than any
larger than those shown in his father’s specimen, [Barrow Public Library (ZS 506)] shown here, but Soulby Jr’s types are
and the number of types at his disposal was not much bolder. [University of Reading;
much greater. However, the designs were much Department of Typography & Graphic
more varied and there is a clear difference in the Communication: Soulby Collection 376]
The largest type in England 35
 5 Mosley, j., Ornamented types: twentyth-
ree alphabets from the foundry of
Louis John Pouchée (London:
I. M. Imprimit, 1993) vol. 1, p. 7.
Normal methods of typefounding could
only be used to produce type up to a
certain size. Towards the end of the
eighteenth century larger types were
cast in sand; a more refined technique,
‘the so called “sanspareil matrix”, was
evolved for casting the big poster types
that appear during the first decade
of the nineteenth century. In the
sanspareil matrix the form of the letter
is cut through a brass or copper plate.
A backing plate to which it is riveted
forms the face of the type. The princi-
ple is simple, but to make an effective
matrix the cutting and riveting must be
done with great accuracy: the profile of
the cut must have a consistent slope, so
that the type leaves the matrix cleanly,
and each isolated counter, like the cen-
tres of A or the lower-case g, must be
separately cut and riveted in place.’
3 Pouchée’s 26-line pica, his largest type. [l.j. Pouchée, Ornamented types:
Twenty-three Alphabets from the Foundry of Louis John Pouchée with an
introduction by James Mosley (London: I. M. Imprimit, 1993)]
36 Rob Banham
The sanspareil matrix enabled the casting of much
larger sizes of type: ‘A circular drawing attention
to his invention of types cast with the sanspareil
matrix, which t.c. Hansard called “the greatest
single improvement in the art of typefounding
to have taken place in modern times”, was pub-
lished by William Caslon IV (1781–1869) in 1810.
There is little doubt that it was this technique for
making large matrices that enabled the English
typefounders to produce their profusion of poster
types which are excellently cut and cast, during the
second decade of the nineteenth century.’5
The iron press invented by Lord Stanhope in
1800 was superseded by an improved design in
1807 and machines from other manufacturers
were introduced in the following two decades.
Iron presses used a system of compound levers
which meant that they not only delivered greater
pressure than a wooden common press but also
that they required less physical effort to operate.
This gave printers the ability to print larger post-
ers than before and at much greater speed – iron
presses could print a single sheet at one pull of
the press whereas the wooden common press
required two. However, the greatest impact of
the iron press for the jobbing printer was that its
superior power meant that densely inked pages of
6 The term slab serif rather than
Egyptian is used because while
Egyptian became the common term
for slab serif in the nineteenth century
early in the century, it was also used to
describe sans serifs. Slab serif types are
characterised by evenness of line, with
thin strokes around two thirds of the
width of the thick strokes, and slab ser-
ifs of about the same thickness as the
thin strokes. There are some similar-
ities between the appearance of these
typefaces and Egyptian architecture, in
addition to which recent architectural
discoveries in Egypt meant that it was
a civilisation that was very much in the
minds of people at the time and this
would explain the naming of slab serif
as either Egyptian or Antique. Nicolete
Gray regarded the design of the slab
serif typeface as the ‘most brilliant
typographical invention of the century’,
and far superior to the fat face: ‘Instead
of the weak lines and thin serifs of
the fat face here are magnificent solid
stems founded on serifs like rocks. All
the colour and emphasis is retained
without that suggestion of insufficient
support to its grandeur which is the
weakness of the first display type.’
[Gray, n., Nineteenth-century ornamented
types and title pages,
(London: Faber & Faber, 1976) pp. 23–24].
4 William Caslon IV’s ‘Two lines English Egyptian’ (1816). The only
large display types could be printed with ease. It
cannot be a coincidence that such types prolifer-
ated after the advent of the iron press.
In addition to making types that were
much larger and bolder, the typefounders also
introduced groundbreaking new designs, the
most significant being fat face, sans serif, and slab
serif.6 There were also many decorative variants
from the addition of shading or shadows [fig. 21]
to the incredibly complex designs of Pouchée
[fig. 3].Although large numbers of new types were
published during this period, the typefounders
were generally followers, rather than innovators,
in the development of new letterforms. For a type-
foundry to invest time and money in a new design
was risky; a new type could take several months to
produce and there was no guarantee it would sell.
