Behind The Type: The Life Story of Frederic W. Goudy

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BEHIND THE TYPE

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Life size portrait-bust in bronze, by Jo Davidsoi
Photo par Kollar,!

behind The Tape

THE LIFE STORY OF FREDERIC W. GOUDY

BY BERNARD LEWIS

ISSUED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF

PRINTING ■ CARNEGIE INSTITUTE

OF TECHNOLOGY ■ PITTSBURGH

NINETEEN FORTY-ONE

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250
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Copyright 1941

Carnegie Institute of Technology

Department of Printing

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Printed in the United States of Ameri

250
LA'S

960047

CONTENTS
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Behind The Type:

The Life Story of Frederic W. Goudy

by

Bernard Lewis

The Ethics and Aesthetics of
Type and Typography

Frederic W. Goudy

Portrait
Preh

Goudy
Be

Studei

1

In the

1

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Portrait-bust in bronze by Jo Davidson, Frontispiece

J0hnF.G0udy.1883, 3

Amanda Goudy, about 1878, 4

Goudy at age eight, 7

Goudy at age twentyseven, 8

Freliminary sketches of a Goudy typeface, 25

At work in the mill, 26

The pantagraph, 43

William Morris' Kelmscott press, 43

Goudy as author, and part of his large library, 44

Bertha and Fred on Sunday afternoon, 61

A study in contentment, 62

Student admirers: Carnegie, February ig38, yg

Approaching a Goudy 'punch line,'yg

In the Carnegie design studio, February 1338, 80

The ruined mill, gy

Goudy at Deepdene, g8

PREFACE

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In February of 1938, the guest speaker at the celebration
of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the
Department of Printing at the Carnegie Institute of Tech-
nology was Frederic W.Goudy Inspired by the life and
work of Mr. Goudy Bernard Lebovit, a student in the de-
partment, began preparation of the life story of America's
foremost type designer.That story as presented here is a
biographical narrative set forth in interesting style and
replete with incidents and anecdotes hitherto untold.

While the essay was being prepared, Mr. Goudy gave
freely of time from a busy life.When it was finished and
offered to Mr. Goudy for comment he stated with charac-
teristic modesty and singular praise, "I think you have
handled a very ordinary life with skill and have given
it a quality not attained by other ambitious attempts' '

The task of putting the essay into book form was begun
by Mr.Lebovit in the fall of 19 3 9. Printing the book was
undertaken as a student project and its publication was
planned for the spring of i94o.However, unforeseen dif-
ficulties prevented publication as promised; Mr.Lebovit
graduated, entered upon a career in the graphic arts, and
became known professionally as Bernard Lewis. Publi-
cation became the responsibility of the 1940-41 seniors.

Delay in publication, which was disheartening at first,

brought good fortune. Laurance B. Siegfried, at one time
editor of the American Printer (now University Printer at
Syracuse University) showed galley proofs to Melbert
Carey, the President of the American Institute of Graphic
Arts.Mr. Carey immediately suggested that the edition be
increased to provide copies of the book for distribution
as keepsakes for the A.I.GA.members.That suggestion,
when mentioned to Walter H. Fredrick of the Fredrick
Photogelatine Press, brought an offer to contribute pro-
duction work on the illustrations. Wishing to encourage
the undertaking, the Russell-Rutter Company offered to
co-operate in the binding of the book. A member of that
organisation, R.WBergmann, gave helpful advice while
the book was being printed. Valuable technical assistance
in the adjustment of our casting equipment was rendered
by S. E. Haigh,Lanston Monotype Machine Company;
A. D. Scott, Carnegie Institute Press; William F. Bremer,
Pittsburgh Mono-Lino Company; and by Frank Bradlaw,
Edwin H. Stuart, Inc.To all these men and to the organ-
isations they represent, we extend our sincere gratitude.
Many students of the Carnegie Department of Printing
have -worked on the composition and presswork of the
book. The services of these enthusiastic devotees of the
graphic arts and the untiring efforts of the staff members
who acled in an advisory capacity are acknowledged in
the colophon.

GlenU.Cleeton,
Head, Department of Printing

BEHIND THE TYPE

C>>rO

THE LIFE STORY OF FREDERIC W. GOUDY

behind The Tape

It was three a.m. in bloomington, and a mournful
chorus of bells reminded the townsmen that the fu-
neral train was approaching. Dancing yellow lights be-
gan to appear in the windows, and shadows silently
glided across the drawn shades. Soon the houses emp-
tied, and their occupants walked toward the centrally
located railroad station. The train was due to arrive in
Bloomington at 4:43. Among the thousands that stood
in the darkness on the edge of the tracks was Amanda
Gowdy, a thin, well-knit woman, who held her infant
son, Frederic, in her arms.

There was hardly a person in Bloomington that had
not played some part in Lincoln's life. Even children
had become aroused when a guest at one of the town's
hotels had remarked that the great man had deserved
his death. A general demand for a lynching followed,
and the loose-tongued man had to be smuggled out of
town. To express their great sorrow on Lincoln's assas-
sination, the townsmen had held an indignation meet-
©>i<©

ing in the Court House Square, and men who had been
considered Abe's closest friends told of his associations
with Bloomington. Lincoln had owned property there,
had practiced law there, and it was there that the state
meeting had been held during which his Bloomington
friends had overcome his objections to being proposed
for the presidential candidacy. Little wonder that thou-
sands waited in the darkness, and that all schools and
business houses were closed for the day

It was after sunrise that Lincoln's body passed through
the town.The throngs waited for a few minutes after the
slowly moving coach had disappeared, and then started
back to their homes.

Amanda Gowdy left with the rest. She was the wife
of the Bloomington superintendent of schools, John F.
Gowdy, a bearded, clean-cut, intelligent-looking man;
stern, silent, and dignified, like the modern conception
of the typical pioneer. Amanda with her dark hair part-
ed in the middle and combed straight back, with her
strong eyes, and steady gaz,e, seemed like an idealization
of the typical pioneer woman. Strangely enough, they
were what they seemed to be. John had been born on a
farm in Ohio, one of nine children. He was a good stu-
dent and persisted as far as his junior year in Knox Col-
lege, which he left when offered a teaching position. He
moved from place to place to find better positions and in
that way came to Bloomington as principal of the high
school, later being made the superintendent of schools.

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I

John V. Gaudy, 1883

mda Goudy, about 1878

Amanda's story might have been similar to that of most
girls of her day, had she ever thought of her life in terms
of words.

The Gowdys lived simply, for John's salary was nev-
er more than they could easily spend. He had his school,
his books; she had her home; and they both had friends,
family, and church. There were very few opportunities
for recreation— even for so precocious a town as Bloom-
ington. Week-days meant work, Sunday meant church
followed by a grand occasion— dinner— with perhaps
Sister Belle and other guests attending.

It was those times and this environment that saw the
birth of Frederic William Gowdy on March 8, 1865.
He was too young to know that he was being held in
his mother's arms when Lincoln's remains were being
transported to Springfield, but he heard many stories
of the great man during his youth, and he later became
acquainted -with Herndon, Lincoln's law partner. He
often watched one of Lincoln's three closest friends, OP
Jud Davis, who bounced down Bloomington's uneven
streets in a buggy that sagged heavily on one side; and
he knew the second of the three friends, Jesse Fell, the
man who built and beautified Bloomington. He was lat-
er a guest at the hotel in Shelbyville that Lincoln once
visited, and he expressed the opinion that he pitied Lin-
coln if the accommodations were as poor in his day

Frederic was as unspectacular as his background, and
demonstrated only the usual abilities and talents to be

expedted in a child of his age. He did show a waddling
interest in the doings of the neighborhood whenever he
could escape for an exploring trip, and Amanda had to
tie him to the door-knob to make sure that he would be
there when she wanted him. When the knob stopped
rattling it was a danger signal. Like all normal boys he
played, grew, and went to school. When he was about
seven years old his family moved to Tuscola, in Illinois,
to Rushville, to Rock Island, and back to Bloomington.

As he approached his ninth year, he began to evolve
a personality of his own. It consisted of a love of play,
an interest in reading, and a certain amount of forget-
fulness.The family could never count on him to do any-
thing that he promised, because he would always find
something that would interest him more than the thing
that he was asked to do.

Going to the store was a duty that usually fell on his
shoulders. His older brother worked and was a little
too old for the indignity, and his sister, "Jo," was too
small. One cold fall day when he was about ten years
old, he was sent on a five block trip to the baker shop
and returned with both arms wrapped around the five
loaves of bread that he had purchased for a quarter. The
bag was breaking, his arms were frozen, and tears were
streaming down his face. He was not comforted by his
mother, who stood on the porch laughing at him. Fred
evened the score when he later chose to carry a water-
melon home from the grocery shop, allowing a delivery
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boy to engineer the other food. There was little left of the
melon when Fred reached home. It would be difficult to
believe that his mother laughed on this occasion.

Young Gowdy played baseball, skated a great deal,
and enjoyed his daily morning and evening excursions
to and from pasture with a neighbor's cow. When he
was nine or ten, he could draw quite well, and enjoyed
copying pictures from the illustrated magazines of the
day He developed a photographic mind by looking at
a picture and reproducing it from memory with con-
siderable accuracy some time later. About this time his
father went to Wichita, Kansas, to assume a position as
superintendent of schools, leaving the family in Bloom-
ington. He stayed a year or two, and when he returned
he brought, as a gift for Fred, a bow and arrow set that
had been used by an Arapaho Indian.

Fred retained at least one tendency of his infancy—
his wandering habits. One day he disappeared in the
morning and his father spent hours combing the town
for him. The prodigal son returned in the evening limp-
ing, in agony because of a stone that had worked itself
into a cut in his foot. But his suffering saved him from an
ordeal in the woodshed. When the pain had subsided
and the family had calmed, Fred's simple explanation
was that he had found an Episcopalian picnic, and since
the good churchmen did not know his affiliations, they
fed him sandwiches, and as long as they fed him sand-
wiches, he stayed.

Mark Twain might easily have used young Fred as
the hero of one of his stories, for when Fred was ten
years old he duplicated Tom Sawyer's fence white-
washing stunt with five cords of hickory wood. His
father had bought the wood, had paid a man to cut it
with a circular saw driven by a horse on a treadmill,
and for a quarter Fred's mother hired him to pile it
neatly in the woodshed. Fred was not as clever a busi-
ness man as Tom Sawyer because he in turn hired five
boys at five cents each and did more work than any of
them, only to find, when the time for the distribution
of wages came, that he had nothing left for himself.

The spiels of the patent medicine sellers always ap-
pealed to Fred's imagination. Tools and mechanical con-
trivances of any kind also had a strange fascination for
him. It was indeed a risk to send him on an errand when
something was needed in a hurry. One day on his way
to the grocery store he digressed in favor of a man who
was demonstrating a pantagraph, an arm-like device for
copying pictures and reproducing them in crayon or
pencil, either enlarged or reduced. He persuaded his fa-
ther to give him money to buy one, and later he made
good use of the toy.

His father often found opportunity to play croquet
with him. Aside from contacts like this, Fred had no
really intimate associations with his parents. Displays
of affection were not part of the Gowdy make-up. But
Fred felt the influence of his father's interest, for he

made good use of his library. He never touched the
dime novels that were so popular in his day, but read
novels of romantic influence like Vathek, Undine, Gulli-
vefs Travels, Picdola, and plunged randomly into books
of historical interest.

When Fred was thirteen the wandering Gowdys left
Bloomington, moving to Macomb, Illinois, where they
stayed for about a year. His experience here was merely
an extension of his life in Bloomington. He occasionally
strolled down to one of the numerous potteries to watch
the workmen at their handwheels. He continued draw-
ing, reading, and playing. Before he had time to become
really settled, the Gowdy "whirlwind" moved to the
town of Butler, Illinois.

In Butler, John Gowdy became the town's first high
school principal. It was an interesting little place con-
sisting of about 900 inhabitants, thirteen saloons, two
churches, a grain elevator, four general stores, a mill, a
hotel, three creameries, a cheese factory and three base-
ball teams.

It was in Butler at the age of fifteen that Fred made a
short but satisfactory contadt with politics. He saw an
advertisement of a lathe with a scroll saw attachment
in the Youth's Companion for only ten dollars. But ten
dollars was exactly ten dollars more than he owned. He
brought his problem to his father who told him that the
grammar school needed a janitor. When John Gowdy,
the much-esteemed high school principal, suggested to

the Board of Education that his son be given the posi-
tion of janitor, the worthy members grinned and con-
sented. The job was a good one for a lazy boy like
Fred. He came early in the morning to sweep out the
few rooms, rang the opening bell, recess bell, and the
closing bell. At the end of the month he pocketed ten
dollars. He wasted no time in sending for the lathe.
When it came and was set up, he immediately initi-
ated it by making a set of croquet mallets, and some
spools for an elecTro-magnet that he constructed.

His lathe did not remain anchored very long, for in
a year the family migrated to Shelbyville, a flat middle
western town, -where John Gowdy took a position as
superintendent of schools.

It was not long before Fred made new friends in Shel-
byville. They went skating, swimming, and played ball
together. But the lure of social recreation did not detract
from his strong interest in creative work, for when his
lathe was set up, and his tools in order, he built a flat-
bottom rowboat which he completed successfully and
floated on a nearby river.

