1
 From the book to the streets

2 
 From the book to the streets:
Large type in public spaces

Edited by Julia Blume, Pierre Pané-Farré, and Fred Smeijers

© 2014 Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst, the authors and photograhpers
ISBN 978-1-901677-44-3
www.institutbuchkunst.co.uk
Design: Ellie Bird
Photographs: Jakob Argauer, Johannes Ernst
Printed by DZA Druckerei zu Altenburg GmbH Published by the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst, 2014
Contents

Foreword  3
Photographic city walk 5

Treaties
Julia Blume, Urban space literature or characteristic characters in Leipzig  11
Luise Bräuer, Manipulated Postcards – Mirrors of Their Time?  16
Pascal Renger, The Riquet elephant  19

Fragments  21

Articles
Rob Banham, ‘The largest type in England’: wood lettering for jobbing printing 1800-1830  27
Eric Kindel, Stencil dies: new tools for an old trade  41
Pierre Pané-Farré, What came after black and red? The development of chromacity in
letterpress posters by the German speaking print industry from 1827 to 1865  61
Fred Smeijers, Putting letters next to each other: a historical overview  81

Bibliography 101
Rob Banham
‘The largest type in England’:
Wood Lettering for Jobbing Printing,
1800–1830

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 1830’s and
in the preceding thirty years many printers cut their own
wood lettering. A distinction can be made between wood
lettering, where each letter is cut by hand, meaning that
every character is different, and wood type, which is cut
mechanically and produces identical copies of each character.
Printers using wood lettering pioneered many of the new
letter forms 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 enormous impact on demand for jobbing printing;
1 The population of England and Wales
increased from around 9 million in 1801 companies with products to sell needed to advertise, and to
to 14 million in 1831 [Mitchell, B.R., British shout louder than their competitors. The audience for such
Historical Statistics (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1988) p. 11]. Rising literacy
advertising was also growing rapidly as both population and
levels are more difficult to measure. Statistics literacy levels increased.1
on the numbers of people who could sign As far as typefaces were concerned, this meant larger
their name are not reliable indicators of
literacy because many more people could
and bolder designs were needed. The second half of the
read than write. Circulation numbers for eighteenth century had seen the introduction of a variety of
newspapers and periodicals do not account new ‘modern’ types, such as those produced by Bodoni and
for the fact that most readers were found in
coffeehouses, meaning that several people
the Didots.2 By 18oo the high contrast of the strokes in these
would read each copy sold. However, the designs had become more extreme and as a result they were
proliferation of printed advertisements at somewhat bolder in appearance than the earlier ‘old’ faces.
the beginning of the nineteenth century
suggests that a good number of households
Jobbing printers who wanted large type for bills and posters
had at least one member who was able to could buy the same designs in display sizes, but these were
read and understand them. Improvements still based on letterforms designed for continuous text, not
in education meant that reading was part of
everyday life for the majority of Britons by
jobbing work. The few decorative types the founders offered
the second half of the nineteenth century: were produced in relatively small sizes and were arguably
‘Never before in English history had so many better suited to title pages than to posters. However, this was
people read so much. In the middle class,
the reading circle was the most familiar
all about to change:
and beloved of domestic institutions; and
In the course of the first two decades of the nineteenth century the
as cheap printed matter became more
accessible, hardly a family in Britain was whole pattern of jobbing printing changed with the introduction of
without its little shelf of books and its sheaf of large, bold, eye-catching types which were designed specifically for
current periodicals, whether church papers
the purpose of advertising.
or the latest hair-raising episodes concocted
by Holywell Street hacks.’ [Altick, R.D., The
English Common Reader (Chicago: The
The visual impact of these larger and bolder types is
University of Chicago Press, 1957) p. 5]. illustrated by Michael Twyman in his book on the printer
John Soulby.4 In the first decade of the nineteenth century
2 For a detailed account of the
development of modern types see John Soulby Snr was printing bills and notices using a
Morlighem, S., The ‘modern face’ in France range of about twenty different types. His type specimen
and Great Britain, 1781–1825: typography as
shows sizes up to 16-line pica but the largest type used in
an ideal of progress, PhD thesis (Reading:
University of Reading, 2014). any surviving examples of his work is only 7-line. In the
1820’s his son, John Soulby Jr, was printing the same kinds
3 Twyman, Michael., Printing 1770–1970
(London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1970) p. 68.
of documents. None of his types were larger than those
shown in his father’s specimen, and the number of types
4 Twyman, M., John Soulby, Printer,
at his disposal was not much greater. However, the designs
Ulverston (Reading: University of Reading/
were much more varied and there is a clear difference in 2
Museum of English Rural Life, 1966).
the boldness of his types, and the resulting increase in the
amount of ink on the page [figs 1–2].  Figure  1  Theatre bill for New Theatre,
The printing of these new designs at ever larger sizes Ulverston. John Soulby Snr (1808) 419 x 184

was facilitated by developments in technology for the 1

mm. [Barrow Public Library (ZS 506)

production and printing of type, in the form of machine-  Figure  2  Theatre bill for Ulverston
made paper, inking rollers, new printing presses, and the theatre. John Soulby Jnr (1826) 368 x 159
mm. Soulby Snr uses a larger type in 1808
sanspareil matrix. As far as jobbing printers were concerned than any shown here, but Soulby Jr’s types
the latter two inventions were arguably the more critical. are much bolder. [University of Reading;
The sanspareil matrix enabled the casting of much larger Department of Typography & Graphic
Communication: Soulby Collection 376]

2 ‘THE LARGEST TYPE IN ENGLAND’ ROB BANHAM 3

5 Mosley, J., Ornamented types: twenty-
three 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 principle 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 centres of A or the lower-case g, must be
separately cut and riveted in place.’
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 serifs of about the
same thickness as the thin strokes. There are
some similarities 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].
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.
4 ‘THE LARGEST TYPE IN ENGLAND’
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 published 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 posters 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 large display types could be
printed with ease. It cannot be a coincidence that such types
proliferated 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 typefoundry 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]. 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 immediately, 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, architects, 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
3
4 Archive: SB/TS/03]
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.
 Figure  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)]
 Figure  4  William Caslon IV’s ‘Two lines
English Egyptian’ (1816). The only 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 typfeace 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
ROB BANHAM 5
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, introduction to the art, with the
improvements in the practice of printing, for
the last fifty years (London: B. Crosby & Co.,
1808) p.519.
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.
6 ‘THE LARGEST TYPE IN ENGLAND’
Important contributions to the development of display
types were also made by some of the more enterprising
printers of the period, who used letterforms 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 but lotteries have a much longer history
— state lotteries 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 usually 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
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 manner, 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].
The handbills that were most commonly used to advertise
the lotteries also broke new ground in their design and
production. From the end of 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
5b
5a
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.measuringworth.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.
15 Handover, P.M., Printing in London from
1476 to modern times (London: George
Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1960) p. 187.
 Figure  5  a&b. Lottery bill for
Richardson, Goodluck & Co. Anon (1816)
205 x 168 mm, folds to 65 x 127 mm. This is
an example of a lottery 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)]
ROB BANHAM 7

 Figure  6  A ‘horse-sandwich’
advertising the last lottery in 1826.
[Smith, W., Advertise. 
How? When?
Where?
(London: Routledge, Warne, and
Routledge, 1863) p. 102]
 Figure  7  The ‘octagonal
perambulator’ advertising the last lottery
in 1826. [Sampson, H., A history of
advertising (London: Chatto & Windus,
1874) plate facing p. 466]
 Figure  8  Lottery bill for Bish. Anon.
(1826) 222 x 98 mm. The mixing of black
and red in the type is probably not
intentional and may result from an attempt
to print both colours in a single impression.
[Private collection]
8 ‘THE LARGEST TYPE IN ENGLAND’
three million bills, which is consistent with Henry Sampson’s 16 Sampson, H., A history of advertising,
p. 465.
assertion that in 1826 the largest lottery contractor, Tom Bish
Junior, ‘showered 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 provincial printers such as the Soulbys, and the
shift to using larger, bolder types specifically designed for
use in advertising took place much earlier in lottery printing
[figs 9 and 10]. Thus they were important customers for the
foundries, some of which targeted pages of their specimen
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
6
name ‘Bish’ crops up in several.
 Figure  9  Lottery bill for Richardson,
Goodluck & Co. Evans & Ruffy (1805) 225 x
9 10
142 mm. [Bodleian Library; John Johnson
Collection: Lotteries vol. 7 (7b)]
 Figure  10  Lottery bill for Bish. Anon
(1817) 192 x 105 mm. [Bodleian Library; John
7 Johnson Collection: Lotteries vol.
ROB BANHAM 9