The first sans serif printing type, published by
William Caslon IV between 1811 and 1816, is
a case in point [fig. 4].
date that can be ascribed to this type with any certainty is 1816 but
it seems likely that it was available before this, possibly as early
as 1811. The typeface is widely held to have never been used other
than in type specimens but James Mosley has seen an example of
the type in use in a handbill of 1831 and a ‘commercial perpetual
almanac’ of 1846. Thanks to James for drawing my attention to
these examples of the type in use and to the late Justin Howes for
the photograph of Caslon’s specimen. [Type Archive: SB/TS/03]
The largest type in England 37
 7 Figgins’s 1828 design is shown in
Lommen, m., (ed.), The book of books:
500 years of graphic innovation, (London:
Thames & Hudson, 2012) pp. 242–243.
Thanks to John Lane for drawing this to my
attention, and for providing information
about the dates of early sans serif types.
8 See Mosley, j., The nymph and the grot: the
revival of the sans serif letter (London: Friends
of St Bride Printing Library, 1999) 2nd ed.
9 Kelly, r.r., American wood type 1828–1900:
notes on the evolution of decorated and large
types and comments on the related trades
of the period (New York: Van Nostrand
Reinhold Company, 1969) p.33.
10 Stower, c., The printer’s grammar; or, intro-
duction to the art, with the improvements in
the practice of printing, for the last fifty years
(London: B. Crosby & Co., 1808) p.519.
38 Rob Banham
It was not taken up by printers until many years
later and more than a decade passed before
Figgins released the next sans serif design in
1828.7 A successful design, on the other hand,
would be copied by competitors almost immedi-
ately, so the period in which a type foundry had an
exclusive new design was short. For typefounders
it made more sense to respond to demand than
to launch a speculative new design. Other makers
of letterforms – calligraphers, signwriters, archi-
tects, and engravers of letters in wood, metal, or
stone – had much greater freedom, and it seems
likely that it was these craftsmen who developed
new ideas and were the first to bring cutting-edge
letterforms to the attention of the public.
James Mosley has presented compelling evidence
that the sans serif letterform was revived in the
second half of the eighteenth century, long before
its first manifestation as a typeface.8
Important contributions to the development of
display types were also made by some of the more
enterprising printers of the period, who used let-
terforms cut or engraved in wood. All of the major
new styles appeared as wood lettering before
being produced as type faces. Wood type was
not commercially available on a large scale until
after 1827 when Darius Wells invented the lateral
router. Wells himself published the first known
catalogue of wood type in 1828, but it was only
after the router was combined with Leavenworth’s
pantograph in 1834 that the manufacture of wood
type really became practical.9 However, many
printers used wood lettering for printing before
this, either by cutting separate letters or by cutting
whole words or phrases into a single block of
wood. Most such lettering was produced in-house
but some wood-engravers were advertising this
service as early as 1808.10
The best source of examples of wood lettering
in the period 1800–1830 are found in printed
advertising for the state lottery. The current
national lottery in the UK was introduced in 1994
11 Grant, g. l., ‘The English state lottery
1694–1826’, Journal of the Printing
Historical Society, n.s. 13 (2009) p.5.
12 Sampson, h., A history of advertising from
the earliest times: illustrated by anecdotes,
curious specimens, and biographical notes
(London: Chatto & Windus, 1874) pp. 423–24.
13 The figure of £13,00 is confirmed by an
auditor’s report for the third lottery of
1809: Report of the four auditors appointed to
inspect the accounts delivered by Richardson,
Swift & Co for expences [sic] in the third
lottery for 1809, drawn 19th October, 1810,
in which they were the contractors (London:
Richardson, Swift & Co, 1811) [National
Archives: T/64/324]. Even using the lowest
indicators £13,000 in 1820 is equivalent to
almost £906,700 today [http://www.measur-
ingworth.com/ukcompare/relativevalue.php].
14 For more on the design, production, and
distribution of lottery bills and posters see
Banham, r., ‘Lottery advertising 1800–
1826’, Journal of the Printing Historical
Society, n.s. 13 (2009) pp.17–60.
but lotteries have a much longer history – state lot-
teries began in 1694 and continued until 1826.11
Until the late eighteenth century, lotteries were
resorted to only when finances were particularly
poor or to fund public buildings, but later lotteries
were run regularly to provide the Treasury with an
annual source of income.
"The State lottery was framed on the simple
principle, that the State held forth a certain sum to
be repaid by a larger. The transaction was usu-
ally managed thus. The Government gave £10 in
prizes for every share taken on an average. A great
many blanks or prizes under £10, left, of course,
a surplus for the creation of a few magnificent
prizes wherewith to attract the unwary public.