He brought many of his carpentry problems to Frank
Broyles, a newly made friend, who did all of the wood
work for a plough factory in town. Broyles allowed
Fred to use his lathe and showed him the use of other
tools. Fred watched the craftsman for hours on end,
took note of the deliberate exactness with which he
executed each phase of his job. Broyles was unsullied

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Broyles' influ

by book learning and he analysed each problem of his
work intuitively. He taught Fred that the good crafts-
man followed a definite tradition in any piece of design
or construction, and he showed him the subtle differ-
ences between a good and a bad plough beam. Fred
watched Broyles plan and build a very difficult stair
rail, and he noticed that his first step in the process was
to lay out the job carefully with pencil and paper.

He soon found opportunity to apply the random train-
ing that he received from the carpenter. He was quite
friendly with Jennie Trower, the daughter of the editor
and publisher of the local newspaper, and he was once
at her home during a time that it was being redecorated.
Asa Blankenship, the paperhanger, was having trouble
trying to fit the ceiling border around a curved space at
the head of the stairs, and had almost given up his futile
attempts. Fred watched him closely and involuntarily
began to plan the job the way Frank Broyles would have
planned it. He saw that he could measure the space, lay
it out on paper, and cut the wall paper to fit his pattern.
It seemed simple enough so he told Asa that he thought
he knew how it could be done, and the thwarted paper-
hanger was not averse to letting him try. Fred took the
measurements of the problem home, laid it out on brown
paper, cut and pasted the wallpaper to this foundation,
and gave it to Asa who had nothing more to do but use
Fred's pattern to finish the job.

Broyles' influence was evident in another triumph of
Q> 13 <©

building that the seventeen-year-old dabbler enjoyed.
Fred had ambitiously started the construction of a steam
engine but was unable to perform the intricate metal
work involved in the piston and cylinder. His solution
came when he thought of a substitute for the conven-
tional metals, for Broyles employed Babbitt metal when
he worked as a wheelwright. This metal had a low
melting point and Fred could handle it by turning out
molds with his lathe. He planned the job carefully and
succeeded in constructing an efficient engine.

His high school days in Shelbyville were quite pleas-
ant although in his actual school work Fred could not
have been accused of being an overly brilliant student.
There were no extra-curricular activities such as inter-
school sports, or clubs, and schools were generally con-
sidered tedious affairs. He was interested in the library,
an after-school activity that his father had helped inno-
vate on a system in which the students' parents loaned
books that were redistributed among other students.

He was still interested in drawing, and became pro-
ficient in copying, as well as portraiture. When he was
eighteen he did a good original crayon rendering, and
a life-si^e crayon portrait of one of Shelbyville's citi-
zens which was exhibited by Mr. Launey, the town
photographer. The year before he had exhibited a copy
of a wood engraving from one of the current magazines
in the Shelbyville County Fair and had won first pri^e,
earning an award of three dollars and a blue ribbon.

L

To any who congratulated him he observed that there
was little competition, but he admitted that he had a
good eye and copied well. And to prove it he repeated
another pri^e performance at the next annual fair.

He later demonstrated his artistic ability in a manner
that brought him praise from many people in Shelby-
ville. His friend, Asa Blankenship, was papering the
Sunday School room, and Fred noticed that between
the ten windows in the room there were ten perfectly
blank spaces that formed small panels. It occurred to
him that it would help to fill them with the Ten Com-
mandments, and it suggested the possibility of cutting
out letters to form the words. He thought that he could
do it so he spoke to some of the trustees of the church
who finally and doubtfully consented. Fred drew an
original alphabet of capital letters about three inches
high, and strangely enough they looked something like
a current alphabet called "Ornate," drawn by a man
living today whose name is quite similar to Fred's. He
went to the paint store and chose a solid-color maroon
paper with a rough surface. By cutting out master letters
he traced to the maroon paper, cut out the letters, and
spaced them on a piece of paper the exact siz;e of the
panels. He spread out the work on Asa's tables, and
used the paperhanger's tools.

This was an accomplishment in itself, but when Asa

had finished Fred decided to fill the large panels on the

walls with Bible quotations. He borrowed a type speci-

0>i5<0

men book from the newspaper office of Mr. Trower, and
from it copied initial letters and decorative pieces; cut
out letters for tracing, and with the help of a girl whom
he knew, he made over three thousand letters from gilt
paper and pasted them in the panels inside a gold rule.
It took him a month to complete the work.

He then left Shelbyville for the neighboring town of
Bethany, to help his friend, Behymer, a contrador-car-
penter, who was building a church. Fred's job was to
convert plain glass into stained glass. He painted the
glass to give it a frosted effedt, and then painted in color
over the frosted surface. When he returned home from
Bethany, he found a twenty dollar check waiting for
him from the Shelbyville church for his work on the
Sunday School room. A little later, Colonel Smith, a
very religious man, and one whom the citizens of the
town greatly admired, said in a talk at the church that
he had never seen a Sunday School room so beautiful.
The trustees sent Fred another twenty dollars.

His parents and sister, "Jo," looked upon him rather
indulgently despite all these successes. He didn't seem
steady enough, and these little accomplishments were
in the nature of play. No one ever granted Fred very
much of a chance for success of any kind. But some
admitted that he might possibly become a good sign
painter.

Among the many things that he attempted to under-
stand was electricity comparatively undeveloped com-

i

mercially in 1883. After graduation from high school he
went to work for a sign painter and later a photographer
in Springfield, Illinois. He spent his leisure hours in an
eledtrical plant and became friendly with a worker who
gave him burned-out carbons that would otherwise have
been discarded. When he came home and his mother
unpacked his luggage, she found the trunk full of the
carbon rods, and his clothes squeezed in a small bundle
that he carried with him. He used the rods to construe!
a galvanic cell.

In Springfield he had become well acquainted with a
minister who had offered to obtain a scholarship for him
at Blackburn College, a seminary, but Fred had experi-
enced too much difficulty trying to refrain from undig-
nified behavior in church even to think of becoming
a minister. He -was never a very religious boy, and he
even struggled against the compulsion of going to Sun-
day School. Now, as a young man, he felt even more
strongly on the subjecT:.

His father thought that his natural capabilities fitted
him for a civil engineering career, and he encouraged
him to study that profession. After the completion of
his junior year at high school, young Fred thought of
taking an examination at the Illinois Industrial School,
intending to study mechanical engineering if he passed.
But his high school preparation had not included some
required study and he did not attempt the entrance ex-
amination. Later, after he had completed his high school

work, he could have been admitted on his diploma,
but his family was preparing to move once again. This
time it was in the nature of a pioneer's trek to the new
frontier country.

John Goudy (the spelling of their surname changed at
this time since someone discovered that Goudy was the
traditional Scotch spelling) was motivated by a double
purpose in planning a trip to the Dakota Territory. He
was not in good health, the change in climate was ad-
vised, and he was intrigued by the new country and
an opportunity to open an office as a real estate agent.
Many other people from Illinois were going, among
them the Davis family with whom the Goudys were
quite friendly.

John Goudy went first, followed later by Fred. John
settled at Plankington, Dakota, where he took up a
quarter sedtion of land, and proved upon it. He had
heard of Highmore, a little prairie cow-town of about
500 people, located on the highest point of ground be-
tween the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers on the
Chicago and Northwestern Railway. It was a more
attractive community so John left his Plankington hold-
ings and moved to Highmore.

Under the arrangement with the government at that
time, a man could pre-empt 160 acres, which was in
effect an option on the land he chose. He cultivated the
land, not less than five acres, and when he had lived
upon it for six months, he could obtain a patent from

the government on payment of $1.25 an acre. In High-
more, John Goudy set up a real estate office with a part-
ner, E. O. Parker, and made loans to farmers who had
obtained their patents from the government. The con-
cern also transacted legal matters for the farmers, and
acled generally in the capacity of advisor. They even
planned a village in the northern part of Hyde County
that is still known as Goudyville.

When they were settled in Highmore, Fred returned
to Illinois to bring back the rest of the family. They
arrived during a turbulent period of reconstruction. A
month before they came, John was sitting in his little
cottage with his feet dangling in the hatchway leading
to the cellar. He suddenly heard the rush of wind and
felt pressure being exerted on the cottage. Through an
open door he could see a phenomenal column of mist
or dust approaching rapidly. Before the cyclone hit, he
jumped into the cellar. It came with increasing noise
and violence straight for the house, but struck a rise in
the ground and was defledted over the roof, and only
moved the cottage a foot or two. Other homes in the
vicinity were shattered. The roller skating rink was
disintegrated and its skates were distributed for miles
around on the prairies. The next day John walked into
his real estate office and found a dead man lying on the
floor, carefully placed on a blanket. The victim, Mr.
Thompson, was the only person killed during the cy-
clone. He was a Highmore farmer who had ventured out

from a storm cellar a few minutes before the danger had
passed, thinking that the storm was over.

In addition to his real estate office, John Goudy held
two public positions. Dakota was a territory and a su-
perintendent of schools from civilised country was held
in high regard. John was appointed county treasurer by
the governor, and was later eledted judge of the Probate
Court.

As the son of a superintendent of schools from the
East, Fred had a certain social position in the town of
400 or 500 people, and he went out with the bankers
daughter. There were about twenty boys and girls of
his age in Highmore and when he wasn't working in
his fathers office, he went out with "the gang." Fred
was husky and acflive, and could handle himself well
on horseback. He mastered the difficult art of riding a
bucking bronco, and owned about five or six while he
lived in Highmore.

During the summers, Fred and some of his friends
went out on camping trips to a Sioux Indian reservation
a few miles south of Highmore. The Indians paid no at-
tention to them, but Fred managed to become friendly
with some who had been in the Custer fight. Once a
week a government agent distributed flour and sugar
to the Indians, and the sight of these once self-sufficient
people waiting patiently in line to receive food from
their conquerors was the prime attraction of these occa-
sional expeditions.

I

In 1885, when Fred was twenty years old, a news-
paper was started in Highmore, called the Hyde County
Bulletin; and from the very first issue on December 26,
items of interest began to appear about Fred Goudy.
The first read: ' 'We are under obligation to Fred Goudy
for assisting in putting up our press. Fred is an old
hand at pressing, and was of material aid to us, as our
experience in that line is limited."

About this incident Goudy later said "I do not have
any recollecflion of the matter. At most it could have
been little more than a desire to help set up a hand press,
because I was probably more mechanically inclined
than the publisher— not that I knew anything about a
press or was interested in it or printing. The 'pressing'
was intended to be facetious."

In an issue on February 13, 1886: ' 'Fred Goudy has our
thanks for a fine crayon sketch of President Cleveland.' '
And on March 27, 1886: "Fred Goudy is now a full-
fledged notary. Come in and be sworn."

Goudy later said: "I was notary public for some years,
as the work of preparing deeds, mortgages, etc., for my
father's business made it convenient. But in those days
you couldn't throw a stick without hitting one or two

The editor of the Bulletin also reports that Fred Goudy
had been asked to design a "fancy insurance policy for
some promoters and produced a very creditable job."

On Ocftober 16, 1886, a column was started, headed
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"I. O. of G . T." (Independent Order of Good Templars)
and the editor's introduction read: "This column, under
the management of Fred W. Goudy, D. G. C. T., is de-
voted to the interests of the Good Templars and all in-
terested in temperance work. Items calculated to ad-
vance the cause are earnestly solicited."

March 12, 1887: "Fred Goudy is agent for the Guion
line of steamers and can furnish passage to Liverpool,
Havre, and continental points cheaper than any other
agency in the northwest." June 4, 1887: "Fred Goudy is
taking lessons in shorthand under G. W. Fitzgerald."

September 3, 1887: "Fred Goudy killed a rattlesnake
Sunday morning, on the back road from Fort Thomp-
son, with the butt end of a buggy whip. It measured
three feet and eight inches and was as large as a man's
wrist. It had eleven rattles."

John Goudy was mentioned in the October g, 1886,
issue: "We saw Judge Goudy going out northwest last
Sunday. We presume that he is getting acquainted with
strange roads, preparatory to an electioneering journey.
The Judge is an old hand at the biz;."

An item of general interest refers to a J. R. Goudy, a
distant relative of the Goudy s. This appears in Novem-
ber, 1886: "Rev. J. R. Goudy has taken his new ap-
pointment, the Howell M. E. Circuit in Hand County.
Mr. Goudy was among the pioneers of Hyde County,
and with whom in days gone by we had many cour-
tesies. Should the preaching of any man change our

0>22,0

thoughts from what they now are, it would be Brother
Goudy, as we know he is honest in what he says or
does, a gentleman in all respects." Fred later said: "J.
R. Goudy. . . took up preaching and -was a pretty punk
preacher at that. He did break off his drinking."

February, 1887: "At a meeting of the Highmore W
C. T. U. new officers were elected. Mrs. J. F. Goudy
was elected treasurer."

August, 1887: "Fred W Goudy, A. E. McCune, Miss
Eva Warner, and Miss Charlotte Root rusticated at Fort
Thompson this week."

February, 1887: "The members of the 'Social Glass'
drama have decided upon Friday evening, February 2,
as the time for presenting their play to the public. It
will be one of the most thrilling dramas ever presented
in Highmore, and while radical in temperance, still will
be interspersed with comedy and pathos, and will be a
very interesting play throughout. Let everyone attend,
and thus help on a good cause." Fred was "the villain"
in the play.