 Figure  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)].
 Figure  12  Caslon & Catherwood’s ‘Four-
line pica antique’ (1821). [St Bride Library]
10 ‘THE LARGEST TYPE IN ENGLAND’
to move away from the horizontal and vertical constraints
of letterpress 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) background [fig.
16]. When the typefounders started to produce reversed out,
or ‘white’, types in the mid 1820s they were rarely printed
successfully because it was almost impossible to avoid white
spaces between the characters, a problem which was avoided
if the lettering was cut from a single piece of wood. Finally,
use of wood lettering also allowed printers to integrate text
and image – often in ways that would have been extremely
11
12
13 14
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
15a 15b
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
15c 15d
together or to kern them in ways that were not possible with
metal type [fig. 14]. In lottery bills this was often used for a
company name cut from a single block, which saved time in
typesetting [fig. 15]. Using a single block also made it possible
15e
 Figure  13  Poster for Sadler’s Wells
Theatre. W. Glendinning (1825) 370 x 225
mm. The compositor ran out of capital Rs
in the 3-line slab serif and substituted a
modern face for the R in ‘ROSE’. The shift
from caps to lowercase for ‘Fairy Red’ also
suggests a lack of sorts. [Islington Local
History Centre and Museum: SWT/1/3/3/4]
 Figure  14  Poster for Astley’s circus.
Anon (c.1865) 360 x 223 mm. The shape of
the first S in ‘ASTLEY’S’ has been adjusted
to improve the letterspacing in the AST
combination. [Look and Learn / Peter
Jackson Collection: XJ102991]
 Figure  15  a–e. A selection of logotypes
for lottery offices (1805–1821) 118 mm wide.
Most of the lottery-office keepers changed
their logotypes regularly but some were
fairly constant; Sivewright consistently used
slab serif lettering on a curved line – and
could be considered an early form of
branding. [Bodleian Library; John Johnson
Collection: Lotteries vol. 7 (8b); vol. 3 (54b);
vol. 2 (49); vol. 3 (53b); vol. 9 (9)]
ROB BANHAM 11