Certain firms in the City, known as lottery-office
keepers, contracted for the lottery, each taking a
certain number of shares; the sum paid by them
was always more than £10 per share; and the
excess constituted the Government profit. It was
customary, for many years, for the contractors to
give about £16 to the Government and then to
charge the public from £20 to £22. It was made
lawful for the contractors to divide the shares into
halves, quarters, eighths, and sixteenths; and the
contractors always charged relatively more for
these aliquot parts. A man with thirty shillings to
spare could buy a sixteenth; and the contractors
made a large portion of their profit out of such
customers."12
The lottery-office keepers spent huge sums
on publicity; typically there were two or three
lotteries per year and upwards of £13,000 was
spent promoting each one. 13 In the first quarter
of the nineteenth century the lottery was by far
the largest advertiser in London and also became
the first industry to market its wares on a national
scale, distributing bills and posters across the
country and placing advertisements in both local
and national newspapers.14
The largest type in England 39
 15 Handover, p.m., Printing in London from
1476 to modern times (London: George
Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1960) p. 187.
16 Sampson, h., A history of advertising,
p. 465.
5a
5b
5 Lottery bill for Richardson, Goodluck &
Co. Anon. (1816) 205 × 168 mm, folds to
65 x 127 mm. This is an example of a lot-
tery bill used as direct mail – the bill
was
folded and addressed ‘to the occupier
of this house’. Other surviving examples
are personalized, suggesting that the
lottery-office keepers kept records of
their customers. [Bodleian Library; John
Johnson Collection: Lotteries vol. 6 (2a)]
40 Rob Banham
"Hitherto, the most persuasive advertising had
come from the salesmen of patent medicines, but
there was never in this field the sharp rivalry of
a limited number of lottery promoters, engaged
in the keenest competition since very high stakes
were involved. So it was the lottery advertisers who
are to be credited with infinite invention in man-
ner, and there is hardly a device of the modern
advertising agency that has not been anticipated
during the lottery fever of 1800–1826."15
The lotteries pioneered new methods
of distributing printed advertisements during
this period, including use of direct mail and
mobile methods of displaying posters [figs. 5–7].
6 A ‘horse-sandwich’ advertising the last lottery 7 The ‘octagonal perambulator’ advertising the
The handbills that were most commonly used
in 1826. [Smith, W., Advertise. How? When? last lottery in 1826. [Sampson, h., A history of
to advertise the lotteries also broke new ground Where?
(London: Routledge, Warne, and advertising (London: Chatto & Windus, 1874)
in their design and production. From the end of Routledge, 1863) p. 102] plate facing p. 466]
the fifteenth century until the second half of the
nineteenth century most printing was in black
only and purely typographic, but many lottery bills
were printed in two or more colours and featured
woodcut or wood-engraved illustrations [fig. 8].
These bills were printed in vast numbers – at a
conservative estimate £13,000 would have paid
for around three million bills, which is consistent
with Henry Sampson’s assertion that in 1826 the
largest lottery contractor, Tom Bish Junior, ‘show-
ered millions of bills and miles of doggerel verse
upon London just before the final draw took place’.16
The demand for innovation in lottery bills and
the huge quantities in which they were printed
meant that lottery printers wanted the latest types
and would buy them in large quantities. Thus,
they were quicker to take up new designs than 10 Lottery bill for Bish. Anon.
provincial printers such as the Soulbys, and the (1817) 192 × 105 mm.
shift to using larger, bolder types specifically [Bodleian Library; John
8 Lottery bill for Bish. Anon.
Johnson Collection: Lotteries
designed for use in advertising took place much (1826) 222 × 98 mm. The
9 Lottery bill for Richardson, Goodluck vol. 2 (42a)]
earlier in lottery printing [figs. 9 and 10]. Thus, mixing of black and red in
& Co. Evans & Ruffy (1805) 225 × 142
the type is probably not
they were important customers for the foundries, mm. [Bodleian Library; John Johnson
intentional and may result
Collection: Lotteries vol. 7 (7b)]
some of which targeted pages of their specimen from an attempt to print both
colours in a single impres-
sion. [Private collection]
The largest type in England 41

11 Vincent Figgins’s ‘Five Lines Pica, No.
1’ (1815). [Wolpe, b., (ed.), Vincent
Figgins type specimens 1801 and 1815,
reproduced in facsimile (London:
Printing Historical Society, 1967)].
12 Caslon & Catherwood’s ‘Four-line
pica antique’ (1821). [St Bride Library]
42 Rob Banham
books directly at lottery printers. Many
specimens contained a pound sign followed by
numbers or a particular amount of money, usually
£20,000, commonly the largest prize in the state
lottery [fig. 11]. The text in many type specimens
also referred more specifically to the lotteries [fig.