June, 1887: "We don't wish to buy any farms, but we
will give you as large a loan as your improvements will
warrant. (Signed) John F. Goudy and Son."

In his father's office Fred learned a little about keep-
ing books; he drew deeds and mortgages, and occasion-
ally took Easterners to the government office at Huron
to secure a list of the available tracts of land on which
the newcomers could settle. Young Fred knew the land
0*23^0

well, and he mastered die complicated maps of tradts
and townships so that he could take a settler to the
exacT: location of his quarter section. Their real estate
office was large, and when the county commissioners
hired a man to draw a map of Hyde County, the job
was done there. Fred watched him at his work and no-
ticed how he handled his instruments.

His knowledge of the use of surveying instruments
surprised the county surveyor who was attempting to
lay out a cemetery near Highmore. He needed someone
to lay out the lines for him and Fred said that he would
like to help him. The surveyor was unconvinced, and
Fred had to do a great deal of talking before he was
even given a trial. He used the transit well, calling the
inclination accurately each time. The surveyor admitted
finally that Fred could use transit and line proficiently.
After this incident his services were conscripted when-
ever the surveyor needed an assistant.

When he was about twenty-three years old, Fred at-
tempted a business venture of his own. With an English
preacher named Walton he established the Anglo-Da-
kota Loan and Trust Company. Fred wrote the initial
literature for the firm, and instructed the printer as to
the style of the typography. The preacher was not suc-
cessful in selling stock for the company, so they never
made any loans, and soon stopped trying.

Hard times descended on the Dakota lands. Hail and

drought killed crops and farms were in the discard.

0>24(0

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Preliminary sketches of a Gou

His father's firm suffered, since its major business came
from the farmers. Fred -was twenty-four years old and
had to begin thinking of a profession and a future for
himself. While working with his father's firm he had
taught himself bookkeeping, and after carefully consid-
ering possible openings at home and abroad he decided
that his best opportunity was in a large city. It was not
easy to bring to an end his happy life in Highmore— the
happiest years of his youth— but the necessity to attain
something by himself was stronger than mere sentiment
and he left his family and friends and went to Minne-
apolis. His first trip was in the nature of an excursion.
He stayed at the home of a man who had bought land
from his father's firm a little earlier, and with whom
he had kept up a correspondence. When he came back
to Minneapolis to stay, he again visited with his friend
for a few weeks, remaining there until he found a posi-
tion and was able to support himself.

In the city he became a cashier and bookkeeper in a
large department store. He didn't care very much for the
work, no more than he had liked the routine work in
his father's office in Highmore,but he did like Minne-
apolis. It was a large city, the first in which he had ever
lived. There -were theaters and many facilities for rec-
reation which appealed to him.

He stayed in Minneapolis almost a year, then went to
Springfield, where he worked in the office of a man
named Wilson whom he had met some years before.

His previous experience in Springfield, when his fam-

at her Chicago hon

ily was still living in Shelbyville, also led him there.

ing in Lincoln Par

But this time he only stayed for two or three months.

His next positioi

Wages were low and the work did not interest him.

oughly familiar, fo

He decided to write to Richard Alden, a Chicago finan-

assistant in a real

cial broker, with whom he had had business contacts in

business, real esta

Dakota. He applied for a position with Alden and was

rising. In Dakota,

made "private secretary."

number of small a

In January he left Springfield for Chicago. His new

had no training in

work combined many of his capabilities and interests.

sign, but he apprc

Alden attempted to get capital from prospective inves-

naivete and simpl

tors for the financing of a new machine or process, and

wallpaper and the

Goudy wrote and designed prospectuses describing the

ville. In his appro*

mechanical functioning of the apparatus. Alden liked

to anything, he sir

Goudy 's typographic arrangements. They were simple,

achieve and did t

neat, and logical, and appealed to Alden, who insisted

problem 'was a ch

on perfection in the appearance of the correspondence

peded by a sense c

and literature of the firm. But his difficult requirements

After about a mc

in the way of perfection were rather unplea
for both Goudy and the firm's competent stenographer,
Bertha Sprinks, a charming young lady who had been
employed by the firm about three weeks after Fred.

Goudy 's salary was as small as his title was grand,
and after a few months he left Alden to take a better
position. Bertha Sprinks left a little later. They had be-
come quite friendly and occasionally went to the theater
together. More often, because of the rather unhappy con-
dition of the Goudy pocketbook, they spent an evening

at her Chicago home on the North Side, or went walk-
ing in Lincoln Park.

His next position was one with which he was thor-
oughly familiar, for he became bookkeeper and general
assistant in a real estate firm. For the success of their
business, real estate agents depended on good adver-
tising. In Dakota, Goudy had written and designed a
number of small advertising pieces for his father. He
had no training in merchandising or in layout and de-
sign, but he approached each problem with the same
naivete and simplicity with which he had solved the
wallpaper and the steam engine problems in Shelby-
ville. In his approach to advertising, as in his approach
to anything, he simply saw what he was attempting to
achieve and did the best he could to achieve it. Each
problem was a challenge and he was certainly not im-
peded by a sense of inferiority.

After about a month in the real estate office, occasion-
ally writing copy and designing small folders or news-
paper ads, an incident occurred that made Goudy even
more conscious of the possibilities of advertising; and,
more important, it made him conscious of his possibili-
ties in advertising. A client of his firm was attempting
to sell an old farm in Massachusetts and indicated that
he would like to put an ad in the Chicago Tribune. The
real estate agents frankly told the client that he stood lit-
tle if any chance of selling his property. But Fred, with
characteristic ingenuousness, felt that it could be done,

and he was given permission to write and design an ad
that would be run for one day. He found a woodcut of
a farmhouse, and neatly arranged his copy under the cut
using the appealing caption "In The Family 150 Years."
The day after the ad appeared no one came to ask about
the farm. But on the second day two interested prospe&s
came, and one of them traveled to Massachusetts to see
the property. After succumbing to the romantic appeal
of the advertisement, the hopeful buyer found that the
old New England mansion had been over-described by
the advertisement.

The outcome of his efforts in advertising amazed the
young bookkeeper, for none other than A. H. McQuil-
kin, the editor of the leading printing journal, the Inland
Printer, came to the company's office to tell Goudy how
much he liked his unusual taste in design, and to ask for
an article on advertising. His ads were unusual for they
were simple, whereas the rococo design of that era was
as intricately inane as it could possibly have been.

Soon after this Goudy met Cyrus Lauron Hooper who,
he found, had lived in Shelbyville. Hooper was an in-
structor in English at the Northwest High School in Chi-
cago. They became very friendly and saw each other oft-
en. Goudy was talking and thinking a good deal about
advertising and conceived the idea of publishing a small
magazine devoted to problems of advertising. In a short
while Goudy and Hooper began to plan Modern Adver-
tising. Hooper conferred with an "expert" who advised
©>30f©

him against starting such a venture with a man as inex-
perienced as Goudy. But Editor McQuillan had already-
introduced Goudy to Will Bradley, a young illustrator
and designer, whose work was becoming increasingly
important. Mr. Bradley had promised to design the cover
for the magazine and the young advertising missionary-
was not interested in the opinions of experts.

The first issue of Modern Advertising carried the follow-
ing editorial announcement: "Modern Advertising is de-
signed to fill a hitherto unfilled niche and will be free
from captious criticism or wish to displace any similar
journal . It is the aim of the publisher to promulge the best
thought on the art and science of advertising, dealing
with the practical side of the subjecT:, with just enough
of the theoretical to enliven the necessarily dryer details.
The study which goes to make the best efforts will be to
the advancement of the advertiser's interest.' ' The first is-
sue which was sent to prospective advertisers contained
reading matter with blank spaces showing positions in
which ads could be placed.

The first issue brought some encouraging correspon-
dence. One rabid Westerner wrote: "Dear Sir: We think
there is a great big field for ModernAdvertising providing
it is published from a Western standpoint. If vim, vine-
gar and snap are put into it, it will arrest the attention of
the effete East in a manner that only the West is capable
of doing."

Modern Advertising met misfortune from the very first
0>3KO

issue when Associate Editor Hooper mixed up a few-
dates in a short biography, and it ceased to exist after
a few months. It served as a good laboratory for Goudy
who through it began to collecl: information on print-
ing and design.

Bookkeeping and unsuccessful magazines were not
helpful to the pocketbook of a young man with a large
appetite, and Fred Goudy was again, as often was the
situation in his life, on the borderline between have
and have not. Opportunities for recreation were scarce
and money for the existing diversions was even more
scarce. But he occasionally enjoyed the company of Ber-
tha Sprinks, who after leaving Alden's real estate office
had moved with her parents to another part of Chicago.
They both owned bicycles, and they often went out to-
gether on Sunday picnics to the outskirts of the city.

He had continued his reading since childhood, and his
interest in reading now became localised in books about
books and printing. He soon became a naturalised mem-
ber of the tribe that haunts bookstores, the greatest attrac-
tion at the time being the shelves of A. C. McClurg and
Company, then located at Wabash Avenue and Madison
Street. Here he bought Early Illustrated Booh by Alfred
Pollard and Early Printed Books by E.Gordon Duff. His
empty exchequer compelled him to peruse many more
books than he bought, but he slowly picked up infor-
mation about this new interest. He also bought some of
the more advanced magazines on art and literature, such

as the Chapbook and the London Studio, ventures of Amer-
ican and English publishers.

Onedayin 189 2 Fred received a letter from Highmore,
saying that his father was sick. He hurried home, but he
found his father already dead; he had succumbed to the
then fatal peritonitis, due to gall bladder trouble. John
Goudy was county superintendent of schools at the time
of his death. Fred stayed in Highmore for two days, then
returned to Chicago.

The friendship between Fred and Bertha continued.
They spent many Sunday afternoons together during the
summer of 1893, wandering through the exhibits at the
Chicago World's Fair.

When he was thirty years old, Fred was still work-
ing as a bookkeeper, but now it was in a second-hand
bookstore. He had by this time become deeply inter-
ested in typographic art and craft through his visits to
McClurg's and he met many noted bibliophiles in the
Saints' and Sinners' Corner, presided over by George
Millard, a friend whom Goudy called ' 'the Patron Saint
of the Corner." He wanted to learn more about practi-
cal printing; he wanted to start a press of his own. He
spoke to Hooper about it, and the pair decided to at-
tempt another venture together; or rather, Goudy con-
vinced Hooper that they should do so. It was a print-
ing shop this time, and they called it the Booklet Press.

In space sublet from another printing establishment,
the Booklet Press blossomed out in 1894 with an 8x12

Gordon press, a small stone, a half-do^en fonts of type,
a little money from Hooper, and a vast amount of en-
thusiasm from Frederic Goudy. From the very begin-
ning they were in debt for the equipment, and in 1895
business was in the trough of the cycle. Goudy knew
almost nothing about the mechanical problems of pro-
ducing a printed page and his early attempts were in
the nature of experiments. Hooper was still teaching
school and he could do nothing more than supply the
cash and come down to watch Goudy use it. But people
liked Goudy 's experiments and business increased.

A business increase meant purchase of equipment to
Goudy, not better food or improved sleeping quarters.
During these days he ate at times and at times did not.
A friend of his owned a restaurant and Fred often paid
for his meals by printing commutation tickets for him.
He sometimes went to a dime museum or to a "bur-
lesque," which, in 1894, was a variety or vaudeville
show, and not particularly interesting. When he had
nothing to eat he fed his mind at McClurg's in con-
versation with George Millard or one of the customer
bibliophiles. He also continued his acquaintance -with
the doings of William Morris and other masters. By
then he had become a recognised fixture in the Saints'
and Sinners' Corner. Bertha Sprinks was by no means
lessened in importance by these activities. Goudy con-
tinued to see her, and their friendship deepened.

Goudy the man was not very much different from

Goudy the boy. He was still like the tyke who forgot
the things he promised to do in favor of things that he
enjoyed doing more. His methods of work were sub-
ject to much jesting among his friends. Robert Ballou,
later editor and publisher of the Ben Franklin Monthly,
reports at "second hand" that ' 'A customer would come
into Goudy 's office, perhaps at two o'clock in the after-
noon with a job that must be completed the next morn-
ing at eight. Goudy would take it on and give the most
solemn promise in the world, planning to devote the rest
of the day to the job. But about the time the customer's
footsteps died away, one of the boys would come in and
suggest gallery seats at the Majestic, and Goudy would
go. Then it would be dinner time and there would be
some friends to talk to. About bed time, the eight o'clock
promise would be remembered, and Goudy would go
back to the office and start his work; perhaps at three
o'clock he would leave with the job finished."

Goudy was characterised by an enviable directness, an
objective, non-emotional approach to all his problems,
and a rich sense of humor.This could be seen in his work,
in his speech, and in the things that he liked . He disliked
affectation. When he thought that a thing was wrong, he
would condemn it in no uncertain terms. He was impa-
tient with unintelligence and excessive ritual or submis-
sion to fetishes. He applied his direct, simple analysis to
anything that presented itself to him. In his youth reli-
gion annoyed him. His father was religious and forced

Fred to go to Sunday School. But he could find little evi-
dence to convince him of either ability or intelligence in
most ministers, and he saw too much of the"old ladies
who knew the Bible word for word, but who knew lit-
tle of the actualities of life." As he grew older, he quit
going to church and did not hesitate to call himself an
agnostic. He didn't believe in reincarnation and he was
also very doubtful of the existence of a hereafter.