16
 Figure  16  Lottery bill for Bish. Anon
(1817) 104 x 178 mm. [Bodleian Library; John
Johnson Collection: Lotteries vol. 2 (8b)]
17
 Figure  17  Lottery bill. Gye & Balne
(1810) 222 x 135 mm. [Private collection]
 Figure  18  Lottery bill for Richardson,
Goodluck & Co. Anon. (1810) 224 x 138 mm.
[Private collection]
12 ‘THE LARGEST TYPE IN ENGLAND’
difficult, if not impossible, using metal type [figs. 17–18].
Printers using wood were of course able to use the
medium to trial new or unusual designs [fig. 19]. Given that
they were such great buyers of new types it seems likely that
some of the experimental letterforms employed by lottery
printers influenced what was released by the typefounders
and there is certainly some evidence to support this theory.
The first true fat-face types were not produced until around
1810 but fat-face cut in wood features in lottery bills as
early as 1805 [fig. 20].17 The first slab-serif types were cut by
Vincent Figgins, probably in 1817, but possibly shortly before
19 20
18
21
17 In his PhD thesis on the modern face
Sébastien Morlighem uses André and
Laucou’s method, adapted from the work
of Peter Karow, to measure the weight of
typefaces: K (weight) = w × 100 / h where w
is the width of the stem and h is the height
of the character. On the accompanying scale
semi-bold types have a K value between 15
and 24, bold between 25 and 32 and fat (or
black) greater than 32 [André, J., and Laucou
C., Histoire de l’ecriture typographique:
le xixe siècle français ([Méolans-Revel]:
Atelier Perrousseaux editeur, 2013) p.22].
Morlighem suggests that the first genuinely
‘fat’ types were not cut until 1810, the year in
which Thorne shows a ‘16 Lines Pica’ type,
in lowercase only, which has a K value of
35. An earlier type, Caslon & Catherwood’s
‘Two line double pica’, cut sometime
between 1805 and 1810, has caps which
have a K value of 33.33 but the lowercase is
only 23.33. All of the other types cut before
1810 are classed as semi-bold or bold. See
Morlighem, S., The ‘modern face’ in France
and Great Britain, 1781–1825, pp. 349–357.
The wood lettering shown in the bill
illustrated in figure 20 has K values of 33.97
(caps) and 33.75 (numerals).
 Figure  19  Lottery bill for Bish. Anon.
(1817). 218 x 142 mm. [Bodleian Library;
John Johnson Collection: Lotteries vol. 2 (3)]
 Figure  20  Lottery bill for Bish. Evans
& Ruffy (1805) 225 x 139 mm. [Bodleian
Library; John Johnson Collection: Lotteries
vol. 2 (4a)]
 Figure  21  Vincent Figgins’s ‘Five Lines
Pica Antique’ (1817). Although the title page
of the specimen is dated 1815 this page and
another showing the four-line pica antique
only appear in copies that contain leaves
watermarked 1817. [Wolpe, B., (ed.), Vincent
Figgins type specimens 1801 and 1815]
ROB BANHAM 13
18 Mosley, J., Ornamented types, vol.
1, p. 7.
19 See Mosley, J., The nymph and the grot.
22
 Figure  22  Lottery bill for Sivewright
with slab serif wood letter. Anon. (1816) 218
x 124 mm. The two-colour lettering is one
of the first such examples in jobbing work.
[Bodleian Library; John Johnson Collection:
Lotteries vol. 3 (54b)]
 Figure  23  Lottery share featuring a slab
serif N. Anon. (1811) 65 x 182 mm. [Bodleian
Library; John Johnson Collection: Lotteries
box 2 (48b)]
 Figure  24  Lottery share featuring sans
serif lettering for the word ‘ticket’. Anon.
(1807) 68 x 173 mm. [Bodleian Library; John
Johnson Collection: Lotteries box 2 (40b)]
14 ‘THE LARGEST TYPE IN ENGLAND’
[fig. 21]. Figgins’s design was in uppercase only – lowercase
did not become available until 1821 – but lottery bills of
1816 show not only well-resolved lowercase forms but also
shaded versions [fig. 22]. At a smaller scale, on lottery shares,
the slab serif can be found much earlier [fig. 23]. There is no
evidence of the slab serif before its appearance in lottery
printing and it may be that it was first conceived by one
of the lottery printers or, as James Mosley suggested in his
introduction to Ornamented types, one of the lottery office
keepers.18 It certainly appears to have been well developed
as a wood-engraved form before Figgins’s typeface was
released. Sans serif letterforms also appear in lottery shares
several years before William Caslon IV’s typeface [fig. 24] but
the sans serif form has a long history and was by no means
an invention of the lottery printers.19 As well as being able
to produce experimental new letterforms the engravers
could, of course, also match, and customize as necessary, any
designs that were available from the typefounders [fig. 25].
25
23
 Figure  25  Poster for Astley’s circus. T.
Romney (1833) 495 x 380 mm. Apart from
the printer’s name and address at the foot
this entire poster is printed from wood.
The anonymous engraver shows a full
repertoire of letterforms: fat face, slab serif,
tuscan, and a number of variants of sans
serif including lowercase, italic, small caps,
outline, and even a backwards-slanting
italic. [Look and Learn / Peter Jackson
24 Collection: XJ122867]
ROB BANHAM 15
20 Dickens, C., ‘Bill-sticking’, Household
Words, 52 (22 March 1851) pp. 603–604.
21 Vauxhall Gardens was a model
for pleasure gardens across the world
– Paris, St. Petersburg, and New York
had gardens named after it, and it was
also the inspiration for Tivoli Gardens
in Copenhagen. Established in 1661,
Vauxhall became fashionable after being
remodelled and reopened by Jonathan
Tyers Snr in 1732. Jonathan Tyers Jnr adopted
the name Vauxhall Gardens in 1785. From
1821–41, under Gye’s management, it
was one of London’s most popular places
of entertainment. For more on Gye’s
involvement with Vauxhall see Banham, ‘Gye
and Balne: printing families’ pp. 28–33.
22 See Banham, R., ‘Gye and Balne: printing
families’, Journal of the Printing Historical
Society, n.s. 5 (2003) pp.17–42.
23 Pigot & Co’s national, London, &
provincial commercial directory for 1832–3–4
(London: Pigot & Co., 1832–34) p. 2 of a
section of advertisements at the back of the
directory.
24 Thorowgood’s new specimen of printing
types, 1821 [St Bride Library].
‘nine of them in constant use’.23 The buying power of such a
25 Bath Journal, 5 December 1808.
‘Posting bills, and public amusements, coach and waggon [sic]
16 ‘THE LARGEST TYPE IN ENGLAND’
The author Charles Dickens names the principal printers
of posting-bills as ‘Messrs. Evans and Ruffy, of Budge Row;
Thoroughgood [sic] and Whiting, of the present day; and
Messrs. Gye and Balne, Gracechurch Street, City.’20 All four
firms printed extensively for the lottery, but it appears
that Gye & Balne were the most deeply involved. Frederick
Gye was a friend of Tom Bish Junior, the dominant lottery
office keeper. After Gye won a large prize in the lottery
in 1817 the two went into business together, establishing
the London Genuine Tea Company and The London Wine
Company, and forming part of a syndicate that rented
Vauxhall Gardens from its owner, Jonathan Tyers.21 Gye
and Balne had moved to London from Bath where they had
learned the printing trade from Frederick’s father, William
Gye, to whom Giles Balne was apprenticed. William died
in 1802 and shortly afterwards the firm of Gye & Balne was
established in London, settling at 38 Gracechurch Street
in around 1806. This left William’s widow, Mary Gye, to run
the business in Bath with the help of Frederick’s younger
brother Henry, who later had a second printing office in
Bristol.22 The Gracechurch Street outfit was sizeable – Giles
Balne’s testimony for the Columbian Press states that he had
large concern may explain Thorowgood’s decision to use the
words ‘GRACECHURCH STREET MESSRS. £1234567890’
and ‘BATH & BRISTOL MAIL COACH Mrs £20,000’ for the
