A "Golden Age" In American Printing

SUSAN OTIS THOMPSON

Between the founding of the Kelmscott Press and the outbreak of the
First World War American printing became conscious and creative.
Good work had been done before, good work was done after; but in
the short quarter century from iSi)o to 11)14 the spirit of adventure
seized the printers. ...

.. . in no similar length of time was so much interesting mid stinni-
lating work issued from the American press.

Carl PLiuNcitoN Rollins, 'The Golden Age of American Printing,"
Ne--iV Colophon, II (September 1949), :99-3oo.

ARL ROLLINS, head of "Sale University Press and one
of the more articulate American typographers, was
speaking out of personal sentiment and knowledge when
he wrote the above words. For the general public, however, it has
only been the renewed interest in Art Nouveau of the last fifteen
years that has brought esteem to tutn-of-the-centuty design. Al¬
though the importance of the contemporary moxement of Arts
and Crafts has long been recognized, its influence has been seen
exclusively in terms of a general improvement in American typog¬
raphy. The major catalyst of Arts and Crafts printing, the Kelm¬
scott Press of the English writer and designer, William Morris, has
been given credit for the subsequent concern with printing as an
art instead of as a strictly utilitarian practice. Since his time, the
role of the typographic designer has been established, and books
have appeared in which type, illustrations, lay-out, and binding
show an integrated conception. These effects on bookmaking
came from more general Arts and Crafts doctrines stemming from
Ruskin, Carlyle, and Pugin, which, in reaction to the Industrial
Revolution, stressed the importance of natural matetials, of hand
labor, and of unity in design and execution.

But the books of the nineties themselves, inspired by the Kelm-