At this time in his life he might have starved to death
and conclusively solved his doubt as to the existence of
a hereafter had his work not been good enough to at-
tract a steady customer to the Booklet Press. Goudy had
been collecting copies of the new and neatly designed
Chapbook. W. Irving Way, a friend of Goudy's and an ad-
mirer of his work, introduced him to the Chapbook pub-
lishers, Stone and Kimball, who were then planning to
locate in Chicago, and were seeking a printer. This was
an excellent occasion for a demonstration of good typog-
raphy, for the material in the little Chapbook demanded
the companionship of careful printing. Some of the con-
tributors were well-known writers , such as Hamlin Gar-
land, Bliss Carmen, Louise Guiney and Nathan Haskell
Dole. The price of the magazine was as modest as its siz;e,
five cents the copy.

In printing the Chapbook Goudy engineered a simple
stunt that amazed printers and made him the subject of
much discussion. He at first could find no type suitable
for printing the Chapbook because of its small sizje, but

n

after taking measurements he ordered nine point ' 'Orig-
inal Old Style" cast on an eight point body, achieving
an admirably close fitting of type. The magazine was de-
signed and set by Goudy but printed by a larger plant.

As a printer he was well acquainted and thoroughly
disgusted with the ivy-covered type faces in use. He felt
that he could design a face at least as good, perhaps bet-
ter, if he tried. So one night when he could think of no
better amusement , he seated himself near the window of
his room and sketched an alphabet. He sent the drawings
to the Dickinson Type Foundry in Boston, with a mod-
est note stating that he thought the design was worth five
dollars. He knew that his letters were as good as most of
those in use, but he hardly expected the ten dollars that
the manager of the foundry sent him in consummating
the sale.

With the Chapbook to set and a few other good custom-
ers the Booklet Press was moved to the Caxton Building,
then in the heart of the old printing district of Chicago,
and the name was changed to the Camelot Press. Later
Goudy's type face was called "Camelot"— suggested by
the name of the press. The Camelot Press had as a mem-
ber of its ' 'staff' ' a young artist, Berne Nadall, who could
draw decorative material when it was required. Goudy
studied Nadall as he had studied Broyles in Shelbyville
and the surveyor in Dakota, and said, just as he had on so
many other occasions, ' 'It looks easy, F 11 try' '— and when
he tried he discovered in himself a sensitivity to correct-
or l©

ness of line that helped him to develop an unusual skill in
rendering appropriate decorative drawings.

In 1 8g 5 , Goudy saw an essay entitled ' 'The Black Art,' '
which he liked so much that he reprinted it, with an in-
troduction of his own, in a sixteen page pamphlet. Gou-
dy 's introduction shows clearly the lines along which he
was thinking.

"In the Engraver and Printer for January, 1894, appeared
an article from the pen of D. B. Updike, which so nearly
voiced our own idea as to taste and style in printing that
we have endeavored to bring it (slightly abridged) to
some who probably didn't see it at that time.
"Not all printers will agree with him. Some prefer to
work along the florid lines demanded by many custom-
ers. We hope to inculcate in those for whom printing is
done a love of harmony and simplicity. We propose to be-
come the exponents of a style that cannot be assailed.
Bizarre effects may have their place, few know the place;
uniqueness may be desirable, but if it cannot be had ex-
cept at the expense of good taste, then it had better be un-
attempted."

Daniel Berkeley Updike later became one of the great-
est figures in the graphic arts. About the future of the
young printer who liked Updike's ideas— we shall see.

The young printer did not print very much longer The

business was in need of capital, and Goudy habitually

undercharged his customers— and overworked himself.

Jobs took a great deal of time, especially at the beginning.

©>38,0

Hooper had become a high school principal and could
give very little time to the firm. But Goudy 's downfall
came when, at the suggestion of Hooper, the firm took in
George L. Hunter, a foreign rewrite man on the Chicago
Tribune, who became the "outside man." Hunter knew
nothing about printing except that the cost of materials
and labor must be kept as low as possible and the price
must be an extreme in the other direction. In 1896, Gou-
dy sold his share in the firm for $100, and a few months
later the sheriff's notice announced to all who cared to
know that the Camelot Press was history

Goudy then returned to his old standby, bookkeeping,
and attempted designing only asasideline. After the sale
of Camelot, he designed another face which he hoped to
sell to the Dickinson Foundry. He went to Clarence Mar-
der , of Marder , Luse, and Company, and asked him what
he would suggest as a selling price for the face. Marder
suggested $35 and added that if Goudy didn't sell it to
Dickinson, he would buy it from him. Goudy did sell it,
but he quickly designed another that Marder liked and
bought . He also sold Marder some decorative ornaments .

During all of this period Goudy continued to seek the
companionship of Bertha Sprinks. She had moved with
her family to Berwyn, Illinois, in 1894, and Fred often
rode out on Sunday to visit with Bertha and her family.
Later she was employed in the office of a metal company
in Chicago and they frequently met during lunch hour,
Goudy sometimes calling for her at the office. One day

Mr. Winchell, the manager of the company, said to her,
"You don't want to marry that man, he'll never amount
to anything." But Bertha thought otherwise for in June,
1897, they were married at her home in Berwyn, and
that night they left for Detroit, where Fred had secured
a position as bookkeeper-cashier for The Michigan Farmer.

By this time Goudy's interest in books and book design
had become thoroughly aroused. In McClurg's Mr. Mil-
lard had shown him a Vale Press copy of the Poems of Sir
]ohn Suckling and Goudy immediately recognised its su-
periority over any book he had ever before seen. George
Millard pointed out other books, such as those of Emery-
Walker, William Morris, St. John Hornby, T.J. Cobden-
Sanderson, Charles Ricketts, D. B. Updike, and others.
The Newberry Library collection provided Goudy with
an opportunity to study early books and book design.

In Detroit Goudy continued designing ornaments and
initial letters. Bertha was interested in his work and
when he received an order from a St. Louis foundry for
two sets of initial letters, she inked in his pencil designs
as she had done even before they married. The Camelot
design appeared while they were in Detroit. His duties
as an employee of The Michigan Farmer left him little
time to be applied to his avocation as designer. But the
bookkeeping did not interfere with the designing very
long, for in 1899 he lost his position and moved back to
Chicago where he established himself in the Athenaeum
Building as a free-lance designer.

i

A record of his work during the next three years of his
life could easily have filled a volume. He helped Ralph
Fletcher Seymour with a hand-lettered copy of Sonnets
from the Portugese and he independently hand-lettered a
volume of Mother Goose, the letters of which were later
used as the model for an alphabet cast by a St. Louis
foundry, and labeled "Hearst." He also did an article,
some reviews, and a cover for the Inland Printer. He de-
signed book covers, bookplates, head pieces, title pages,
"dingbats," and some commercial lettering and design-
ing. Some of his clients were Hart, Schaffner & Marx,
Marshall Field and Co., The A. C.McClurg Company
and H. S. Stone and Co. For McClurg's he specialised in
book covers. His first was a shamrock leaf design for the
Dear Irish Girl. Another early book cover design, that for
Fables in Slang, by George Ade, is remembered because
of the thrill the designer experienced when he walked
past McClurg's window and saw it filled with copies
of the newly published book. Goudy's book cover de-
signs showed his love for and knowledge of traditional
design. Usually they were appropriate drawings of en-
twined leaves or branches. He took great pains with his
work and nothing left his drawing board until he was
thoroughly satisfied with it. He experimented, erased,
and shifted lines, to produce results he could accept.

Bertha kept busy all this time in an art-craft not en-
tirely dissociated from her husband's work. Goudy had
seen and read to her an article on hand weaving, and
©>4i <©

they both became interested in it. They bought a loom
from someone in Boston and studied some books on the
subjecT:. They made many rugs and succeeded in selling
some of them.

Not long after they returned to Chicago from Detroit,
a son, Frederic Truesdell Goudy was born. During that
month the breadwinner had earned a total of eighteen
dollars. Later to round out their family they adopted a
girl, five hours old, whom Dr. Louise Acres, Bertha's
family physician, had recommended to them. They had
spoken to her about such a possibility after Frederic's
birth. They loved the child as if it had been their own,
and her death five months later was a severe blow.

In 1900 Frank Holme, a newspaper artist, started the
Frank Holme School of Illustration and asked Goudy to
teach lettering and illustration. Through Holme he met
many men who later gave him commissions, and became
friendly with some whose work was later to make them
famous in various branches of the graphic arts. Among
them were the artist, WA.Dwiggins, the cartoonist, Har-
ry Hirshfield, and the type designer, Oswald Cooper, all
of whom were pupils at the school. His work as an in-
structor at the school compelled him to do the research
and reading that formerly he had done as he pleased. He
actually had to study to keep ahead of his students, and
to preserve the illusion of omniscience that students at-
tach to those that teach them.

Goudy did not end his career as type designer with the

I

William Morris' Kelmscott press

I

Camelot design. He followed it with DeVinne Roman,
Pabst Old Style, Pabst Italic,and Powell. In 1903 Kup-
penheimer and Company asked Goudy to design an ex-
clusive face for use in their advertising.The result was
a pleasing alphabet that has been described by Goudy as
"generous in form, with solid lines and strong serifs, and
without preposterous thicks and thins." Kuppenheimer
liked the design, but they could not be convinced that
they should pay the price required to have the matrices
manufactured, and type cast. They returned the design
to Goudy with a small payment for his time.The design
seemed excellent for book use, and Goudy wished that
he could cast it and see how close he could come to the
book work of some of the private presses.

As his early years demonstrated, there was little differ-
ence between his wanting to do something and his doing
it. He kept his ear to the ground until he found an oppor-
tunity of starting a private press of his own. It came in
the person of Will Ransom,a young printing enthusiast
who was studying at the Art Institute in Chicago. Ran-
som had operated a small press of his own, the Handcraft
Press, in Snohomish,Washington.While in Washington
he had seen samples of Goudy design reproduced in the
Inland Printer, and he learned more about Goudy and his
work from W Irving Way whom he had met in Seattle.
In Chicago, Ransom was disappointed with the instruc-
tion at the art school because there was little taught about
typography and design, in which he was particularly in-
G> , 45' <0

terested. In the spring of 1903 he went to the Fine Arts
Building to meet Goudy, and his diary entry for that day
records the fadt that "He (Goudy) is very pleasant and
treated me extremely well."

In about two weeks Goudy, seeing Ransom's interest,
suggested that he come up to his office and help him
with his work on the "possibility "that he might learn
something. Ransom occupied the desk recently evacu-
ated by Billy Dwiggins, who had been helping Goudy.
Both Goudy and Ransom were deeply interested in the
work of the private presses and they often discussed
the possibility of modifying and casting the Kuppen-
heimer type and starting a private press of their own.

Goudy, who avidly insisted on the project, had little
money to spare; Ransom likewise had little but he ap-
pealed to a friend for help. The friend replied that he
too had little money but would help them get some.
By this time they were so anxious to get started that this
quasi-promise was all the encouragement they need-
ed to bring Goudy 's alphabet design to Robert Wieb-
king to be cast into type. In about a month they had the
type in their cases, and they bought a Schniedewend
and Lee proof press that in Goudy 's words was "only
a glorified Washington hand press for newspaper use."
They set up their modest equipment in the barn behind
the Goudy's home in the village of Park Ridge, a sub-
urb of Chicago. Even before all the type was in the
cases, they set their first circular, an announcement of
GV46(0

the opening of the press. They called their venture the
Village Press, for Goudy was thinking of printing the
"Village Blacksmith" and the word "village" suggested
the name, which he thought simple and suitable.

The friend who had vaguely promised to help them
get money was unable to do so, and before they could
claim their type Ransom had to borrow money from a
bank, using insurance policies for security. Ransom
made this entry in his diary: "The type finally all ar-
rived Monday night (July 20) and Tuesday morning
we went to press with the first circular. The tympan
and frisket sheets gave us a great deal of trouble on ac-
count of the paper not being stretched properly, and
the ink, for a part of the time, refused to work at all so
that we had a pretty hard time of it, making poor work
of the circular. . . . Decided to reprint the whole thing
on Alton Mills Handmade and that is on the press now
ready to be run first thing in the morning." This de-
scribes the troublesome birth of the Village Press. Nor
was it the end of their troubles. They were struggling
with strange equipment, determined to get perfed: re-
sults and they were satisfied with nothing less.

It was not long before Bertha Goudy began coming
into the shop rather regularly, often finding something
to do. Within a week after the type was in the cases
she began learning how to set it, and according to all
records she learned the job rapidly and thoroughly.
With Bertha's interest in the press and with the burn-

ing enthusiasm of the male participants, it was not sur-
prising that often shop and home changed places. Since
the barn had no lights, a type frame was carried into
the dining room so that type could be distributed and
set at night.