two-line English ornamented and two-line pica ornamented
in his specimen of 1821.24 There is no evidence that Gye
& Balne bought either of these designs but their office
was well stocked with types purchased from Caslon &
Catherwood (later Caslon & Livermore), Figgins, Fry, and
Thorowgood.
Shortly after moving to Gracechurch Street, Gye &
Balne issued a trade card showing a view of their premises
and an engraving of a common press [fig. 26]. It boasts that
offices &c.’ were ‘Printed with the largest type in England’.
In Bath, Mary Gye made a similar claim in a newspaper
advertisement of 1808: ‘founts of the largest Type in England, 26
with which Bills of any dimensions are printed at a few
hours notice.’25 No other printer appears to have made a
similar claim so presumably the type in question is wood
lettering that was produced in house, possibly cut by Giles  Figure  26  Gye & Balne trade card
Balne: ‘Mr. Balne was eminent in his profession, and was (c.1808) 274 x 168 mm. [British Museum:
Heal Collection 99.56]
ROB BANHAM 17
26 The Northern Star and Leeds General
Advertiser, 11 August
27 Blades, W., ‘William Gye, Printer of Bath’,
The Printers’ Register, 18 (6 January 1879)
p. 131.
28 Specimen of modern cut printing types
by Robert Thorne, 1814 [Type Archive: SB/
TS/04].
29 Kelly, R.R., American wood type
1828–1900, p.75.
 Figure  27  27. Packet boat poster. [Mary]
Gye (c.1806) 450 x 640 mm. [Bodleian
Library; John Johnson Collection: Canals and
Rivers Folder]
18 ‘THE LARGEST TYPE IN ENGLAND’
the original projector and introducer of the large type and
blocks cut from wood, his ingenuity in which for so many
years enriched the coffers of the lottery contractors’.26 There
is certainly some connection between the firm and the
development of wood lettering: according to William Blades,
Frederick Gye was, ‘noted in our typographical annals as the
first printer who adopted large wooden types, and shocked
the eyes of the old stagers by four-sheet broadsides and
thirty-line Egyptian.’27
Exactly what ‘the largest type in England’ was is not clear.
It may have referred to the woodcut lettering that featured
on a poster printed in Bath sometime around 1806 [fig. 27].
The capital letters are approximately 24-line pica (100 mm)
which was bigger than any foundry type that was available 29
until Thorne released a 24-line type in 1814.28 It is certainly
conceivable that this wood lettering was the largest ‘type’
in England at the time, though it was not the largest in the
world – B. Vinçard illustrated three sizes of wood lettering
in his manual L’Art du typographe in 1806 [fig. 28], the 28a 28b
largest of which measures approximately 29-line pica (120
mm). Giles Balne was a master of this kind of wood lettering
and later used it to great effect in posters for Vauxhall
Gardens. He even printed with three-colour wood lettering
almost a decade before the first chromatic wood types were
advertised in the USA in 1838 [figs. 29–30].29
In these large posters the lettering is more like type in the
sense that they are separate, movable letters, which can  Figure  28  a,b. Vinçard’s wood letter
(1806) 13-, 19- and 29-line pica. [Vinçard,
B., L’art du typographe (Paris: Chez Vinçard,
1806) pp. 111–112]
 Figure  29  Vauxhall Gardens posters.
Giles Balne (1830) 100 x 78 cm. [Bodleian
Library: John Johnson Collection; Posters:
Vauxhall Gardens]
 Figure  30  Vauxhall Gardens poster.
Giles Balne (1830) 50 x 78 cm. This
very crude looking lettering is actually
remarkably advanced. In addition to being
30 possibly the first example of three-colour
lettering it was produced before any of
the typefounders published a shaded sans
serif design. Balne was also beginning to
explore the idea of related widths of the
same size and design; types cut in ‘series’,
with condensed and expanded versions,
did not become common in typefounders’
specimens until the 1840s. [Bodleian
Library: John Johnson Collection; Posters:
27 Vauxhall Gardens]
ROB BANHAM 19
30 Dickens, C., ‘Bill-sticking’, pp. 603–605.
31 Brobdingnagia was the land of giants in
Gulliver’s travels.
32 Pyne, W.H., The costume of Great
Britain, designed, engraved, and written by
W.H. Pyne (London: William Miller, 1808) text
facing pl. 43.
33 Presumably Pyne gives diameter rather
than height because of the proliferation of
zeros in the ‘£20,000’ and ‘£30,000’ prizes
common in lottery advertising.
34 Sheet from a Vauxhall Gardens poster
[Harvard Theatre
20 ‘THE LARGEST TYPE IN ENGLAND’
be ‘dissed’ and used again for other jobs, but they are clearly printed by Giles Balne which shows wood lettering even 35 Hansard, T.C., Typographia, (London:
Baldwin, Craddock & Joy, 1825) p. 359.
individually cut, not produced using a router. For smaller larger than that observed by Pyne: a single letter J which
designs Balne often used lettering that was custom designed is 73 cm tall (approximately 172-line pica) [fig. 32]. It may
for single use, usually with the lettering reversed out of a have been a one-off but Hansard mentions a similar poster
coloured background [fig. 31]. produced for the lotteries: ‘What would these [eighteenth-
The largest surviving posters from the period are century] founders think of posters of the present day, when
two-sheet double crown posters printed by Giles Balne a single letter, Q, is made to fill a whole broadsheet for a
(they measure approximately 100 × 76 cm, a double crown lottery-puff?’35 The evidence is slim, and we will never know
sheet being 30 × 20 inches or 76.2 × 50.8 cm). However, there whether this Q was of the same design as Balne’s letter J, but
is evidence that much larger posters were printed. Charles
Dickens’s article on bill-sticking mentions the increase in
poster sizes during the early nineteenth century from two-
sheet double crown to four-sheet posters that required two
bill-stickers working together, and he claims that the largest
poster ever printed was thirty-six sheets.30 W.H. Pyne also
recorded the large posters that were displayed around the
capital:
‘The exertions that characterise the dashing spirit of the times, is
visible in the printing of bills; every day some new mode of catching
the attention of the passing multitude is resorted to; witness
the bills six or eight feet long stuck upon the walls to announce
the exhibitions at our Amphitheatres, Circus’s [sic], Schools of
Bucephalus, &c. &c. Surely the printers of the nineteenth century
have proved, that “those who run may read.”
31
But it is to the managers of the lotteries that we owe the
merit of the Brobdingnagian31 style of printing; for under
their patronage, the letter founders have reached the ne plus
ultra of their art, in type of twelve inches in diameter; and
we have lived to see a £30,000 prize, printed thirty thousand
times as large as small pica!’32
While Dickens’s 36-sheet poster may seem unlikely, it
would have been necessary to print on something like that
scale if the type was twelve inches (approximately 30 cm) in
diameter.33 Given that Mary Gye claimed to print ‘Bills of any
dimensions’, it seems reasonable to assume that the Gye’s in
Bath, and Gye & Balne in London, produced such multi-sheet
posters. This theory is supported by a single surviving sheet  Figure  31  Vauxhall Gardens bill.
from a Vauxhall Gardens poster in the Theatre Collection at Giles Balne (1830) 222 x 140 mm. [Private
Harvard University Library that features no text and only collection]
part of a woodcut illustration and thus is likely to be part  Figure  32  Vauxhall Gardens poster.
of a much larger poster.34 There is also one extant poster Giles Balne (1830) 78 x 50 cm. [John Johnson
32 Collection; Posters: Vauxhall Gardens]
ROB BANHAM 21