12] and the name ‘Bish’ crops up in several.
However, the typefounders did not always
supply what was required and the alternative for
the enterprising lottery printer was to use lettering
cut or engraved in wood. As well as the freedom
to have the exact size and design required there
were numerous other advantages to using wood
lettering. Firstly, it removed the potential problem
of running out of sorts, which in extreme cases led
to printers having to change size or style within
a single line of type [fig. 13]. Secondly, it made it
possible to join letters together or to kern them
in ways that were not possible with metal type 13 Poster for Sadler’s Wells Theatre. W. 14 Poster for Astley’s circus. Anon. (c.1865)
[fig. 14]. In lottery bills this was often used for Glendinning (1825) 370 × 225 mm. The 360 × 223 mm. The shape of the first S in
compositor ran out of capital Rs in the ‘ASTLEY’S’ has been adjusted to improve
a company name cut from a single block, which 3-line slab serif and substituted a modern the letterspacing in the AST combina-
saved time in typesetting [fig. 15]. Using a single face for the R in ‘ROSE’. The shift from tion. [Look and Learn / Peter Jackson
block also made it possible to move away from caps to lowercase for ‘Fairy Red’ also Collection: XJ102991]
suggests a lack of sorts. [Islington Local
the horizontal and vertical constraints of letter- History Centre and Museum: SWT/1/3/3/4]
press and have lettering on curved lines. Thirdly,
it was easy to reverse out wood lettering and thus
produce white characters on a black (or coloured) 15a 15 A selection of logotypes for
background [fig. 16]. When the typefounders lottery offices (1805–1821)
118 mm wide. Most of
started to produce reversed out, or ‘white’, types the lottery-office keepers
in the mid 1820s they were rarely printed success- changed their logotypes
fully because it was almost impossible to avoid 15b regularly but some were
fairly constant; Sivewright
white spaces between the characters, a problem consistently used slab serif
which was avoided if the lettering was cut from a lettering on a curved line 16 Lottery bill for Bish. Anon. (1817)
single piece of wood.Finally, use of wood lettering 15c – and could be considered 104 × 178 mm. [Bodleian Library;
an early form of branding. John Johnson Collection: Lotteries
also allowed printers to integrate text and image
[Bodleian Library; John vol. 2 (8b)]
– often in ways that would have been extremely diffi- Johnson Collection: Lotteries
15d
cult, if not impossible, using metal type [figs. 17–18]. vol. 7 (8b); vol. 3 (54b); vol. 2
Printers using wood were of course able to (49); vol. 3 (53b); vol. 9 (9)]
use the medium to trial new or unusual designs
15e
[fig. 19]. Given that they were such great buyers of
new types it seems likely that some of the experi-
mental letterforms employed by lottery. elve i kind
The largest type in England 43
A Stencil dies:
New tools for an old trade
Eric Kindel

1 Eric Kindel, ‘Futura Black, c. 1860’,

congress of the Association
Typographique Internationale,
Amsterdam, 10 October 2013. See also
Eric Kindel, ‘Stencil work in America,
1850–1900’, Baseline, 38, 2002,
pp. 5–12, and ‘Recollecting stencil
letters’, Typography papers, 5 (Reading:
Department of Typography & Graphic
Communication, 2003) pp. 82–6,
where elements of the present essay
were first discussed and illustrated.
Foreword
This text is based on the paper ‘Futura Black, c.
1860’, delivered to the annual congress of the
Association Typographique Internationale (ATypI)
in October 2013.1 As its title hints, the paper
attempted to draw connections between the type-
face Futura Black (and other stencil-like precursor
letterforms and alphabets of the 1910s and 1920s)
and the work of stencil die makers who were
active in the north-eastern United States in the
middle decades of the nineteenth century. While
I was unable to detect any direct historical links
(and given the distance of time and geography,
I was perhaps not really expecting to find any), I
did explore morphological similarities – indeed
these had prompted the paper and had supplied
its rather glib title. But again, the occurrence of
similar forms in different eras was, it seems,
unconnected – historically or conceptually. So, for
the present text I will focus only on the invention
of stencil dies in the nineteenth century and leave
aside any further attempts to associate their forms
with those devised by twentieth-century modernists.

45
 2 In North America, in the nineteenth
century, the tools discussed in this
article were almost invariably referred
to as ‘dies’, rather than ‘punches’ (with
at least one important exception, dis-
cussed below). Broadly speaking, dies
perform the work of cutting through,
while punches are used to strike into.