Ransom lived with the Goudys for the three months
that he was connected with the press. Among the items
in his diary he recorded this otherwise forgotten side-
light: "... Little Frederic was a toddler that summer
but occasioned much less distraction than the several
pets. A single memory of two Blenheim spaniel pups
concerns their being carried in my coat pockets on trips
for the mail, to the delight of the neighborhood chil-
dren. And there were 'thousands of cats' (well, four
anyway) eternally underfoot. Two of them are dim in
recollection but the black angora had a fiendish temper
and the white Lady Jane was, euphoniously, tempera-
mental. It was she who achieved typographic immor-
tality by a trip across ink slab and table when we were
putting dust wrappers on Printing. My copy still bears
her footprints. And so close were home and shop affairs
that her eventual departure for the feline equivalent of
Nirvana (via chloroform and wash boiler) was accom-
panied by communal grief."

C.Lauron Hooper, remembering an episode during
a visit prior to the Village Press period, also tells of cats:
"On at least one occasion when we sat down to dinner
a long-haired, fluffy-tailed Persian whose a

blue blood had ooz,ed through his skin and tinted his
fur, leaped confidently upon the table and made for
Fred's plate. I was horrified. What could I do if that
beautiful animal should try to share my dinner! Fred
was not horrified— not at all. He treated the cat with
perfect courtesy. Seeming to regret its possible disap-
pointment in being thwarted, he picked it up tenderly,
talked to it soothingly, petted it, and put it down upon
the floor. Up came the cat again, and the program was
repeated— how many times I do not recall." Frederic
Goudy's handling of the cat was typical of his gentle-
ness in treating both animals and people. He was very
approachable, eminently sociable, and people could not
help liking him. He retained his directness of speech
and intellect among their friends; he began to gather
a kind of fame to himself for his humorous stories and
his unfailing modesty.

Their first book, Printing, an essay by William Morris
and Emery Walker, was completed by the middle of
September. By printing this Goudy recognised his ob-
ligation to William Morris, the great poet-printer, from
whom he had learned so much. Their second book,
The Blessed Damoz,el, was printed for Clarence Marder,
an old friend of Goudy's, who took one-half the edition
and distributed the books as Christmas gifts, Goudy
selling the others. Toward the end of September when
they started work on Tfie Hollow Land, Goudy bor-
rowed money and repaid Ransom for his loan. Ransom

then left the Village Press, and Fred and Bertha Goudy
continued the work alone. It had become apparent that
they would never earn enough from the Press to sup-
port all three so Ransom withdrew. By this time Bertha
had become an indispensable helper. She demonstrated
exceeding adeptness in composition and helped with
the binding and presswork. The Village Press became
a husband and wife adventure, for the Goudy s worked
side by side, sharing every problem of shop and house-
hold. Their work made them companions, and fellow-
workers, and although the Village Press was supposed-
ly a business, the beauty derived from their combined
lives and their combined, intense enthusiasm invested
the Press with a personality that made the products of
their labor much more valuable than merely beautiful
books. An enviably perfect marriage, theirs.

Stories that have drifted down from those early days
of the Village Press show that the Goudys laughed to-
gether perhaps as much as they worked together. Once
some little boys in the neighborhood came to watch
the strange activity in the barn, and one of them asked
Goudy what type metal was. Goudy said "an alloy of
lead, and tin, and antimony." Another boy came and a
member of the enlightened crew asked the newcomer
the same question. He said that he didn't know and
claimed that the interrogator didn't know either, which
brought the prompt reply: "I do too, it's lead, and tin,
and alimony."

On another occasion Bertha registered a "last laugh."
During a bicycle trip before they were married, Bertha's
machine hit a stump and she had executed a somersault
over the handlebars, much to Fred's delight, and her
chagrin. But in the Village Press Fred matched her fall
with a back-flip through the barn door when his per-
spiring hands had slipped from the hand press lever on
the extreme point of impression. He landed on his back
with his feet up in the air. Fortunately only the press
was injured.

During the time that book production at the Village
Press was in full swing, money was a very scarce item
in the Goudy household. Goudy kept his ofEce in Chi-
cago and continued his designing to pay for the mate-
rials used by the Press. Mrs. Goudy continued working
with her loom and they occasionally sold one of the
beautiful fabrics that she wove.

Their work was in keeping with the best traditions
of the Arts-and-Crafts Movement of the day which was
based on the belief that perfect craftsmanship was an
expression of the personality of the^worker, manifested
by hand labor. The Goudys were acquainted with the
broad movement through an occasional purchase of the
magazjine, Handicraft, published by the Boston Society
of Arts and Crafts. It seemed to them that the eastern
section of the country would be more sympathetic to
their craft ideals than the mid- west. Goudy was attract-
ed by an advertisement in back of Handicraft and an

of the foundii

article on "Village Handicrafts" both of which spoke

of the Hingham Society of Arts and Crafts, Hingham

ham Interlude

being a small village on Boston Bay in Massachusetts.

of the Goudy

Fred was anxious to learn more, and with some money

story of their

derived from the sale of some of Bertha's rugs he made

without it. Re

a trip to Boston to "spy out the land." He came back

"In 1904 Hin

convinced that there were greater opportunities in the

fifteen miles J

East. Bertha realised that she would be leaving her

habited by sta

family, and that both -would be leaving their friends,

had settled th

but when Fred asked her if she would like to make the

sole aim in lif

move, she answered that she would go toTimbuctoo if

other people's

he wanted to go.

in the world

They moved in early March, 1904. Later in that year

ham was gooc

they received news that encouraged them to seek even

not of Hingha

greater perfection in their bookmaking. For their first

initial impadt

three books, completed at Park Ridge, they had been

be overcome,

awarded a bronze medal by the Louisiana Purchase

to make this t

Exposition held in St. Louis.

the recent org

In Hingham they became friendly with the minister

had something

of the New North Church, Rev. Charles E.Park, who

They took a

was interested in printing and actually set the type for

down.

his Sunday School lessons. He often came to the Goudy

"There were

shop or the Goudy home— there was no difference-

little Frederic

to visit or to set type. The Goudys were amazed at the

Inquisitive ne

way he could tie up a block of type. He took the type

on their ilk a

in his hands and holding one end of the string in his

instance; wha

teeth he would tie it as though it were a package. It

which four m

was Mr. Park who, for a later anniversary celebration

Such questior

cy52r<D

i

of the founding of the Village Press, wrote his "Hing-
ham Interlude" that so wonderfully catches the spirit
of the Goudys at -work in Hingham as to make any
story of their activity during this period incomplete
without it. Rev. Park wrote:

"In 1904 Hingham was a typical New England town,
fifteen miles from Boston, almost as old as Boston, in-
habited by staid self-sufficient families whose ancestors
had settled the place eight generations ago, and whose
sole aim in life seemed to be just to exist and supervise
other people's existence. They had the kindest hearts
in the world and the most restricted horizons. Hing-
ham was good enough for them, and whatsoever was
not of Hingham they viewed with a curiosity whose
initial impact of disapproval might in the course of time
be overcome, but not easily. Why the Goudys elected
to make this town their home was a mystery. Perhaps
the recent organisation of an Arts and Crafts Society
had something to do with it. At all events, they came.
They took a little story-and-a-half cottage and settled
down.

"There were just four of them: Mr. and Mrs. Goudy
little Frederic, and Roxy the beautiful Persian kitty.
Inquisitive neighbors had an exciting time speculating
on their ilk and calibre. There was the furniture for
instance; what could be in those great solid crates,
which four men and a set of rollers could just budge?
Such questions were speedily answered. The crates

blossomed out into a huge Franklin press, about half

things to be le.

a ton of type, and all the paraphernalia of a print shop.

"Mrs. Goudy

The Village Press had moved to Hingham. The local

how she set i

printer at first took alarm. But he soon learned that here

she replied, 'I

was no ordinary job printer to compete with him, but

they were usi

a Press with an ideal and a burning determination to

Fred. It was a

fulfill that ideal. This point having been properly set-

his letters wi

tled, Hingham accepted them, and went serenely on.

seemed to con

"Yet to a chosen few, the advent of the Goudys was

once combine

a momentous event.Their little house was a fascinating

You did not i

combination of home and workshop. The front parlor

whole. Mrs. C

was the shop. A small middle room was occupied by

accurate. She

Billy Dwiggins, who arrived a few months later, and

a pair of unfc

still later brought the new Mrs. Billy who proved to be

long, sensitiv

a quiet, gracious little body, always reading. Hingham

cacy of their

had never seen people who lived with such z;est.They

"The work c

were the soul of friendliness, but had little time to in-

lets that shou

dulge the emotion for its own sake. For them life had a

There were \

purpose: to create beauty and to be thorough about it.

Governor John

They threw themselves into their work with a kind of

sachusetts and

ferocity; laboring, criticising, cursing mistakes, discus-

by designing

sing, speculating, sometimes disagreeing, sometimes ex-

and occasions

ulting, always with a fierce intensity of idealism that in-

dry. Once in

vested life with new meaning for delighted onlookers.

program or 1

/ "Could it be very important that there should be no

meeting. One

'rivers' in a page of text? or that the color should be so

came to Hing

exacl? or that the paper should be just so damp? or that

program and

the register should split a hair? Here were a great many

have down h

cy54<o

things to be learned about the 'art preservative of all arts.'
"Mrs. Goudy was the typesetter. Once she was asked
how she set a page so clean and even.' I don't know,'
she replied, 'I just seem to have the knack.' At that time
they were using the Village type, designed of course by
Fred. It was a revelation to observe how he had imbued
his letters with a kind of mutual affinity so that they
seemed to combine of their own accord into words, and
once combined the words became units in themselves.
You did not notice the letters, you saw the word as a
whole. Mrs. Goudy was a rapid worker, and incredibly
accurate. She was slender, nervous, full of gaiety, with
a pair of unforgettable eyes that missed nothing, and
long, sensitive fingers that told her, through the deli-
cacy of their touch, as much as most persons could see.
"The work consisted of getting out dainty little book-
lets that should be flawless gems of the printer's art.
There were Browning's Rabbi Ben Ezra, The Foems of
Governor John D. Long, President Eliot's Address on Mas-
sachusetts and so on. The necessary pot-boiling was done
by designing display advertisements for some big store
and occasionally redrawing a type face for some foun-
dry. Once in a while Fred was induced to print the
program or order of service for a local conference or
meeting. One day a Boston architect, Edwin J. Lewis,
came to Hingham for such a meeting. He picked up the
program and exclaimed,'What bully good printing you
have down here in Hingham.' Even he did not know

how good it was, or what pains had been taken over
that simple job.

"That was the trouble: the work of the Village Press
was too good to be appreciated by any save the illumi-
nati. How could people know, or what could they care
that hours had been spent tramping Boston streets to
get just the right ink; or that the paper had been kept
for days in the damp cellar; or that the job had been
run on a Colt's Armory press with its even squeeze,
aad not an ordinary jobber of the clamshell action?
Money came slowly for these reasons, and one must
suppose that money was as necessary in that household
as in any other. It was another case of voluntary self-
sacrifice at the bidding of the ideal.
"There were moments of deep depression. One eve-
ning a friend called, and found the Goudys exhaust-
ed after a hard day's work. They had set and run, on
the hand press, five hundred sheets of a four-page form.
The caller read the sheet with his fresh eye and had the
poor taste to discover four errors. Instead of keeping
his mouth shut, he called attention to these errors. At
first he was all but murdered; but later he was wearily
thanked, and the next day five hundred corrected sheets
were run.

"Once in a while they did stop to eat. Mrs. Goudy
would wash her hands, vanish into the kitchen, and in
fifteen minutes announce that dinner was served. But
even at meals, the topic of prime interest was not the
G>>56,0

ken over

food but the job. Fred's favorite dessert was coffee jel-
ly with plenty of coffee for flavoring. It was a striking

age Press
lie illumi-

dish to look at, almost jet black and almost snow white,

just the way a printed page should look. And when he

they care

served it, he would inquire, 'Will you have some of the
roller composition?'

)een kept

"Our New England towns have strong character and

lad been

need a lot of understanding. A stranger taking residence

squeeze,

is greeted by a kindly suspicion: 'What right have you

1 action?

to intrude?' On taking his departure, he is looked upon

3ne must

with incredulity: 'Having sampled our town, how can

ousehold

you leave?'

tary self-

"The departure of the Goudy s from Hingham was

received with an apparent indifference which perhaps

One eve-

they misunderstood. It was not indifference, but bewil-

exhaust-

derment that anyone should voluntarily go away when
they could stay. To their friends, however, their remov-

age form.

al was a cause of profound regret, only dispelled when

i had the

the future proved the wisdom of the step. ..."

keeping
rrors. At

Goudy had continued his occupation of hand-letterer

and designer throughout the Hingham period, for their

3 wearily

book printing, interesting though it was, was not lucra-

ed sheets

tive. He received a few commissions from Boston and
New York, and even from Marshall Field and Company

s. Goudy

in Chicago, but these were not sufficient to keep them

n, and in

going. They completed five books in Hingham, and the

ved. But

last two financed their move to New York after two

s not the

years in Massachusetts.

0>57<®

In New York, Goudy set up an office on East 28th
Street and began doing free-lance work for advertisers.
His activity as a printer did not start for several months,
until he and Everett Currier, a Hingham friend, went
into business together. Business failed to materialise,
but Goudy established a very valuable friendship with
Mitchell Kennerley publisher, who had an office in the
building. Kennerley was familiar with Goudy's work
and he soon learned to like the man as much as he ad-
mired his work. Goudy met Morgan Shepard who had
just come from San Francisco, and who made an arrange-
ment with Goudy to establish the Village Press in his
quarters in the Parker Building on 19th Street, taking
his rent out in trade. Goudy then began doing printing
and designing for Kennerley and others.