33b
 Figure  33  a, b. Broadsheet Lord’s Prayer,
printed in around 18 colours from ink-drawn
stones by Hangard-Maugé, Paris (c.1870).
Sheet 610 x 508 mm; detail 148 x 223 mm.
Letterpress could not realistically hope to
compete with the detail and complexity
of such letterforms given the relative ease
with which they could be produced using
chromolithography. [Twyman, M., A history
of chromolithography: printed colour for all
(London: The British Library, 2013) p. 212]
22 ‘THE LARGEST TYPE IN ENGLAND’
it is tempting to think that Gye & Balne had a whole fount
of these letters and that this was what they claimed as ‘the
largest type in England’.
English printers continued to produce their own wood
lettering into the 1830s but the practice waned thereafter.
In the second half of the nineteenth century wood type
became easily available in a huge range of sizes and styles
from both the established typefoundries and specialist firms
such as Bonnewell and Delittle. The kind of decorative work
in which custom lettering continued to flourish became
the preserve of chromolithography, which was much better
suited to the production of highly intricate multi-colour
designs [fig. 33].
33a
Eric Kindel
Stencil dies:
new tools for an old trade
Foreword 1 Eric Kindel, ‘Futura Black, c. 1860’,
congress of the Association Typographique
Internationale, Amsterdam, 10 October
This text is based on the paper ‘Futura Black, c. 1860’, 2013. See also Eric Kindel, ‘Stencil work in
delivered to the annual congress of the Association America, 1850-1900’, Baseline, 38, 2002,
pp. 5-12, and ‘Recollecting stencil letters’,
Typographique Internationale (ATypI) in October 2013.1 As Typography papers, 5 (Reading: Department
its title hints, the paper attempted to draw connections of Typography & Graphic Communication,
between the typeface Futura Black (and other stencil-like 2003) pp. 82–6, where elements of the
present essay were first discussed and
precursor letterforms and alphabets of the 1910s and 1920s) illustrated.
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.
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, discussed 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 stencil 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 business
at around this time, including Silas H. Quint
(Philadelphia, 1849), James D. Matthews
(Pittsburgh, 1850), Shubael D. Childs
(Chicago, 1837; stencil work advertised from
1851), Thomas N. Hickcox (New York, 1853).
4 For details and citations, see Kindel,
‘Recollecting stencil letters’, p. 82 (n. 29).
24 STENCIL DIES
Precursors: stencil letters and stencil dies
Around 1850, in Boston in the north-eastern United States,
a new tool was introduced to the 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 practiced 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
punchcutting (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
century, indicating that the combination of stencils and
dies would not have been entirely novel at this time. Several
examples provide evidence. One is the use of emporte pièces 1
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 stencils for printing playing cards
(fig. 1).4
 Figure  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.).
ERIC KINDEL 25
5 Set of brass stencils in walnut box,
American Philosophical Society Museum,
Philadelphia. Apart from Bery’s maker’s mark,
he may have employed a ring punch to cut
dot elements 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] modest 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, lassen wahrscheinlich
vermuthen, daß sie durch scharfe stählerne
Stempel ausgeschlagen werden.’) Johann
Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopf, Versuch, den
Ursprung der Spielkarten, die Einführung
des Leinenpapieres und den Anfang der
Holzschneidekunst in Europa zu erforschen,
zweyter Theil, aus des Verlassers Nachlasse
herausgegeben und mit einer Vorrede
begleitet von Johann Christian Friedrich Roch
(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.
6 George Cumberland, ‘Hints on various
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.
 Figure  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.
26 STENCIL DIES
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 (figure 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
2
Despite these intersections of dies and stencil cutting, there
is no evidence of die-cut stencil 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 advantage 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, manufacturers 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
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
7 [No author], Historical sketch of Boston,
containing a brief account of its settlement,
rise and progress, with a glance at its present
and prospective prosperity (Boston: Thom.
Adams and Edward L. Mitchell, 1861).8 8<?>
Historical sketch of Boston, p. 78. Marcus
A. Metcalf (b. 1809); Mason Jerome Metcalf
(1807–1883).
8 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
contemporary 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.
9 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 …’.
ERIC KINDEL 27
10 Simeon M. Metcalf (1818–c. 1858/9).
11 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).
12 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, catalogues,
and posters from the Metcalfs’ Boston
business (discussed below).
13 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.
 Figure  3  Mason Jerome Metcalf, date
not known.
28 STENCIL DIES
account thus confirms links between typefounding, marking
types, and stencil cutting. The Metcalf brothers possessed
these skills collectively: Mason (figure 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 stencil 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 (figures 4, 5). It is here that what appears to be an
early possibly — trial — set of stencil dies survives.13
3 Monmouth, Maine.
4
6
The dies, comprising incomplete alphabets of capital and
small letters, appear crudely cut, but to a purpose (figure 6).
The ends of the steel bars have been sawn and filed to form
simple geometric 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
felt unconstrained by convention, but instead was guided
only by the forms his tools could generate 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 (figure 7).14
14 Addresses are in Monmouth, elsewhere
in Maine (Augusta, Bath, Gardiner),
Massachusetts (Boston, Charlestown,
Lowell, Newburyport, Randolph, Salem),
and Connecticut (Wallingford). Names
and associated addresses were traced for
businesses in Boston using the Directory of
Boston for 1845, 1850, 1855, and 1860.
5
 Figure  4  Stencil shop of Mason
Jerome Metcalf, Momnouth, Maine, interior
plastered in 1852. Monmouth Museum,
Monmouth, Maine.
 Figure  5  Stencil shop interior with
surviving tools, stencils, cutting blocks,
and workbench. Monmouth Museum,
Monmouth, Maine.
 Figure  6  Stencil dies (and detail), steel,
probably cut by Mason Jerome Metcalf,
c. early 1850s. Monmouth Museum,
ERIC KINDEL 29
15 Metcalf advertisements up to 1860 offer
several glimpses of their operations. In 1853,
S. M. Metcalf advertised ‘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.
16 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
biography, vol. 4, p. 311.
7 question of whether the Metcalfs manufactured dies only for
 Figure  7  Stencil plate for R. N. B.
Cunningham, die-cut brass with zinc frame,
probably cut by M. J. Metcalf, c. 1850–55.
Monmouth Museum, Monmouth, Maine.
30 STENCIL DIES
Astonishing though it is that Mason Metcalf’s 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 8
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 letterforms
(figures 8–12). The use of small-size dies no doubt increased
the speed at which stencils could be cut, and in addition to
9
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 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 business. But
the advertisements make no reference to dies or other
stencil tools, only stencil cutting services. This raises the
 Figure  8  Die-cut letters, numbers,
sorts, brass, probably cut by Mason Jerome
themselves, or if they were also sold to others in the trade or 10 Metcalf, date not known. Approx. 30 ×
to the general public.16 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.
 Figure  9  Stencilled receipt, Geo. H.
Mitchell, Boston, c. early 1850s. Monmouth
Museum, Monmouth, Maine.
 Figure  10  Stencilled business card for
T. Eaton Jr, c. 1850s. Monmouth Museum,
Monmouth, Maine.
ERIC KINDEL 31
17 Adoniram Judson Fullam (1835–1900).
18 Geo. P. Rowell & Co., The men
who advertise: an account of successful
advertisers together with hints on the
method of advertising (New York: Nelson
Chesman, 1870) p. 108.
11
13
 Figure  11  Stencilled business card for
R. T and J. I. Bosworth, c. 1850s. Monmouth
Museum, Monmouth, Maine.
 Figure  12  Stencilled paper label for
Howard, c. 1850s. Monmouth Museum,
Monmouth, Maine.
 Figure  13  Advertising stencil for
M[ason]. J[erome]. Metcalf, chisel-cut
brass, c. 1850s. 143 × 215 mm. Monmouth
Museum, Monmouth, Maine.
32 STENCIL DIES
12
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 them17; 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 stencil 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 Fullam18 (figure 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 profiled many of its clients. There, Fullam’s early
efforts to establish himself in business are described — with
a touch of romance:
This gentleman [A. J. Fullam] commenced as a poor farmer’s boy
when he made his start in life. He made his first set of stencil
tools in 1856, without pattern, or without ever having seen any
before. This was at the shop of Briggs & Hodgman, blacksmiths, at
Saratoga Springs, and the undertaking occupied him six weeks. In
the meantime he struck and blew at the anvil and bellows one hour
each day in order to pay for the use of blacksmith’s tools, not tasting
a morsel of anything but common baker’s bread during the time,
and sleeping under the broad canopy of heaven, with the root of a
friendly oak for his pillow.19
Fullam no doubt supplied these details himself and they
flatter, not least in their tale of hard-won effort and ex nihilo
creation. The profile continues:
‘[a]s soon as his tools were completed he commenced cutting and
selling stencil plates’, that he made ‘a little money by this’, and that
he ‘secured a patent on his tools, and commenced advertising.’20
Advertisements for Fullam’s stencil tools are, in fact, found
as early as 1858 (and possibly earlier), for example in the