3 In 1837, in volumes reporting on the
exhibition and fair of the Charitable
Mechanic Association in Boston, four
individuals are variously commended
for stencil work, stencil cutting, and
stencil plates: t. o. Brackett, Nathaniel
Dearborn, s. w. Gill, and James Hall;
of these, Dearborn is also commended
for engraving work. However, in
the Directory of Boston for 1845, no
individuals are listed under ‘stencil
cutters’, while in 1850, only one is
listed (though both listings may be
incomplete). In The Massachusetts State
Directory for 1850–1, four Boston sten-
cil cutters are listed. In the Directory
of Boston for 1855, eight stencil cutters
are listed. In major cities elsewhere,
stencil cutters who would later gain
prominence were starting in busi-
ness at around this time, including
Silas h. Quint (Philadelphia, 1849),
James h. Matthews (Pittsburgh, 1850),
Shubael d. Childs (Chicago, 1837;
stencil work advertised from 1851),
Thomas n. Hickcox (New York, 1853).
46 Eric Kindel
Precursors: stencil letters, stencil dies
Around 1850, in Boston in the north-eastern
United States, a new tool was introduced to the
5 Set of brass stencils in walnut box,
work of cutting metal stencils. This tool was the
stencil die, or punch, and with it would come
important changes to stencil letterforms and to
the stencil cutting trade.2
At present relatively little is known about
stencil cutting in the USA prior to the middle of
the nineteenth century. In Boston, it appears to
have been practised on a relatively modest scale
and not infrequently as an extension of or adjunct
to engraving.3 Stencil cutting methods, however,
were adapted to cutting through metal rather than
only incising its surface, and would have involved
the use of gravers, knives, chisels, or acid (for
etching). While the use of dies among engravers
was well established, whether for die sinking and
seal engraving, or as the end-product of punchcut-
ting (as applied to typefounding or bookbinding),
dies had apparently not yet been used for cutting
metal stencils up to this time. This last assertion,
however, must be made reservedly. The reason:
dies can be found in the vicinity of stencil cutting
considerably earlier than the mid-nineteenth
6 George Cumberland, ‘Hints on various
1 Emporte pièces, from the article ‘Cartier’ (detail
of plate 6), Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné
des sciences, des arts, et des métiers, Diderot and
D’Alembert (eds.) (1751, etc.).
4 For details and citations, see Kindel,
‘Recollecting stencil letters’, p. 82 (n. 29).
American Philosophical Society
Museum, Philadelphia. Apart from
Bery’s maker’s mark, he may have
employed a ring punch to cut dot ele-
ments in his decorated stencil letters
and to cut inter-character spacing
dots after letters as an aid to spacing
them. Dies (‘punches’) are mentioned
by a contemporary German observer,
j. g. i. Breitkopf at around the same
time, when he praises the stencils of
Malo and son, faiseurs de caractères,
Paris: ‘I have been told that they [the
stencils] are pierced by hand, but the
evenness of the letters and the[ir] mod-
est price make one suspect that they
are struck with sharp steel punches.’
(‘Man hat mich zwar versichert, daß
sie aus freyer Hand ausgebrochen
würden: aber sowohl die Gleichheit der
Buchstaben, als der geringe Preiß, las-
sen wahrscheinlich vermuthen, daß sie
durch scharfe stählerne Stempel aus-
geschlagen werden.’) Johann Gottlob
Immanuel Breitkopf, Versuch, den
Ursprung der Spielkarten... (Leipzig:
Roch und Compagnie, 1801), pp. 32–3.
Breitkopf died in 1794; his notes,
collected by Roch, therefore refer to
observations made before that date.
modes of printing from autographs’,
A Journal of Natural Philosophy,
Chemistry, and the Arts, January 1810
(collected in vol. 28, 1811), pp. 56–9.
The model for Cumberland’s proposal
is not entirely clear, though it appears
to be printing type.
century, indicating that the combination of sten-
cils and dies would not have been entirely novel
at this time. Several examples provide evidence.