But the Goudys still did not eat regularly. On many
occasions they were forced to open poor little Freder-
ic's penny bank to borrow money for the subway trip
downtown. Once they were able to avoid a five-mile
walk home, after they had "fasted" all day, by a visit
from a man who bought a fifteen-dollar book. Legend
has it that the prospedt of food was so welcome that the
Goudys ran pell-mell down the twelve flights of stairs
and reached the street ahead of the customer who had
taken the elevator.

Fred Goudy's genial companionship and his famous
stories, and Bertha's sincere manner and excellent din-
ner parties won them many friends in lonely New York.
0*58,0

Friendship and business were inseparable items to the
Goudys. About that time the famous Stowaway Club
first came into existence composed of "kinspritz;"in the
graphic arts. Goudy was recognised by all as the "mas-
ter raconteur" (a reputation which he thought not fully
deserved) of the club, an organisation for the bolster-
ing of pure comradeship.

Later Goudy formed a partnership with Ivan Somer-
ville, in a publishing business called Ivan Somerville
and Company but this did not last very long, for the
relationship was not very satisfactory and the produces
of their press were not the type of books for which
Goudy cared. It seemed that partnerships were meant
for men with less stubborn individuality than Frederic
Goudy and he learned that if he were ever to achieve a
lasting success, it must be achieved alone.

In 1907 Kennerley moved his quarters to that famous
bookstore, "The Little Book-Shop Around the Corner."
The "quiet, Old World atmosphere" of the place ap-
pealed to Goudy, and he was a frequent visitor Through
Kennerley he met Laurence Gomme, a member of the
"Little Book-Shop" firm. The book shop was, in true
English tradition, at once the office of a publisher and a
store where the books of the publisher were displayed.
It was here that Goudy met Edward Dickson, publish-
er of Platinum Print, later called Photographic Art. Goudy
had designed a cover for Platinum Print and his knowl-
edge of the structure and history of letters prompted
G>>59<©

m)

Dickson to request him to write a series of articles on
the alphabet. In addition to his other numerous activi-
ties, Goudy now became a writer.

A visitor to the Goudy office in the Parker Building
could have had no doubt but that someone was work-
ing there. His desk was strewn with papers, and in
order to find something he usually had to go through
the entire pile. He attached small value to the work
over which he had spent such painstaking hours. His
precious matrices and drawings were carelessly scat-
tered about, and he could not afford insurance for his
equipment. One day Oscar Shaw, superintendent of the
building, dropped in as he frequently did to talk with
Goudy, and noticed the matrices for the Village Type
in a pigeon hole in his desk. When he learned their
value, he suggested that Goudy put them in a safe place
in the superintendent's office.

When the customary revelry tokened the arrival of
the year 1908, the Goudys were just finishing Bliss
Carman's Gate of Peace and a week later 150 copies of
The Lover's Hours were printed and ready for binding.
Late in the afternoon of January the tenth, Eva Dean, a
friend of the Goudys came up to the office and invited
Bertha to go shopping with her. Since they had reached
a lull in their work, Bertha went, and Fred and little
Fred went home early. For a few weeks previous, they
had been working until quite late in the evening. This
evening they spent quietly at home, Bertha sewing, Fred
GV6o(©

reading. At 8:30 the telephone rang, Bertha answered.

"It's Everett Currier," she said. "Yes, Fred is here.
Is the Parker Building burning?" Goudy was stunned.
Bertha calmly reported, "Currier says the Parker Build-
ing is on fire, you'd better hurry down."

Goudy dressed rapidly, and took the downtown sub-
way at 116th Street. He emerged from an exit within
the fire lines and the police ushered him to safety. The
"fireproof " building was a veritable furnace, the brick
walls neatly trapped the white hot interior, and only
occasional spurts of flame shot out from the windows.
Goudy stood on the corner and watched the Village Press
melt and disappear. All their books, their equipment was
gone. He stayed for a few minutes, and then called Ber-
tha, who was waiting anxiously at home. "The joke is on
us," he said, "every thing is gone."

Everything was gone except the matrices for the Vil-
lage type which were in Shaw's safe, that luckily was
housed in an unburned portion of the building, and
twenty-four copies of Bliss Carman's Gate of Peace which
had been mailed to subscribers. But the Goudy family
was still alive— they escaped the fate of some who stayed
after the elevator had stopped running— and in other
respects the fire was not the tragedy that it first seemed
to be. The Goudys had lived from hand to mouth dur-
ing the existence of the Village Press. All the money that
Fred earned through his designing had been used to buy
materials for the books, and so much time was taken up
©>63,<0

in the production of books that their sale hardly made
the effort worth while. NowGoudy was forced to start
a business where no large outlay for rent and materials
was required and almost immediately after the fire he
was making more money than during the existence of
the Press. At the time, of course, they did not realise
that the fire might have beneficial results, all they knew
was that something they had loved and owned was gone .
Shortly after the fire, Alfred Bartlett, a friend living
in Boston, sent Goudy $25 and told him that he could
repay it in work. The manager of the Society for Improv-
ing the Condition of the Worthy Poor, a man for whom
Goudy had done a little work, called the day after the
fire and offered him $100, which Goudy refused. Other
friends also offered help, but he accepted only the $25
and a loan of $20 from another friend.

Goudy worked at home after the fire, and later estab-
lished himself in the offices of Kendall Banning and
Company where he again free-lanced and paid for his
rent by doing work for Banning. It was during this
period that Goudy completed his sixteenth and seven-
teenth type faces, the 38E Roman and Italic, which he
drew for the Lanston Monotype Machine Company. Aft-
er producing the Village Type he had designed Cush-
ing Italic, Engraver's Title, Boston News Letter, Cop-
perplate Gothics, Globe Gothic, Caxton Initials and the
Caslon Revised. Most of his types were good, but none
had been received with the popularity of some of the
G>>64f©

faces of the old masters; he had not earned the fame of a
Garamond, Caslon, or Bodoni.

Early in 1909 Fred expressed a desire to go to Europe
and encouraged by Bertha's "Well, why don't you?"
he resolved to earn enough by the summer of that year
to pay his expenses to Europe and back and still leave
Bertha with enough to keep her and Frederic until his

The plan was successful, so in July he left for Liver-
pool on the White Star liner Cedric. He quickly made
friends on shipboard, especially among the many school
teachers that were taking the trip. He traveled second
class, and he and his friends enjoyed themselves so much
that the crew had a difficult time keeping the first-class
passengers from joining them. Something went wrong
with the boat as they neared England and they land-
ed at Holyhead, in North Wales, instead of Liverpool.
This provided an opportunity for him to enjoy an unex-
pected trip through Wales, a country that he otherwise
■would never have seen.

Goudy stayed at a boarding house in London where
he paid the equivalent of $3.75 a week for his room
and breakfast. He bought a map of London and planned
an itinerary for his trips each day. After breakfast he
walked to the designated place— he never took a bus
or tram unless the distance was entirely too great— he
■would return about 11 a.m., eating only a piece of un-
sweetened chocolate for luncheon. He rested for an hour

or two and went off again until 5 p. m. when he ate a
full, inexpensive dinner at Lyons, ABC, or Slater's res-
taurants. In the evening he usually went to the vaude-
ville—and then to bed.

He took with him to England two letters of introduc-
tion. One of these was addressed to Alfred Pollard, then
Keeper of the Books of the British Museum and the au-
thor of the first book on printing that Goudy ever pur-
chased, and another to Emery Walker, who shared with
William Morris the authorship of Printing, the first book
that Goudy ever printed . Pollard showed him things that
the tourist would ordinarily never see. Walker showed
him the Kelmscott and Morris items in his large collec-
tion. On their first meeting Walker said, "Morris would
have liked knowing you," a remark that was to Goudy
ample recognition of his hard work.

Goudy also spent much of his time in the British Mu-
seum, and many of London's bookstores. From London
he traveled to Brussels, where he stayed overnight, and
then to Switzerland. He spent part of the week in a small
Swiss hotel in Interlaken, in the shadow of the Jungfrau.
It was noon of a cloudy, overcast day when he arrived at
his hotel. His room faced west, a fog bank being the only
visible scenery. He sat down to write a letter. When he
raised his head, the fog had cleared, presenting full view
of the white-crowned majesty of the Jungfrau, bathed in
pure sunlight— a sight that completely entranced him.

From Switzerland, he went to Paris where he spent a
0>66(0

: spent a

week. He met an American friend, Orville Peets, who
was studying art there, and who helped him understand
many things that he would have missed because of his
lack of knowledge of the language. Orville met him dur-
ing mealtimes at a restaurant in the Latin Quarter, and
planned an itinerary, giving him directions for finding
spots he wanted to visit, then went back to his classes.
Each evening after dinner, and after school, they visited
interesting parts of Paris that Goudy would not other-
wise have seen. He sat for hours in the Luxembourg Gar-
dens, watching people, and listening to the orchestra.
He saw the palace, visited the gallery, and snubbed the
National Printing Office.

He returned in August and rented an office on 28th
Street where he again free-lanced his designing and his
lettering. Later in their Brooklyn home, the Goudys in-
stalled a small Golding press, a type cabinet, and began
book printing with The Songs and Verses of Edmund Wal-
ler, employing as substitute for the Village Type, which
had not been recast since the fire, the Original Old Style
Italic. At an earlier date, Goudy had drawn some miss-
ing letters of this face for the founders. Mrs. Goudy set
the type for this book as she had for all the other Village
Press books except the first. By this time she had earned
a solid reputation for her skill in composition.

Next summer the entire Goudy family took a trip to
Europe. Frederic T was eleven years old by this time.
Holland and Italy were the only countries that they vis-

ited that Goudy had not seen the year before. Although
this was purely a pleasure trip, they benefited by what-
ever of typographic interest they chanced to see. In the
ancient Louvre, greatest of the palaces of Paris now used
as a museum, Bertha kept guard while Fred clandestine-
ly took a rubbing of three Roman stone-cut letters that
later became the Hadriano alphabet.

Later in that year an incident occurred that brought
Goudy international recognition almost overnight. The
story has been engagingly told by Mitchell Kennerley
in his Metropolitan Memo: "Late in the winter of 1910 I
asked Mr. Goudy if he cared to plan for me a volume of
ten short stories by H.G.Wells. I furnished him with
a dummy made up by Alvin Langdon Coburn, who
was to illustrate the work with photographs. Mr. Co-
burn had already made the photogravure prints, and
they gave us a key to the siz;e of the volume. Mr. Goudy
made the layouts for two pages and sent them to Nor-
man T.A.Munder in Baltimore, asking him to set them
in 18-point Caslon, 38 ems wide. This would make the
page siz;e about eleven inches by fifteen inches.
"The specimen pages set by Mr. Munder were excel-
lently well done, but a certain feeling of 'openness' in
their appearance bothered Mr. Goudy. (He did not then
realise that it was the wide fitting of Caslon that pre-
vented the solid, even effect he was so intent upon secur-
ing.) Mr. Goudy explained to me the kind of page he
would like. He wanted an appearance in the whole page
0>68<0

•lepage

of solidity and compactness, but he wanted it -without
putting more color in the individual letters than was
already in the Caslon type shown in the specimens from
Mr. Munder. Mr. Goudy knew of no type that seemed
to possess exactly this character— those available were
either too formal or refined or too free and undignified
for use in a book of this sort.

"No other solution of our difficulties being at hand,
Mr. Goudy suggested the making of a new face which
might have its first use in this book and which after-
wards might be offered to other printers for their work.
We agreed upon this course of adtion, and the drawings
were begun for the alphabet now known as 'Kennerley
Old Style.*

"Mr. Goudy had always been attracted by the type
imported by Bishop Fell for use by the Clarendon Press
(Oxford) and from it he took his inspiration for the new-
letter. As the drawings progressed he soon drew away
from the pattern letters in an endeavor to modify the old
form and give it a new expression of beauty and useful-
ness. The drawings were about one inch high and were
completed before February 18, 1911. By March 25 the
type had been cut and cast in the 16-point sizje, and Mrs.
Goudy began setting trial pages for the book."