Burlington Free Press: ‘The Golden Secret: $100 per month
can be cleared at cutting and selling [stencil] name plates for
marking clothing. One hour’s practice will make you perfect
master of the art.… Material to make plates of, and every
thing connected with the business furnished.’21
14
19 Geo. P. Rowell & Co., The men who
advertise, p. 108. The profile also states that
Fullam bought the property of the Black
River Company for three thousand dollars;
this company was located in Springfield,
Vermont, and it apparently became the site
of Fullam’s stencil business. Patent details:
Adoniram J. Fullam, ‘Punch’, letters patent
no. 27,793, April 10, 1860, Washington D. C.:
United States Patent Office (discussed
below). This is an exceptional occurrence
of the term ‘punch’ (rather than ‘die’),
though its use was possibly dictated by
USPO terminology. Fullam also patented a
stencilling device: ‘Stencil-printing machine’,
letters patent no. 30,216, October 2, 1860.
20 Burlington Free Press (Burlington,
Vermont; September 24, 1858). This
advertisement gives Fullam’s address as
Springfield, Vermont. The advertisement
does not mention the sale of stencil dies
explicitly, except when Fullam notes the
diploma he was awarded for the ‘best
stencil tools on exhibition’ at the Vermont
State Agricultural Society; but their supply
is clearly implied. A later advertisement in
the same newspaper (November 12, 1858)
records awards Fullam received at the
Connecticut River Valley Fair and the New
York State Fair.
21 The American Stencil Tool Works
was still located in Springfield, Vermont,
with Fullam named as proprietor. An
advertisement in July, in Scientific American
(July 3, 1860), makes no mention of the
new company, while in August it is named
in advertisements in the Nashville Union
and American (Nashville, Tennessee; August
3, 1860) and in the Vermont Watchman
and State Journal (Montpelier, Vermont;
August 10 and 24, 1860); Fullam also listed
offices at 13 Merchants’ Exchange, Boston
(‘Eastern Office’) and 212 Broadway, New
York (‘Principal Office’). The advertisement
in the Nashville newspaper additionally lists
Springfield businessmen certifying Fullam as
responsible and honourable. One of those
listed, Geo[rge]. W. Porter, treasurer of the
Springfield Savings Bank, had also served as
a witness to Fullam’s ‘Punch’ patent.
 Figure  14  Adoniram Judson Fullam,
date not known.
ERIC KINDEL 33
22 See advertisements in the Nashville
Union and American and Vermont
Watchman and State Journal, cited in
previous note.
23 See, for example, advertisements in the
New-York Daily Tribune (September 29 and
October 17, 1860): ‘Large and small steel
dies, whole letters, two alphabets, figures
and border tools, with sixteen chisels and
gouges for large work, with a quantity of
stock sufficient to retail for $150. Square,
compass, finishing plate, polishing brush,
framer, shears, smoothing stone, die-case,
curve pattern, sample designs, hammer
and block, with recipe for indelible ink
and mercantile stencil ink; all necessary
instruction for cutting stencil frames, making
stencil brushes, and in short the whole
system of carrying on the stencil business
at wholesale, with sufficient stock and tools
of every description, warranted perfect,
or exchanged at any time free for new.
This whole outfit, entire and complete, is
furnished for $10. Dies all patented.’ The
advertisement continues: ‘The American
Stencil Tool Works, at Springfield, Vermont,
have a cash fund of $20,000 invested
exclusively in the manufacture of stencil
tools, having the largest and most valuable
waterpower in the state, with a wheel
of seventy-five horse power, affording
customers infinite advantages.’
24 The technique involved cutting away
the sides of the punch (die) with a grinding
wheel; the claim was that this produced a
punch capable of cutting through metal
while leaving little or no underside bur.
It was also claimed that the technique
produced a more durable punch by leaving
more metal intact to support the face.
25 See advertisements in the Nashville
Union and American and Vermont
Watchman and State Journal, cited in
previous note.
26 See, for example, advertisements in the
New-York Daily Tribune (September 29 and
October 17, 1860): ‘Large and small steel
dies, whole letters, two alphabets, figures
and border tools, with sixteen chisels and
gouges for large work, with a quantity of
stock sufficient to retail for $150. Square,
compass, finishing plate, polishing brush,
framer, shears, smoothing stone, die-case,
curve pattern, sample designs, hammer
and block, with recipe for indelible ink
and mercantile stencil ink; all necessary
34 STENCIL DIES
At this time, Fullam offered dies in only a single size, supplied
with instructions, for ten dollars. In 1860, his advertisements
begin to appear frequently, coinciding it seems with at least
two developments in his business. One was the patent he
had secured in April; the second, probably related to the first,
was the establishment of a new company that summer, the
American Stencil Tool Works.22
Advertisements from the latter half of 1860 give prominent
mention to Fullam’s patented tools and to him as patentee.23
In August 1860, his ten-dollar outfit was still on offer,
advertised for cutting small name plates and business
cards; dies for cutting large work were newly offered for
$25. By September, Fullam was advertising a stencil outfit
fully equipped for anyone wanting to get into the stencil
business, still priced at only ten dollars; he also boasted of the
substantial capital investment he had made in his company.24
In the years that followed, Fullam continued to promote
his patented tools in advertisements and circulars. His patent
no doubt gave him a means to warn off competitors, even if
in practice he could only claim a particular manufacturing
technique, not stencil dies themselves (figure 15).25
Newspaper reports provide periodic glimpses of Fullam’s
commercial fortunes: one, in particular, records a severe
injury sustained by one of Fullam’s workmen in October 1860,
caught in rotary machinery very likely associated with the
kind of die manufacture described in Fullam’s patent.26 And
in an advertisement of February 1862, some ten months after
the start of the American Civil War, Fullam directed himself
to a new group of customers — soldiers:
A. J. Fullam’s stencil cutting tools, for the use of any
soldier who wishes to clear a few hundred dollars extra by
furnishing his comrades with plates to mark their clothing,
equipments, &c. Circular, samples, and ‘view of headquarters,’
sent free by mail.27 And whether through sales to soldiers, or
to civilians joining the stencil-cutting trade during the war,
Fullam probably benefitted from the conflict, as it appears
that name plates were much in demand from soldiers to
mark their weapons, equipment, and other belongings. For
those who became casualties, such marks or the stencil plate
itself would also serve to identify them.28
instruction for cutting stencil frames, making
stencil brushes, and in short the whole
system of carrying on the stencil business
at wholesale, with sufficient stock and tools
of every description, warranted perfect,
or exchanged at any time free for new.
This whole outfit, entire and complete, is
furnished for $10. Dies all patented.’ The
advertisement continues: ‘The American
Stencil Tool Works, at Springfield, Vermont,
have a cash fund of $20,000 invested
exclusively in the manufacture of stencil
tools, having the largest and most valuable
waterpower in the state, with a wheel
of seventy-five horse power, affording
customers infinite advantages.’
27 The technique involved cutting away
the sides of the punch (die) with a grinding
wheel; the claim was that this produced a
punch capable of cutting through metal
while leaving little or no underside bur.
It was also claimed that the technique
produced a more durable punch by leaving
more metal intact to support the face.
28 ‘Serious accident. A correspondent
informs us that a young man from Alstead,
N[ew]. H[ampshire]., named Grimes, in the
employ of Mr. Fullam stencil manufacturer,
Springfield, Vt., received a probably fatal
injury on the 12th. He was adjusting a belt
when his clothes were caught by a shaft,
revolving 150 times per minute, and he was
carried over it about 50 times, breaking both
legs, one three times above the knee, the
other once, one arm was also broken and
his head badly bruised. He was alive and
conscious on the 13th, but no effort is made
to relieve him, as his case seems hopeless.’
The Caledonian (St. Johnsbury, Vermont;
15 October 17, 1860). Two days later, a report in
the Burlington Free Press (October 19, 1860)
described the injuries as fatal.
 Figure  15  Specification drawing for
‘Punch’, Adoniram J. Fullam, U. S. letters
patent no. 27,793, 10 April 1860.
ERIC KINDEL 35
29 27 The National Republican (February
21, 1862). The ‘view of headquarters’
may have been ‘a beautiful photograph
of the American Stencil Tool Works and
surrounding scenery, on the Black River’,
which Fullam had offered in advertisements
of August, 1860 (cited in n. 22; see also figure
16).
30 While many stencil names plates
survive bearing the names, company, and
regimental designations of soldiers serving
in the war (overwhelmingly those on the
Union side), it is not clear whether these
were made by established stencil cutters,
by sutlers serving army encampments, or
by soldiers.
36 STENCIL DIES
In 1865, Fullam issued a large-format circular whose
size and confident text suggests that his business was
prospering.29 One side of the circular was given over entirely
to a large wood engraving of the America Stencil Tool
Works (figure 16). On the reverse, the letters and numerals
of Fullam’s large (1-inch) dies are shown (figure 17) opposite
a lengthy text announcing his dies and explaining the many
benefits of stencil plates and stencil cutting.
He encouraged those who might take up the work to
seek orders from farmers, who Fullam claimed were at once
‘destitute’ of a way to mark their grain bags, buffalo robes,
and horse blankets, and yet had never more able to afford
stencils, since the past five years (presumably those of the
Civil War, 1861–5) had been prosperous ones, during which
their harvests had commanded high prices. Stencil-cutting
made economic sense, and everything needed was supplied
in Fullam’s outfit; weighing ‘only’ 25 pounds (11½ kg), it could
be ‘easily carried in one hand’ by the intrepid canvasser. After
further inducements to his readers to try stencil cutting,
Fullam concluded his text with the same list of Springfield
businessmen that had appeared in earlier advertisements,
