Simplicity and Utility:
Examples of Early American Bindings
 

SIDNEY FORM AN
 

EVERAL authorities have published disparaging evalua¬
tions of the craftmanship embodied in early American
book bindings. Both Lawrence C. Wroth' and Aleiric K.
Dutton,^ for example, minimized the work of colonial binders
with such references as "plain," "undecorated," or "bleak and
colorless." Dutton, to bolster his conclusion that early American
bookbinding was quite undistinguished, quoted out of context
the expert on printing types, Daniel Berkeley Updike, who wrote
that, "To make life beautiful was not the motive which led to
the settlement of New England."' Updike was writing about ty¬
pography, not binding!

These critical judgments are contradicted by the quality of
many of the examples of the bookbinders'art in Columbia's Special
Collections Department.

It is true that American bookbinding suffers in comparison
with the elegant books designed as presentation copies for deposit
in the libraries of royalty, princes of the church, and wealthy
bibHophiles. If, however, consideration is given to the differences
of material and tools available in the New World, to the types of
books published and the handling to \\hich they would be sub¬
jected, and particularly to that important aesthetic factor of how

' Lawrence C. Wroth. The Colonial Printer. New York, The Grolier
Club, 1931, p. 171.

^ Meiric K. Dutton. Historical Slietch of Bookbinding as an Art. Nor-
\vood. The Holliston Mills, Inc., 1926. p. 123.

''^ Daniel B. Updike. Printing Types. 2 Vols. Cambridge, Harvard Uni¬
versity Press, 1937. Vol. 2, p. 149.