It took Goudy only a week to draw the complete al-
phabet, lower case and capitals— and the same week he
completed drawing his Forum Title capitals The cost of
cutting the Kennerley type was at first a problem, but it
©>6gr©

was settled by Goudy paying for the cutting out of the
weekly fee that Kennerley agreed to pay him against the
printing. But later when the type -was offered to printers
it was received with such enthusiasm that the financial
details worked out with little difficulty Kennerley type
was to receive great praise at home and abroad, and it
was the start of a growing fame for the man who at one
time was granted a grudging success as a sign painter
and against whom his wife-to-be had been warned as
one who would never amount to anything. Paul John-
ston, author of Biblio Typographica has said: "American
printing, helped by the activities of a group of artists
located in Boston and New York was now showing
signs of improvement, most marked in the work of a
group devoted to the production of 'fine' and 'limited'
editions. Goudy 's offering of Kennerley to the general
printer gave much force to the first wedge to break the
reign of sordidness in general American typography."
There was no doubt now but that he was a "Type
Designer." He displayed both Kennerley and Forum
/ Title in a small magazine format which he called Typo-
graphica and undertook the sale of his types himself.
They sold well, but Goudy sometimes despaired when
he saw how badly they were being used by printers.
One day a man came to him and said that he had heard
of Forum Title and wanted to buy some. He picked out
some fonts which totaled about $25 and for payment he
drew from his pocket a roll of bills two inches in diam-
G>>70<©

of the

eter. The sale was quite satisfactory, but as the man was

ist the

leaving, he handed Goudy his card, printed on a cheap,

inters

colored circus bristol combining seven or eight types

ancial

in a new bid for the booby pnz,e in typography. Most

Ptype

printers thought that in some mysterious way a good

and it

type would mean good design no matter how used.

atone

With an increase in his business, he moved his office

ainter

from his home to a shop on Madison Avenue in Man-

led as

hattan -where he printed, designed, and sold his own

John-

type. Printers don't sell type, and since he owned the

srican

matrices from which the type was cast, he opened an

artists

additional department which he called the Village Let-

wing

ter Foundry. In 1912 the Foundry issued another Typo-

kofa

graphica showing the Goudy Oldstyle and a new sizje

nited'

of Kennerley with small caps for the three si^es. Acting

:neral

as salesmen for Goudy, the little magazine fulfilled its

ikthe

intended purpose and through Mr. Earle, publisher of

phy."

the Lotus magazine, who admired and used the Ken-

Type

nerley, news of Goudy 's types spread to England. On

orum

a trip to England in 19 12 Earle showed one of the Cas-

Typo-

lons a copy of something set in Kennerley and this rep-

nself.

resentative of the Foundry asked Earle if he thought

when

Goudy would sell the English rights to the face.

titers.

During the summer of 1913 Goudy and young Fred

leard

again took a combined pleasure and business trip to

dout

England. They landed at Plymouth and, sending their

nthe

luggage on to London, they began walking, carrying

iiam-

with them only a haversack holding necessary clothes.

O>7i<<0

The first day they made eighteen miles, but they aver-
aged only ten to twelve miles a day from then on. They
walked through Salisbury Romsey Christchurch, Ex-
eter, and other quaint English towns, remaining over-
night in old inns. As they walked, the father said to the
son, "Do you see the top of that hill yonder? It's far
away, but little by little, one step at a time we'll get to
it. And that is the way with everything in life." Fred
T. was not convinced. "You can't build a battleship that
way," he answered. But his father thought differently
for he stated, "If given enough time, you could." From
Plymouth they visited beautiful Christchurch, not far
away, and while the father admired the splendid archi-
tecture of the old Priory, the son watched a speed boat
on the river. In London, Goudy met the Caslons who
advanced him one hundred pounds on account in ex-
change for the English rights to Forum Title, Kennerley
and a partly finished text.

From Brooklyn the family moved to Forest Hills Gar-
dens on Long Island, where Goudy had bought a plot
of land on Deepdene Road. Later in a booklet issued by
the citizens of Forest Hills entitled "Why We Chose
Forest Hills Gardens for Our Home," with typography
by the Goudys and printing by D. C. McMurtrie, Fred
Goudy said that they came there because of "the desire
to live on a road with individual characteristics, with
wayside greens and flowers, to have unrestricted view
of distant country, trees with birds to sing in them, and

i

space for our own flowers and garden, fresh air and a
home— Forest Hills Gardens seemed to offer all these."
Goudy continued his designing and Village Press activ-
ities in his Forest Hills home.

In 1914 he made another trip to England with his
friend, Clarence Marder, of the American Type Found-
ers Company, and sold the Caslons the British rights to
several more of his types. War was about to break and
the government already had English trade clenched in
the military vise. Transactions involving the sale of met-
als -were handled by the government, and in order to
get his money, Goudy had to go to the War Office with
a Caslon representative to explain that the money was
being given for materials purchased before any actual
demonstration of hostilities. Part of the arrangement had
been that the Caslons would keep the punches and ma-
trices from which to cast type for themselves and him,
but since they were unable to ship any metal out of the
country, he had to recut a set of matrices for himself. The
Caslons gave him two duplicate bills of exchange, one
to carry with him and one to mail, in case any of the ac-
tive German submarines should take a fancy to his boat.
By accident both bills went over on the same boat that
carried Goudy, one in the mail, and the other in Gou-
dy 's pocket. Goudy, thinking of the money, later said
that it would have been bad if the boat had been sunk,
characteristically forgetting that he too had some value.

With Goudy selling his types to English founders, and

r

English authorities praising his work, some American
foundries also began to notice him. Through Clarence
Marder , the American Type Founders Company learned
of Goudy's transactions with the Caslons and he was
asked to call on the president. As a result of this inter-
view Goudy designed several faces, the most famous of
which, his Goudy Oldstyle, became the "parent design' '
for the "Goudy Type Family"— most of the "family"
being drawn by American's designers without Goudy
knowing about it. Later the American Type Founders
prosecuted another foundry in Goudy's name for steal-
ing Goudy's Forum Title. The case was dismissed be-
cause the defendant proved that Goudy had once stated
that the Forum was based on an ancient stone-cut letter.
Types are not nor can they very well be copyrighted,
and the lack of sympathetic understanding on the part
of the courts has not made it any easier for designers to
profit from their efforts. Goudy often suffered because of
this attitude.

By 1916 he had issued two more small pamphlets.
One, A Novel Type Foundry, showing some of his types,
initial letters, and ornaments; and the third Typographi-
es showing all the available siz;es of Kennerley. By the
end of the war, Goudy began to pass on to others his
working knowledge of letters and letter design, for as
editor he issued "a miscellany of printing lore in the
form of a quarterly," called Ars Typographic^. Kenner-
ley published Goudy's first book, The Alphabet, which
G>>74<0

Goudy wrote in his third year as instructor in the New-
York Art Students' League.

By this time his types alone were performing mira-
cles in changing American typography. Peter Beilenson
summarised clearly the part played by these new types
when he said: "Goudy. . .was primarily a mellow,
friendly fellow-human, who had risen from the ranks
through taste and skill; and what he offered to printers
was the friendly, mellow beauty of types they could
appreciate. And appreciate them they did."

Unfortunately, not all printers were so affected. There
are many stories like the one of the southern printer
who was astonished when he found that Goudy was a
real person (not a mere name) and was responsible for
more than just Goudy Oldstyle. Furthermore, with the :
advent of the post-war "modern" style in advertising
and printing, types from foreign lands seemed more at-
tractive than the work of American designers, and some
considered Goudy "old-fashioned." But among those
men who "kept their heads when all about them were
losing theirs" there was a place set aside in the -world
for Fred Goudy which was shared by few men at the
time and shared by fewer still as time passed.

The following editorial which appeared in the second
number of Ars Typographica reveals more of Goudy the
man, than would the results of a psychologist's person-
ality test. It was his modesty and charming directness
that made him such an "unconscious publicist" and in
G>>75<0

later years brought to his door an astounding a:
attention.

"The editor of Ars Typographica labors under a consid-
erable disadvantage as he is in no sense a literary per-
son -with any gift of expression. He is a craftsman and
designer more interested in his work as a designer of
types and their use than in mere writing. What writing
he does is solely with a view to setting down in a def-
inite form the conclusions of a craftsman in the hope of
helping some printer who has an imperfect understand-
ing of the principles underlying design and typography.

"He does not feel that he is on equal ground with
the captious critic whose business is -writing, nor will
he make any attempt to controvert criticism. The editor
does not doubt that this magazine might be better if
edited by another hand, but having conceived the idea
of presenting his thoughts in this form he prefers to do
so in his own way, hoping to find his account with
those readers who will look for the wheat in the chaff
and bear with his idiosyncrasies. As far as possible he
wishes to please his readers, but on the other hand the
publisher's announcement clearly outlined what he pro-
posed to furnish. Up to the present, 'artists, engravers,
authors, and enthusiastic collectors have monopolized
the literature of bookmaking.' Will you not allow the
craftsman his turn and read between the lines if per-
chance literary expression fails him here and there?"

Late in 1919, Goudy was in Philadelphia, and the

0)76 <<o

I

of

president of the Lanston Monotype Machine Company,

Mr. Dove, told Sol Hess, type designer in the employ of

id-

Lanston, that he would like to see Mr. Goudy Hess told

er-

Goudy; and in an interview, Mr. Dove offered him a

nd

position with the company. Goudy told the Lanston

of

president that he would talk it over with his wife. At

n g

home the Goudys put their heads together and Goudy

ef-

wrote back to Philadelphia suggesting an arrangement

of

whereby he would have the title of art director with

*

general supervision over matters typographic and was

W-

not to be compelled to offer them every face he designed.

th

He named a salary, characteristically underestimating his

ill

own value, and Mrs. Goudy made him ask for more.

or

Lanston accepted, Goudy was called to Philadelphia,

if

and contracts were signed to the satisfaction of all the

ea

parties concerned.

io

The first face that Goudy designed for the Monotype

th

Company was an immediate success. In four months

iff

over sixty thousand dollars worth were sold in the Unit-

le

ed States. The face, Garamont, is a reproduction of an

le

alphabet thought to have been drawn by Claude Gara-

mond. Writing about the face, Goudy has said: "I made

no attempt to eliminate the mannerisms or deficiencies

d

of that famous letter, realising they came not by inten-

le

tion but through the punchcutter's handling, his lack

of tools of precision, crude materials, etc., working by

eye and not by rule. I did, however, find it impossible

to eliminate from my drawings the subtle something we

C>>77<0

call personality— that something made up of items so in-
tangible as practically to be imperceptible when indi-
vidual types are compared yet clearly manifest when the
page as a whole is viewed— items that are the outcome
of a mind firmly fixed on the end aimed for and not mere-
ly an exhibition of his skill as a copyist."

Goudy closely followed his Garamont success with
a success in his next type, the Italian Old Style. In ad-
dition to his duties in type design for the Monotype
Company, he was often asked by the company to ad-
dress Craftsmen's Clubs and similar organizations all
over the country.

The Goudys had been living in Forest Hills for nine
years, and during that time the community had been
growing rapidly. It began to show signs of contractor's
mass developments. No longer did they have "unre-
stricted views of distant country." Other things had
been happening, too. At the age of fifty-seven, Goudy
had become possessed of the desire to do more than just
design type. Once it had been the ideal among type de-
signers that to preserve the personality of their work,
they must cut the punches by hand. Goudy believed
that to preserve the personality of his work, he must
reproduce his drawings more faithfully than they were
being reproduced at that time, and in order to do this
he knew that he must master the use of the machines
for matrix engraving and type casting. He received no
I encouragement from those with whom he spoke of his

0*78 <o

"-I

Student admirers: Carnegie, February 1958

«»

a flH

■■J

£ v *J

# V Jl

■l .«-'-

JlfcJ

-*r

L 9

■ > 1

B^"^

i "~'~

►' « **

H^B'V

^>

CBSSW /«

Approaching a Goudy 'punch-li

In the Carnegie design studio, February 1938

new idea, and even Bertha told him that he was not a
machinist. But he knew that he could do it, so Bertha
and he began to watch for a combined home and work-
shop in the country where they could live in peace. By
this time his Forest Hills plot had appreciated in value
so that he was able to obtain a tidy profit from its sale.
In 1922 they were referred to an advertisement of prop-
erty in New York State just above Newburgh, near
the Hudson River. It had been owned by Dard Hunter
who had "erected a replica of a 16th century paper mill
on the banks of the creek, where he made paper, cut a
font of type and printed two books by hand." This
property had sounded attractive but on inspection it
proved to be not quite what they wanted. The land
was part of an originally large and historic estate on
which, before 1790, a sawmill had been eredted. In
1809 the property adjacent the mill had been adver-
tised as "23 acres of good land with a handsome grove
of timber and a young orchard of the best ungrafted
fruit, a never-failing run or rill of water, and a good
mill." The trip was an important one for the Goudys
because through the visit to the Dard Hunter property
they heard of the property near the mill, an old but
solid house, and a large barn and carriage house. It was
precisely what the Goudys were looking for. Spacious
and quiet, set away from the main highway, beautiful
grounds and a creek running through the property, ex-
cellent accommodations for their work— nothing else

was needed so they sold their Forest Hills property and
became citizens of the village of Marlborough.

Later, in an article, Goudy said: "The gathering to-
gether of the various paraphernalia of typefounding
was one thing; the operation of engraving machines,
making patterns to use for cutting matrices with them,
et cetera, after I had reached sixty years of age,was quite
another. Looking back now I am amazed at my temeri-
ty in rushing in where angels might well fear to tread."
But rush he did, as the steady stream of type faces from
the new foundry soon attested. It required every talent
that Goudy possessed to succeed in his new venture. He
recalled the mechanical proclivities of his youth and his
later mature directness and ingenuity, and put them to
■work. The result was a foundry of unconventional ma-
chinery for the production of type, but one of extreme
precision and efficiency. He adapted equipment meant
for other uses or designed entirely new machinery so
that the new Village Letter Foundry was as uniquely
individual as any previous Goudy-saturated achieve-
ment. Within the sixteen years of its activity the foun-
dry produced about fifty-three new type faces. Mrs.
Goudy figured in the new enterprise as she did in the
Village Press. And Frederic T. also worked with them.
No outsiders were necessary.