attesting to their acquaintance with Fullam and to his honest
dealings.
Soon after Fullam issued his circular, his fortunes were
temporarily reversed when, in late 1865, the American
Stencil Tool Works were destroyed by a fire that additionally 16
damaged or destroyed the neighbouring Black River paper
mills, whose buildings Fullam also owned.30 Newspaper
reports that Fullam planned to build anew appear to be born
out by the eventual resumption of his business. At around
this time, a new ‘Western Office’ was opened in St. Louis,
Missouri, while newspapers advertisements continue to
appear, now in Texas, California, and even Mexico, as Fullam
sought out new markets for his stencil dies.
 Figure  16  View of the American Stencil
Tool Works, Springfield, Vermont, wood
engraving. 33 ´ 43 cm. From a circular of the
office of A. J. Fullam’s American Stencil Tool
Works, c. 1865. Special Collections, Bailey/
Howe Library, University of Vermont.
ERIC KINDEL 37
31 Circular, ‘Dear Sir:– I take pleasure in
calling your attention to my recently invented
patent Stencil Dies …’, office of A. J. Fullam’s
American Stencil Tool Works, c. 1865. Special
Collections, Bailey/Howe Library, University
of Vermont. While advertisements in The
Vermont Transcript (St. Albans, Vermont; July
28, 1865) and the Army and Navy Journal
(September 30, 1865) make reference to
this circular, an internal date of November
1865 found in the copy at the Bailey/Howe
Library suggests that its text was periodically
updated.
 Figure  17  Specimen of 1-inch (approx.
25 mm) letters and numbers. From a circular
of the office of A. J. Fullam’s American
Stencil Tool Works, c. 1865. Special
Collections, Bailey/Howe Library, University
of Vermont. The dies for these characters
were probably flat-faced since they are
linked to Fullam’s patent (see figure 15);
nowhere in the circular is reference made
to dies with a sharp raised edges, which
feature in advertisements by other makers.
Fullam also offered small dies for cutting
name plates, but they are neither shown in
this circular nor is their size given; they were
supplied in an outfit sold for $15.
38 STENCIL DIES
Consolidation: stencil outfits by S. M. Spencer
In April, 1866, Helen A. Cunningham, living in Granville,
Vermont, wrote to her brother Henry E. Blake, in Brattleboro,
complaining about an order she had placed for a set of
stencil dies.31 Two months earlier, having sent fifteen dollars
for a set of stencil tools, she now despaired of ever receiving
them. The manufacturer to whom she had sent her order
was A. J. Fullam. About two weeks after sending it, she
received a reply from Fullam acknowledging the order, but
also informing her that he could not fill it because of a fire
at his factory. But he would, he assured her, fill the order just
as soon as his works were fitted out again. Not able to wait,
Cunningham asked for her money back, but instead received
only another Fullam circular advertising large dies (probably
the circular shown in figures 16, 17).
17
Confused, she wrote again to relay her ‘candid opinion of his
proceedings’, and in reply Fullam promised that he would
send the tools as soon as possible, in three or four weeks.
She then heard nothing more. After proposing to her brother
various means by which she might recover her money, she
(not surprisingly) concluded that Fullam was not to be
trusted, and that his circular was ‘entirely too bombastic’.
She ended her account by saying that she had recently
seen an advertisement in The Agriculturalist for stencil
tools superior to those of Fullam, made by a company in
Brattleboro named Spencer & Co. Having sent for Spencer’s
circular, she discovered that she ‘liked the tone in which it is
written much better than the other, as well as the specimens’,
and thought she might order a set of these tools instead.
S. M. Spencer & Co. was the stencil business established by
Silas Metcalf Spencer.32 By the time the company came to the
notice of Helen Cunningham, Spencer had been in business
in Brattleboro for at least two years. He had apparently
become acquainted with stencil die manufacturing in the
factory of his brother-in-law, in Brandon, Vermont.33 In
1863 and 1864 Spencer took a stake in, and then purchased
outright, the stencil die factory of D. L. Milliken, who had
himself been in business since at least 1859.34 Around the
time of the Cunningham letter, Spencer had taken a new
partner into his business and was apparently doing well.35
In 1867–8, Spencer issued one of the most elaborate
catalogues that any stencil die manufacturer would produce,
which describes stencil work with dies in considerable
detail (figure 18, a–f).36 Its text begins with a homily on the
happiness that comes with an occupation well chosen,
one that is honourable and independent. Stencil work
was such an occupation, filling a universal need to mark
articles of all kinds: ‘clothing, hats, bonnets, gloves, boots,
umbrellas, books, cards, envelopes, writing paper, blankets,
boxes, barrels, merchandise, farm tools, robes, etc., etc., etc.’
Stencil marking prevented the loss or theft of belongings,
expedited freight of every description, and enabled patented
articles to be designated as such, as required by law. Stencil
work brought profit, whether from cutting names plates
for individuals or business plates to service the incessant
demands of commerce. A great advantage of the work was
the opportunity to canvass for orders. Canvassing was
a healthful pursuit, allowing one to acquire knowledge
of human nature, cultivate the art of pleasing, exercise
ingenuity, and improve one’s artistic taste and genius. It
offered the opportunity to travel, observe customs and
manners in different places, and overcome one’s diffidence.
The work could be pursued full-time or part-time, and was
open to men and women. Indeed, considerable emphasis
was laid on the latter (which may explain why Helen
Cunningham liked Spencer’s tone):
Ladies can make stencil plates, often with better success than
gentlemen. Their quick perception enables them to judge more
correctly, and their refined taste renders important service in
adapting appropriate styles to different circumstances. They often
32 ‘Fires. The Black River paper mills and
American Stencil Tools Works, at Springfield,
were burnt on the 20th. The buildings were
owned by A. J. Fullam, who was insured for
$1000, his loss being four or five thousand.
… Mr. Fullam is building anew. …’ Vermont
Watchman and State Journal (December 29,
1865); the same item also appears on this
date in The Caledonian.
33 Letter Helen A. Cunningham to Henry E.
Blake, April 17, 1866. Manuscript file, Special
Collections, Bailey/Howe Library, University
of Vermont.
34 Silas Metcalf Spencer (b. 1842). Spencer
was distantly related to the Metcalfs
through his mother, Louisa Metcalf.
Biographical details about Spencer are
principally from Geo. P. Rowell & Co.,
The men who advertise, pp. 116–17; and
John Hill Walbridge, Wilmington, Vermont
(Wilmington, VT: The Times Press, 1900)
pp. 65–6.
35 At present, the name of this
manufacturer is not known, though he may
have been ‘Skeeles’, since Spencer married
Jennie Skeeles of Brandon in 1861 or 1862.
See Walbridge, Wilmington, Vermont, p. 66.
36 An advertisement for Milliken in the
Vermont Phoenix (Brattleboro, Vermont; July
16, 1859) gives his location as Manchester,
Vermont, about 30 miles (50 km) north-west
of Brattleboro. Milliken’s advertisement was a
call for agents ‘to sell stencil name plates, of
rich and varied design, for marking clothing,
books, cards, etc.’. The advertisement went
on: ‘Persons desirous of travelling, and by
observation enrich their minds with a stock
of varied and useful knowledge which
cannot be obtained from books; and their
pockets with bank notes – which cannot
but ever be agreeable companions – will
do well to engage in this light and pleasant
employment …’.
ERIC KINDEL 39
37 Geo. P. Rowell & Co., The men who
advertise, p. 116, states that ‘on April 1, 1866,
Mr. Spencer received as equal partner in the
concern Mr. O. B. Douglas … under the name
and style of S. M. Spencer & Co.’ Spencer’s
own catalogue of 1867–8 (discussed below)
added that Lieutenant O. B. Douglas took
part in the ‘war for the Union’ and had been
wounded at the battle of Shiloh (Tennessee,
April 1862).
18b
18c
 Figure  18  Catalogue of improved stencil
dies manufactured by S. M. Spencer & Co.,
Brattleboro, Vermont, 1867–8. Winterthur
Museum Library. (a) Front and back covers
(b) pp. 6–7 (c) pp. 8–9 (d) pp. 10–11 (e) pp.
12–13 (f) [becomes 18 a]
40 STENCIL DIES
read human nature better than men, the business is light and
pleasant, and a new field for usefulness is opened to them promising
ample remuneration.
18a 18f
18d 18e
The catalogue’s presentation of its ‘improved’ dies is
impressive. They are introduced as ‘all of steel, each die being
separately and carefully finished by hand and properly
tempered and faced. Our improvement is in the style of
letter, the material and the finish of the die.’ Six styles of
letter (Roman, Forwardslant, Backslant, Gothic Plain, Gothic
Ornamented, Open Ionic) were available, distributed across
a range of twenty sizes.37 Sizes larger than ¼-inch (i.e. 3/8-,
½-, ¾-, and 1-inch) were ‘hollow faced’ with sharp raised
edges, while smaller sizes (down to 3/32-inch) were flat faced.
Considerable emphasis was placed on Spencer’s ‘Twenty Five
Dollar Outfit’, which was complete with all the tools and
supplies a person needed ‘to begin and successfully carry on
stencil cutting in the name plate department’ (figures 19–21).
The outfit came with instructions, a Confidential pamphlet
with tips for how to find success as a canvasser, a license to
use Spencer’s copyrighted stencil designs, a notice (‘Stencil
Work!’) to advertise a canvassing stencil cutter’s arrival in
town, and a booklet for keeping accounts, in the back of
which were sample designs (shown on paper and cloth) and
a group of sample plates (figures 22–24). Equipped with this
panoply of tools, supplies, and documents, the work was
thereafter ‘almost as simple and easy as driving a nail into
a board.’ Filling four pages at the back of the catalogue are
testimonials from satisfied purchasers; correspondents
hailed from eighteen states in the north-east, middle-west,
south, and west of the country. Spencer also included a page
of character references from bankers, manufacturers, and
public officials.
19
 Figure  19  ‘S. M. Spencer’s $25.00 dollar
outfit’, wood-engraving, c. 1870s.
 Figure  20  S. M. Spencer & Co., $25.00
20 dollar outfit, unpacked, c. 1870.
ERIC KINDEL 41
 21a 21b 24b