One is the use of emporte pièces in France in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. These were
either flat-faced dies, or hollow dies with sharp
edges; both were used for cutting out suit-signs
from card, canvas, or parchment to create sten-
cils for printing playing cards (fig. 1).4 A second
example is found in the work of Jean Gabriel Bery,
a maker of letters (faiseur de caractères) active in
Paris in the 1780s. His maker’s marks, stamped
into some of his stencil plates, record a close
proximity of dies and stencil letters, even if the
stencil letters themselves were not cut out in this
way (fig 2).5 A third example occurs in 1810, in
England, provided by George Cumberland who
proposed stencils as a handy way to print words
and texts informally. The stencils, he claimed,
could be made with dies (here termed punches):
“… let us suppose he were to make use of capital
letters only, acting as punches on paper, he would
by this method have a paper stencil … common
ingenuity might overcome the difficulties of the O
and other letters by ties.’6
Despite these intersections of dies and stencil
cutting, there is no evidence of die-cut stencil
2 Stencil plate with maker’s
marks, etched brass with
punched marks, Jean
Gabriel Bery, Paris, 1781.
77 × 53 mm. American
Philosophical Society
Museum, Philadelphia.
Stencil dies 47
 7 [No author], Historical sketch of Boston,
containing a brief account of its settle-
ment, rise and progress, with a glance
at its present and prospective prosperity
(Boston: Thom. Adams and
Edward l. Mitchell, 1861).
8 Historical sketch of Boston, p. 78.
Marcus a. Metcalf (b. 1809);
Mason Jerome Metcalf (1807–1883).
9 A device sold as ‘Moore’s Marking
Types’, consisting of (short) metal type
and a cast metal case, in which up to
nine (or more) lines of type could be
assembled and clamped, was patented
in England by the Bristol typefounder
Isaac Moore and the printer William
Pine in 1771 (patent no. 999). See
Eric Kindel, ‘Patents progress: the
Adjustable Stencil’, Journal of the
Printing Historical Society, new series,
no. 9, 2006, p. 69, n. 4–5, where this
device is discussed as a precursor to
the Adjustable Stencil; a contempo-
rary advertisement is also quoted,
giving intended uses for marking
linen and books. Marking types were
a spin-off invention of printing and
typefounding, in which movable type
was configured not for specialists (i.e.
printers) but for a general clientele to
use informally.
48 Eric Kindel
letters in this early period. But knowledge of how
dies performed in general gives an indication of
their advantages: that shapes could be cut with a
single strike, which in turn produced the same
cut-out shape repeatedly – a considerable advan-
tage when, for example, making stencils with
arrays of suit-signs. This was also work of a kind
that could be executed by someone possessing less
skill than was needed to handle a graver, knife,
or chisel expertly, or to undertake etching. These
methods would require more time to perform
than die cutting, and the form-making done with
them would need to be done uniquely, as each job
required; with dies, the forms themselves (if not
their arrangement) were predetermined. It seems
likely that some of these reasons must have prompted
or encouraged the application of die-cutting to stencil
letters when this finally occurred.
Invention: the stencil dies of M. J. Metcalf
In 1861, a modest paper-covered book,
Historical sketch of Boston, was published in that
city.7 The publication retailed the history of
Boston, described prominent civic and religious
institutions, and presented brief accounts of the
city’s principal businesses, which in effect served
as advertisements. One such account was of the
brothers Marcus a. and Mason j. Metcalf, manu-
facturers of marking equipment.
"Hand stamps, for marking clothing. In 1834,
m. a & m. j Metcalf, established the business in
Boston, of manufacturing Hand Stamps and
Indelible Ink for marking clothing; and in 1851,
m. j. Metcalf invented and put into execution, in
Boston, the plan of making Stencil Plates with
steel dies, for marking clothing, and Indelible
Ink for the same, which has taken the place and
surpassed the former plan of using type and hand
stamps."8
10 Maine state census, 1850: ‘Schedule 5.
– Products of industry in Monmouth in
the county of Kennebec, state of Maine
during the year ending June 1, 1850 …’.
11 Simeon M. Metcalf (1818–c. 1858/9).
12 Biographical details for Mason Metcalf
are drawn from Appleton’s cyclopedia
of American biography, James Grant
Wilson, John Fiske, Stanley l. Klos
(eds) (New York: D. Appleton and
Company, 1887–9) vol. 4, p. 311;
see also John Howard Brown (ed.),
Lamb’s biographical dictionary of the
United States (Boston: Federal Book
Company of Boston, 1900–3, vol. 7),
p. 100. Harry h. Cochrane, History of
Monmouth and Wales (East Winthrop,
ME: Banner Co., 1897, pp. 691–3)
describes Metcalf as a resident of
Monmouth, with business interests in
Boston. He does not appear in Boston
business directories in the 1840s or
1850s; he does so only in 1860, after
moving to Boston for a period of years
(discussed below).