21c 21d
24c

24a

 Figure  21  (a)–(d). S. M. Spencer & Co.,
dies, steel, 1/8-inch (approx. 3 mm) capital
height, c. later 1860s / 1870s.
 Figure  22  ‘S. M. Spencer’s stencil
designs. Assignment of copy-right’, 1870.
 Figure  23  Advertising notice for
canvassing stenciller, S. M. Spencer, c. later
1860s/1870s.
24d
 Figure  24  ‘Copyrighted stencil designs
24e and sample plates …’, canvasser’s booklet, S.
M. Spencer & Co., c. 1870.
(a) Front cover.
(b) Stencil designs on paper.
(c) Stencil designs on linen.
(d) Sample stencil name plates.
(e) Sample stencil name plate, shown actual
22 23 size.

42 STENCIL DIES ERIC KINDEL 43

38 Catalogue of improved stencil dies.
Manufactured by S. M. Spencer & Co.
Brattleboro Vt. Entered accord’g to act of
Congress in the year 1867 by S. M. Spencer
& Co. in the Clerk’s Office of the U. S. Court,
Vt., 24 pp (including covers). Winterthur
Museum Library (Wilmington, DE), NK8650
S74 TC. In the foreword (‘a card’), the
catalogue is described as revised; internal
testimonials are dated 1866, 1867, and
1868. Quotations that follow are from this
catalogue.
39 All the dies are described as ‘whole’ (i.e.
‘each die [is] complete in itself, and will make
a perfect stencil letter’) except the Open
Ionic style. Its design, which incorporated a
mid-stem dot motif, was apparently cut in
two stages and probably required the use of
a second die for making the dots.
40 Mark Twain, The innocents abroad,
1869. Twain’s early work as a typesetter and
printer may have encouraged his notice of
stencils and stencilling. He incorporated
them into his writing on at least two later
occasions; see Kindel, ‘Stencil work in
America, 1850–1900’, pp. 10, 12.
44 STENCIL DIES
Apart from the earnest sales pitch of Spencer’s catalogue,
and its varied offering of stencil dies and supplies, it is
instructive to look at the sample designs it displays in an
attempt to identify and expand the references they appear to
make. One reference occurs in the sample ‘Jennie’, probably
to S. M. Spencer’s wife (see n. 33). Another is the sample ‘Geo.
P. Rowell & Co.’, which appears to confirm that Spencer &
Co. employed the same advertising agency as A. J. Fullam.
But most intriguing is the sample ‘Beware of insane stencil
makers’, followed by the text ‘… or rather Stencil Die maker.’
Both references appear to link up with others elsewhere in
catalogue, such as ‘unscrupulous and insane competitors
have besieged us’, and ‘cheap tools are a cheat, though they
may be “patented” and puffed by the biggest Gas bag in the
country. We would sooner dispense with our dinner than
offer or sell such’. Taken together, it is difficult to avoid the
conclusion that Spencer is referring to A. J. Fullam, the
only known holder of a stencil die patent. One possible
explanation for these remarks – supported by yet another
sample: ‘We still live, give us a trial, 1867’ – is that sometime
prior to the catalogue’s publication, Fullam sued Spencer for
patent infringement (or threatened to). Perhaps the outcome
of this putative legal action is given by another of the
catalogue’s samples: ‘W. E. BEATEM. 1867. S. M. S. & CO.’38
Progress and decline: the legacy of stencil dies
By the end of the Civil War, several manufacturers of stencil
dies and related tools were active supplying stencil cutting
businesses, tempting new stencil cutters into the trade (some
probably ex-soldiers39), and meeting the retail demand for
name plates that their tools had created. Name plates were
sufficiently popular in 1869 for Mark Twain to draw on them
as topical detail in a scene of pilgrims in the Holy Land:
We visited … a new chapel, in the midst of the town, which is built
around a boulder some twelve feet long by four feet thick; the priests
discovered, a few years ago, that the disciples had sat upon this
rock to rest, once, when they had walked up from Capernaum ….
Our pilgrims would have liked very well to get out their lampblack
and stencil-plates and paint their names on that rock, together with
the names of the villages they hail from in America, but the priests
permit nothing of that kind.40
Advertising notices, circulars, and catalogues provide 41 Stencil guide and descriptive
catalogue of stencil materials, &c., Stafford
evidence of other stencil tool manufacturers besides Manufacturing Co., 66 Fulton Street, New
Metcalf, Fullam, and Spencer. Among them was the Stafford York, June, 1871.
Manufacturing Co. in New York City. Stafford’s catalogue of
1871 states that its principal trade was in stencil tools and
stock, and provides valuable testimony, by way of a preamble,
for the development of stencil dies and the (then) present
state of the business:
The stencil business was formerly confined to cutting with chisels,
acids or gravers, either process being slow, plates were expensive
and little used. Since the introduction of dies, the business has
been steadily increasing; with them ordinary workmen can cut the
majority of plates more rapidly than the most skillful are able to by
hand. …
Small dies were the first used to any extent. Although among the
first who had an assortment, ten years ago [i.e. 1861] we cut most of
our large plates with chisels. Their manufacture being imperfectly
understood, it was thought by many to be impossible to make
large dies satisfactorily. Time and experience have overcome the
difficulties, however. We worked gradually, until we had different
sizes and styles, from the smallest to two inches and cut nearly all
plates, except the fancy letters, with them. …
The plates are wanted everywhere to mark clothing, books, &c. The
demand is increasing, as they become more generally introduced.
… Many, not knowing where they can be obtained, will order when
called upon. They will not go out of fashion. Each plate has to be
made to order, and cannot be kept for sale. New names are required;
and old plates are wearing out, consequently the market can never
be overstocked. Many are making money at the business, and there is
room for more.41
The catalogue illustrates Stafford’s own innovations, such
as its patented ‘Stencil Gauge’ for positioning dies accurately
in a line. At the back are hints to canvassers on how best to
conduct themselves in their chosen trade.
Away from the north-eastern states, another
manufacturer of stencil dies, John C. Hilton, had started in
business in Chicago. His catalogue, also of 1871, lists three
styles of dies in a range of sizes, outfits for both stencil
cutting and making key checks, as well as an extensive
inventory of stencil supplies. Unusually, the samples in
his catalogue were all stencilled (i.e. not printed), as Hilton
ERIC KINDEL 45
42 Wholesale price list of John C. Hilton’s
stencil tools and materials, John C. Hilton,
No. 1 Clark Street, Chicago, 1871. Emphasis
in original.
43 Lorettus Metcalf (1837–1920).
 Figure  25  Metcalf’s Stencil Rooms, 101
Union Street, Boston, c. 1864–1871.
46 STENCIL DIES
felt this offered a more direct and genuine representation
of their qualities. Perhaps somewhat insecure about
perceptions of manufacturing in the middle west, he was
also ready to throw barbs at competitors elsewhere, assuring
his customers that his dies were of the best quality, ‘the same
as are advertised by some Parties East as the best cast steel:
Which they are not.’42
As Spencer, Stafford, Hilton, and probably others were
looking to carry on or widen their activities, in the years
around 1870 the Metcalfs and A. J. Fullam brought their
involvement in the stencil business to an end. More than a
decade earlier, in the late 1850s, Mason Metcalf had moved
from Monmouth to Boston to run the stencil business that
had been trading under Simeon’s name, after Simeon’s death
in 1858 or 1859. Over the next six or so years, in partnership
with his son, Lorettus,43 Mason appears to have expanded
the business, trading as ‘M. J. Metcalf & Son’. In 1864, the
business moved to a conspicuous location at 101 Union Street
(figures 25, 26), at which time it appears that Mason, now in
his late 50s, retired and returned to Monmouth. Lorettus
continued the business as ‘L. S. Metcalf’ until the early 1870s,
when the business moved again, to 117 Hanover Street.
Throughout these years, the Metcalfs offered and
promoted stencil dies and outfits, trading on their history as
25
26
the company that invented dies.44 But despite these efforts,
and seemingly good commercial prospects, Lorettus Metcalf’s
interests turned elsewhere (to journalism), and in 1872,
perhaps drawing partly on family connections, he sold the
Metcalf business to S. M. Spencer. Spencer announced the
acquisition in his first Boston catalogue, in April 1873:
To gain a more accessible location, enlarged facilities for my
business and immediate access to the raw material used in it, and
direct communication by express to all parts of the country and
world, I have removed my Stencil Rooms from Brattleboro, Vt., to No.
117 Hanover Street, Boston, at which place I have purchased the old
and well known Metcalf Stencil establishment ….
With my improved facilities, and the full benefit of the many
thousand intelligent and costly experiments conducted by the
Metcalfs during their forty years practical experience, and which are
fully recorded in a book transferred to me, I shall be able to supply
promptly, every thing to be had anywhere in my line, and at the very
lowest prices.45
In Springfield, Vermont, Fullam was also getting out of
the stencil business. While it is not clear exactly when the
American Stencil Tool Works was wound up, the cessation of
Fullam advertisements in newspapers and elsewhere after
1868 suggest that he left the business at around this time.46
Fullam turned to piano manufacture, establishing in 1868
44 Metcalf circulars and catalogues issued
during this period regularly offer stencil dies
and outfits. In a circular issued soon after
Mason Metcalf’s retirement, readers were
reminded that it was he who had invented
stencil dies, and that the Metcalf business
had the most experience manufacturing
and supplying them. A later Metcalf circular
dedicated to stencil dies (c. 1870) clearly
echoes the text of Spencer’s 1867–8
catalogue while insisting that the Metcalf
business had no connections with other
manufacturers.
45 Catalogue of improved stencil dies,
manufactured by S. M. Spencer, 117 Hanover
St., Boston, Mass.[,] formerly Brattleboro, Vt.,
1873. Brattleboro: Household Book and Job
Press. Spencer’s reference to ‘forty years’
roughly tallies with the Metcalfs’ account in
Historical sketch of Boston dating the start of
their business to 1834. It is not known if the
book mentioned by Spencer that records
the Metcalf’s experiments is extant.
46 Kebabian states that the American
Stencil Tool Works was in business until 1869.
Paul B. Kebabian, ‘A. J. Fullam’s American
Stencil Tool Works’, The Chronicle, vol.
31, no. 2, 1978, Early American Industries
Association.
 Figure  26  Poster for Metcalf’s [Stencil
Rooms], Boston, c. 1864–1871.
ERIC KINDEL 47
47 A. J. Fullam’s subsequent fortunes were
mixed. By 1880, the United States Piano
Company was in the hands of receivers,
though press reports identify James M.
and Lucien W. Fullam as the defaulters.
A. J. Fullam was apparently sustained by
real estate interests in New York City. In
1900, he features in newspaper and music
trade reports (described as ‘wealthy and
eccentric’) after shooting a tenant he had
evicted. Fleeing to Ludlow, Vermont, he was
arrested and returned to New York where
he was tried and eventually acquitted on
grounds of self-defence. He died soon after,
though further news reports indicate that his
wife Margaret Fullam’s feuds with tenants
continued, at times also prosecuted with
revolvers. The Fullams are buried together at
Woodlawn Cemetery, the Bronx, New York.
See The New York Times (July 7 and October
6, 1900); The Music Trade Review (vol. 31, no.
2, July 14, 1900).
48 This conclusion is based on a Spencer
stencil outfit recently acquired by the
Graphic Arts Collection, Princeton University,
accompanied by items of printed ephemera
including Spencer’s Confidential pamphlet,
advertising notices (‘Stencil Work!’), a price
listed dated November 1, 1876 (offering the
same sizes and styles of dies as Spencer’s
1867–8 catalogue), a sheet of testimonials
(internal dates from 1876 and 1877), and
a Catalogue of improved stencil dies
(1880). See http://blogs.princeton.edu/
graphicarts/2013/07/stencil_kit.html (26
May 2014).
49 Retail catalogue, S. M. Spencer’s Stencil
and Rubber Stamp Works, 112 Washington
St., Boston, n.d. (c. 1890, based on internal
dated sample). Similar offerings are found
in the New York Stencil Works’ ‘Illustrated
catalogue and price list’ (c. 1902, based on
internal dated sample). Other catalogues
from stencil businesses such as S. W. Reese
& Co. (New York, 1889) or Quint’s Stencil,
Stamp, and Letter Works (Philadelphia, c.
1887–95) offer stencil name plates (still in the
styles of the 1860s and 1870s), but not dies.
48 STENCIL DIES
the United States Piano Company. His works were initially
located in Springfield and possibly displaced his stencil tool
works; in 1871, the piano business was relocated to New York
City.47
In a catalogue, circulars, and other commercial ephemera
issued by S. M. Spencer & Co. in the latter half of the 1870s,
the prominence given to stencil dies and outfits show
that both remained an important part of the company’s
inventory, and that cutting name plates was still considered
an attractive and profitable pursuit.48 But in an 1890
catalogue of the renamed ‘S. M. Spencer’s Stencil and Rubber
Stamp Works’ (figure 27), neither small stencil dies nor outfits
are offered for sale, though name plates for marking linen
with indelible ink were. Outfits that were available were
equipped only with large-size ‘hollow faced’ dies.49 Used by
stencil cutters for decades after, the letters cut by these large
dies became so common in North American stencil work that
to a large extent they defined its style.
If large-size stencil dies are the longer-term legacy of
Mason Metcalf’s original invention, it is that invention’s
original form – small-size dies for cutting small-scale work
– that seems to carry the stronger historical resonance.
Such dies made possible new kinds of work and new ways
of working. When assembled into (relatively) lightweight
outfits containing all the necessary tools and supplies, and
sold to enterprising individuals seeking a remunerative
pursuit, dies expanded the stencil-cutting trade through an
‘access to tools’. Stencil cutting was no longer confined to
fixed premises but could be taken on the road, whether to
fairs and other public gatherings, or from house to house,
homestead to farm. Such work surely helped popularise
stencil plates in particular, and the stencil style in general,
which in North America is so much associated with the
second half of the nineteenth century. While no attempt
has yet been made to establish the relative popularity of 27
this pursuit, the regular appearance of advertisements
in newspapers and journals, the record of commercial
ephemera offering stencil dies and outfits, and the survival
of stencil outfits more or less intact, suggest that for two or
three decades at least, stencil dies and the canvassing stencil
cutter were a minor phenomenon in North America.
 Figure  27  Retail catalogue, S. M.
Spencer’s Stencil & Rubber Stamp Works,
Boston, c. 1890.
ERIC KINDEL 49
 Acknowledgments
I would like to extend my gratitude to Ann Raymond,
curator at the Monmouth Museum, Monmouth, Maine,
for welcoming me into that community in August 2013, for
allowing me access to the materials of Mason J. Metcalf held
by the museum, and for sharing her genealogical research
relating to the Metcalf family in Maine. I must also thank
Kay Skeleton for enabling me to acquire from her a stencil
outfit which had passed down through her extended family
after its purchase from Spencer & Co. in 1870; this outfit is
shown in figures 20–27, above.

50 STENCIL DIES ERIC KINDEL 51


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