13 The dies survive, together with other
Metcalf artefacts and documents, at
the Monmouth Museum. Among the
artefacts relating to Mason Metcalf’s
stencil work are stencil tools, including
several sets of dies, and numerous
stencil plates, some apparently tests of
small-size dies; this material is housed
in Metcalf’s original 10 × 10 foot stencil
shop (interior plastering dated 1854).
Also preserved are samples of Mason
Metcalf’s stencil work stencilled on
paper and cloth, and later circulars, cat-
alogues, and posters from the Metcalfs’
Boston business (discussed below).
The account of the Metcalf business in
Historical sketch of Boston is of undoubted value
in locating and ascribing the invention of stencil
dies, and in providing a date for when it took
place. It is also valuable in describing the technical
basis from which the invention evolved, namely
from ‘marking types’. These were movable metal
types that were fixed together and used as a hand
stamp for marking.9 The account thus confirms
links between typefounding, marking types, and
stencil cutting. The Metcalf brothers possessed
these skills collectively: Mason (fig 3) as stencil
cutter,10 Marcus as typefounder (listed in the
Directory of Boston for 1845), and a third Metcalf
brother, Simeon, as die-sinker (listed in the same
directory for 1850).11 Their skills brought together
precisely the right expertise needed to carry out
the manufacture of stencil dies.
Although the account in Historical sketch
of Boston states that the plan to make sten-
cil plates with dies was ‘put into execution’ in
Boston, the invention of stencil dies itself may
have taken place in Monmouth, Maine, a town
about 150 miles (245 km) north of Boston, where
Mason Metcalf had his permanent residence.12
Monmouth was a prosperous farming and mill
community; here, Metcalf was a farmer while
pursuing other commercial activities, including
stencil cutting (fig 4, 5). It is here that what appears
to be an early – possibly trial – set of stencil dies
survives.13
The dies, comprising incomplete alphabets of
capital and small letters, appear crudely cut, but
to a purpose (fig 6). The ends of the steel bars
have been sawn and filed to form simple geomet-
ric elements comprising only the thick parts of
conventional letters; no thin parts or serifs are
present. Given the size of the letters (about 3 mm,
capital height) and the cutting tools used, it seems
that no other result was possible. The results are
stark and unconventional, and may represent a
first phase of inventing in which Mason Metcalf
Stencil dies 49
 14 It seems clear that small-size dies were
the first to be devised, perhaps because
small stencil letters were otherwise
difficult or impossible to cut with
chisels or gravers. It was possible to
etch them, though it seems that stencil
cutters in North America were not as
well acquainted with this technique as
their European counterparts.
15 Addresses are in Monmouth,
elsewhere in Maine (Augusta, Bath,
Gardiner), Massachusetts (Boston,
Charlestown, Lowell, Newburyport,
Randolph, Salem), and Connecticut
4 Stencil shop of Mason Jerome Metcalf, Momnouth,
(Wallingford). Names and associated
Maine, interior plastered in 1852. Monmouth Museum,
addresses were traced for businesses in
Monmouth, Maine.
Boston using the Directory of Boston for
1845, 1850, 1855, and 1860.
3 Mason Jerome Metcalf, date not known.
7 Stencil plate for R. N. B. Cunningham,
die-cut brass with zinc frame, prob-
ably cut by M. J. Metcalf, c. 1850–55.
Monmouth Museum, Monmouth,
Maine.
5 Stencil shop interior with surviving tools, stencils,
cutting blocks, and workbench. Monmouth Museum,
Monmouth, Maine.
6 Stencil dies (and detail), steel, probably cut
by Mason Jerome Metcalf, c. early 1850s.
Monmouth Museum, Monmouth, Maine.
50 Eric Kindel
felt unconstrained by convention, but instead was
guided only by the forms his tools could gener-
ate at this small scale. Equally, perhaps, he was
anticipating the work the dies would eventually
perform, namely, being struck repeatedly through
brass into a hard support. For this, suitably robust
letterforms were a necessity (fig 7).14
Astonishing though it is that Mason Metcalfs
apparently early dies survive, so too do various
items of stencilled commercial ephemera made at
around this time with dies of the same or similar
design, and which Metcalf apparently preserved
as records of work. While the items are not dated,
they fall roughly into the period 1850–55, based
on the evidence of when named individuals or
businesses occupied the addresses shown.15
Items are variously composed with capital and
small letters in upright and backslanting roman
styles, in several sizes, indicating that Metcalf
had soon equipped himself with a considerable
range of dies. Some represent attempts to cut
more conventional letters with serifs, while others
follow the style of the surviving dies, shorn of all
detail, producing highly coherent and again quite
unconventional – indeed startling – sets of letter-
forms (fig 8–12). The use of small-size dies no
doubt increased the speed at which stencils could
be cut, and in addition to name plates for marking
clothing, they allowed certain kinds of commercial
ephemera (business cards, receipts, labels) to be
produced at this (small) scale.
Important though the Monmouth artefacts and
documents are for illustrating the early design and
use of dies, there is at present little evidence of the
arrangements the Metcalfs subsequently adopted
for die manufacturing. The testimony provided
by the Historical sketch of Boston only states that
‘the plan of making stencil plates with steel dies’
was put into execution in Boston. It is known that
during these years, Mason Metcalf moved between
Monmouth and Boston, presumably supporting
the Metcalf stencil business there. Notably, Metcalf
Stencil dies 51
 16 Metcalf advertisements up to 1860
offer several glimpses of their oper-
ations. In 1853, s. m. Metcalf adver-
tised ‘Stencil plates and indelible
ink, for marking clothing, books,
cards, &c. … Agents supplied in
any part of the United States and
Canada’, suggesting that orders
from agents would be filled, but
not that agents would be equipped
with stencil cutting tools; Windham
County Democrat (Brattleboro,
Vermont; October 12, 1853). In
1855, Metcalf advertisements
announce a ‘new style of stencil
plates’ with names cut in ‘writing
letters’, that is, in a cursive script
cut with dies. While advertisements
from 1855 onwards offer ‘stencil
stock’, wholesale and retail, the
earliest offering of stencil dies is
not found until 1861, that is to say,
the same year the Historical sketch
of Boston was published.
advertisements from this time appear under the
name ‘s. m. Metcalf’, indicating that it was Simeon,
a full-time resident of Boston, who ran the busi-
ness. But the advertisements make no reference
to dies or other stencil tools, only stencil cutting
services. This raises the question of whether the
Metcalfs manufactured dies only for themselves,
or if they were also sold to others in the trade or to
the general public.16
18 Adoniram Judson Fullam (1835–1900).
8 Die-cut letters, numbers, sorts, brass, probably cut by Mason
Jerome Metcalf, date not known. Approx. 30 × 100mm.
Monmouth Museum, Monmouth, Maine. This appears to be a
trial design for a ‘plain roman’ or ‘coarse roman’, as later named
in Metcalf commercial ephemera.
17 Mason Metcalf never secured a patent
for stencil dies, perhaps concluding
that because dies were not a new tool
they were not patentable, even if their
application to stencil letter cutting was
apparently novel. A later source giving
biographical details about Metcalf
mentions both his invention of stencil
dies and his failure to patent them.
‘His most important invention was a
method of producing letter-stencils
by means of dies, which he was the
first to practise and bring into use. Up
to that time such stencils had been
made entirely with chisels. … None
of his inventions were ever patented.’
Appleton’s cyclopedia of American biogra-
phy, vol. 4, p. 311.
Commercialization: A. J. Fullam’s American
stencil tool works
The 1861 account of Mason Metcalf’s invention of
stencil dies in the Historical sketch of Boston occurs
at a time other manufacturers in the north-eastern
United States had begun making dies as well.
Perhaps the Metcalfs wanted to remind the public
about who had invented them;17 or they felt that
they were missing a commercial opportunity they
were well-placed to exploit. They may have noticed
the growing volume of advertisements for sten-
cil dies, which when purchased would give their
buyers a ready means to practise stencil cutting;
or they were disconcerted by a patent granted in
April 1860 for the manufacture of stencil dies.
Both these latter developments could be traced to
an enterprising stencil die maker located to the
west, in Springfield, Vermont: a. j. Fullam.
How Adoniram Judson Fullam 18 (fig 14)
entered the business of stencil die manufacture
is recorded in a book published by the New York
advertising agency, Geo. p. Rowell & Co., which

9 Stencilled receipt, Geo. H.

Mitchell, Boston, c. early
10 Stencilled business card
1850s. Monmouth Museum,
for T. Eaton Jr, c. 1850s.
Monmouth, Maine.
Monmouth Museum,
Monmouth, Maine.

13 Advertising stencil for M[ason]. J[erome].

11 Stencilled business card for
R. T and J. I. Bosworth, c.
1850s. Monmouth Museum,
Monmouth, Maine.
Metcalf, chisel-cut brass, c. 1850s. 143 × 215 mm.
Monmouth Museum, Monmouth, Maine.
12 Stencilled paper label for
Howard, c. 1850s. Monmouth
Museum, Monmouth, Maine.
14 Adoniram Judson Fullam, date not
known.

52 Eric Kindel Stencil dies 53

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