By this time recognition of his work was general. In

1922 he brought honor to himself and to his craft by

being awarded the Craftsmanship Gold Medal by the

0>>82(O

American Institute of Architects for his "distinguished
achievements in the art of typography." This was the
first time that printing had been recognised by archi-
tecture as a sister art. In 1923 three of his books were
honored by the annual American Institute of Graphic
Arts ' 'Fifty Book' ' exhibit, followed by one each in 19 24
and in 1925. During the first ten years of the exhibit a
total of fifty books selected were set in Goudy types.
In 1923 he was invited by the Grolier Club as one of
"six eminent printers" to make a book for the "print-
ers series." He was president and later honorary pres-
ident of the American Institute of Graphic Arts, and
held honorary memberships in at least seven printing
clubs or printing societies . His book, Elements of Lettering,
the logical continuation of his Alphabet, was published.
It was well received, reaching its third printing when
Alphabet reached its sixth.

In 1925 he and William Rudge were appointed by
President Coolidge to represent the printing industry,
among notable delegates representing other American
industries, at the Exposition Internationale desArts Decora-
tes et Industrials Modernes in Paris. He and Mrs. Goudy
went together, this making his sixth European trip. The
Exposition was similar to a world's fair, but it confined
its interests to commercial and industrial exhibits. The
delegates were expected to make reports but Goudy and
Rudge found little of interest to the graphic arts. Rudge
consented to "cover" the Exposition and the Goudys
G>>83(0

made their first airplane trip— to London. The London
Monotype officials tendered Goudy a dinner, attended
by many of London's typographic notables.

The years that followed were comparatively quiet
ones for the Goudys.They no longer had to open Fred
Junior's bank for carfare: first because their shop was
right on the grounds; second because young Fred was
now married and no longer had a bank; third, and most
important, because their work was profitable enough
to satisfy their financial needs. Goudy kept designing
and producing type. And he also had his grounds to
look after. He had hired a man who planted corn and
other vegetables, and his grape and strawberry vines
supplied all of his friends.

Paul A. Bennett has said: "To know Goudy is a privi-
lege that many share. The man is completely democrat-
ic; has no consciousness of his importance in the graphic
arts today." Goudy would stop his work to greet any-
one, and this helped make "Deepdene" a "shrine" to
which "pilgrims" came in increasing numbers as the
years progressed. There is a sharp line of distinction
drawn between those who are interested in the graphic
arts and those who are not. Among those who are, there
is a feeling of clannishness that is unique in many of its
manifestations. One of these manifestations has been a
growing adoration of this simple, lovable man.

In a pamphlet entitled The Friendly Goudy s, Sidney S.
Wheeler tells of a visit to Deepdene that was typical of

the reception accorded all visitors. On the way to Marl-
borough Mr. Wheeler relates that he and his compan-
ion rehearsed what they should say upon arrival, but
Bertha and Fred Goudy met them at the driveway with
such warmth that they found little need of formality
"Mr. Goudy is of vigorous appearance, genial of man-
ner and wide-smiling in countenance. He displays a
boyish enthusiasm and 2;est for living which belie the
evidence of his snowy hair. Mrs. Goudy is a most gifted
woman , charming and kindly in manner , keen and quick
in her thoughts, and spontaneous in speech. Her bright
eyes sparkle with cheer and friendliness." The visitors
were then taken through the shop. "On the first floor
of the mill were machines for matrix making and a desk
full of drawings, manuscripts for books, etc." Then Mr.
Goudy explained the process of matrix cutting and they
went through the process, going to each of the three
floors housing the foundry's machinery. The Goudys in-
sisted that they stay for supper, and the guests were treat-
ed to one of Bertha Goudy 's excellent meals and a ses-
sion with Amos 'n' Andy. Mr. Wheeler told of the dogs
that followed Goudy everywhere, and Mrs. Goudy 's
collection of birds in the aviary. In the evening they set-
tled in Mr. Goudy 's library and talked, the guests listen-
ing to some of the famous Goudy stories. The Goudys
insisted that they remain overnight: that they should
drive home at night was inconceivable.
Among the numerous commentaries which have been
0>8 5 <0

about the man, no one has dared publish a list
of Goudy's achievements in type design without also
saying that the list was "complete up to the moment."
The almost phenomenal productivity of the Village Let-
ter Foundry was amazing in some respects, and natural
in others. It was natural because there never before had
existed a typographic artist who owned and also oper-
ated the equipment necessary to translate his designs
into type. No one before in the history of the graphic
arts had devoted his life solely to that occupation, and
it may easily be seen how, with the desire to produce
new types and with excellent equipment on hand to
produce them, Goudy was tempted to design more and

In 1929 Goudy made his seventh trip E
again accompanied by Bertha. In the famous Station-
ers' Hall, in London, he was given a luncheon by Eng-
land's outstanding men in the graphic arts. During the
trip he was again tendered a dinner at the Hotel Savoy.
When someone asked Goudy if there was anyone he
would like to invite, he immediately thought of Ed-
mund Gress (then editor of the American Printer) who
was passing through on his way from Paris. Fred called
him and swept aside a "no dress suit" plea and Gress
promised to come. Goudy arrived at the hotel just in
time to rescue Gress from the hotel porters who were
ejecting him because of the lack of formal clothes. The
Inland Printer article at the time of the Stationers' Hall
O>86((0

luncheon stated: "Indicative of the continued recogni-
tion of his leadership in the art of the alphabet was the
reception recently tendered our own Frederic Goudy in
London ... Sir Ernest Benn, who presided, paid a well-
deserved tribute to Goudy when he introduced him as V
one of the greatest forces in the new power known as
advertising, which, he said, owed much to the genius
of our great designer."

Mr. Goudy, Bertha, and Bruce Rogers, who also was
in England at the time, were guests during this trip at
the homeof Emery Walker. Mr.Walker, a little later Sir
Emery Walker, was old and somewhat deaf. He wished
to give Goudy a print of an engraving of "Kelmscott";
turning to Rogers, and in a stage whisper which every-
one in the room could hear, he asked, "What are Mr.
Goudy 's initials?" During the stay in London Goudy
also met May Morris, the talented daughter of William
Morris.

In 1931, when the Limited Editions Club held an ex-
hibition of fine books of three continents, the de luxe
edition of Rip Van Winkle, hand-set by Bertha Goudy in
Kaatskill, the then newest type design of Fred Goudy,
was considered one of the finest there. Two years later
while Mrs. Goudy was in the midst of the setting of
her largest undertaking, Frankenstein, the Goudys were
honored by the American Institute of Graphic Arts in
a celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of the Village
Press. Meantime individual honors for Fred Goudy had
0>8y<<0

come from many sources. From Syracuse University he
received a medal "symbolic of distinguished achieve-
ment in one of the branches of journalism." In 1932,
began the annual Goudy birthday celebrations in which
men vied with each other to do honor to the "master"
whom the menu described as "having attained another
year of work beautifully done, of honor gracefully re-
ceived, and of life joyously lived."

It would be difficult to estimate the importance of the
part that Bertha Goudy played in the life and work of
her husband. From Fred Goudy himself and the friends
that knew her we learn that her part was a tremendous
one. She was the kind of a woman who kept encour-
aging her husband. When Goudy so often said to her
what Morris said to Emery Walker, "Let's design an-
other font of type," her inevitable response would be,
"Why don't you?" When Goudy wanted to go to Eu-
rope, she said, "Well, why don't you?" When a guest,
Robert Ballou, said that it would be nice to sleep under
the stars at Deepdene she said, "I'll get you a mattress."
Food becoming scarce in the early, difficult years was
not a matter of a husband failing to bring money from
the outside to his wife in the kitchen; rather it was a
matter of husband and wife failing together in their
work because of an ideal that was, perhaps, not under-
stood by people other than themselves.

In December of 1933, Bertha Goudy was stricken ill
at the Grand Central Station and was not entirely well

for two years. On Sunday, October 20, Paul Bennett,
friend and associate of the Goudys, was a guest at their
home. In an article written later for the Publisher's Weekly
Mr. Bennett stated that: "Mrs. Goudy. . .had seemed
brighter, more cheerful, than at any time since her ill-
ness. We joked at dinner over her gaining four pounds
the previous week, and hoped her valiant fight toward
recovery was to progress in similarly rapid fashion the
coming months."

Speaking at the celebration of the thirtieth anniver-
sary of the Village Press two years before, Goudy had
told his friends something they already knew: the meas-
ure of his obligation to his wife. "Bertha has aided and
encouraged me with constant devotion for over thirty-
five years, and without her help I should not have ac-
complished a tithe of what I have been privileged to
perform. She has been the staff that I have leaned upon
so many times, the courageous partner who smiled and
gritted her teeth when we had no funds, who renewed
my faith and revived my spirits when they sagged so
often. In many of the activities of the Press her work
ranks in aclual accomplishment above my own. I could
not, probably would not, have attempted the details of
type composition forwhich she is, in fad:, celebrated."

Later, Earl Emmons, a close friend of the Goudy fam-
ily said: "Her achievements were of practical beauty;
her art was masterly, her principles sound, and the
things she did will live as long as printed words are
0>8c;<0

revered on this earth. Her life of great labor was like-
wise of great achievement ... her beautiful spirit, her
fine energy and her great genius will ever be an inspi-

Mr. Emmons spoke in the past tense because Bertha
Goudy died early in the morning of October 2 1, a few
hours after Paul Bennett had left Deepdene confident
that she -would regain her health.

If you could walk down the path at Deepdene next to
the brook today, and pass the site where once the old
mill stood and Fred, Bertha, and Fred Junior worked
together, and if you could get by the friendly overtures
of Alice Goudy 's great Dane, Eric, without bringing
Mr. Goudy to the door to meet you, you would prob-
ably find him working at his littered desk in the new
studio addition to his home, completing a new book
which he thinks he will call lypologia or working on
his 111th type face.

He is working in a new studio because on a frosty
morning in January of 1939 his mill— containing his
machinery, his matrices, his press, and many priceless
drawings— completely burned, and settled in the mill
stream, ironically leaving intact only an unused brick
vault which had been built to protect many of the things
that had been destroyed. A great many people in Amer-
ica heard of Goudy for the first time in a dramatized
version of the fire, and newspapers all over the country
carried stories that told of his son waking at 4:30 a.m.
C>>90,0

a frosty

suggesting that Goudy look out the window. They re-
lated that when he saw flames shoot out from the west
end of his workshop, he -was so stunned that he tried to
draw his stockings over his shoes. Nothing could be
done to save the mill. Water fro^e as it hit the stru&ure,
and for the second time he was forced to stand by and
watch fire ruthlessly destroy the products of his labor.

"A body blow," he said at the time.

"Rebuild the shop? It would be sort of foolish. I will
just have to sit back and let the world go, until some
day a better designer comes along or printing from type
becomes non-existent."

"I do not see much of anything I can do unless some
one is foolish enough to commission a new type."

In the summer of 1939, at the time that the new stu-
dio was completed, a 10x15 Golding Press was being
moved into one of the rooms of the large barn and car-
riage house at the side of the Goudy home. Mr. Goudy
bought a portable typewriter which he intended to learn
how to use. He was busy with designing and busy with
his new book; the site of the wrecked mill had been
cleared and only the scarred trees around the mill bore
outward witness to the fire. Visitors to Deepdene could
find no evidence of a "fatal blow" in Mr. Goudy 's in-
terests or disposition. Instead there was even a certain
optimism, for now he had time to finish his Typologia.
And yet there even were some "people foolish enough
to commission a new type." Goudy is doing no "sitting

back"or "waiting for a better designer to come along."
He may find time now, he says, to complete his auto-
biography, begun some years ago.

In one of his novels Thornton Wilder has said: "The
public for which masterpieces are intended is not on
this earth." But Goudy's masterpieces are decidedly in-
tended for the public which is on this earth, and if his
work has not received overwhelming support from all
American printers, its merit is at least recognised by
those people who appreciate the subtle difficulties of
his art and his consistent triumphs over them. Many of
his best types are not widely circulated. This is partly
Goudy's fault and partly the fault of those who buy
and use types. Mr. Goudy has never attempted to ex-
ploit his types by the commercial methods used by
American and foreign foundries. He has not dangled
his types and the names of his types under the noses of
printers, nor has he sent out hordes of salesmen to "stir
up the bush." Some of his best types are exclusives
and printers could not buy them at any price. The ma-
trices of some were destoyed in the 1939 fire, and no
attempt has been made to restore them. A few have
been salvaged from the fire but probably not enough
to make up any complete fonts. There has been little
demand to have them recut.

About two years ago, Mr. Goudy was asked to speak

at an American Institute of Graphic Arts exhibit of the

"Fifty Books." He refused, but said that he would like

G>>92<0

to ask a question. He wanted to know if anyone present
could conceive of a German exhibit of the best fifty
books of the year in which forty-seven out of the fifty
books were set in American types. At that exhibit for-
ty-seven books were set in foreign types, predominant-
ly German. Some of the people present thought he was
making political references, but Mr. Goudy was think-
ing of the plaint that had been his for so long, which
he summarised when he once remarked: "I've probably
gotten more praise during my lifetime than any other
type designer. But the trouble is you can't take it to the
bank and draw on it. Here I've given forty years of my
life to the service of printing, but at a time when I need
the help of the printers, they fail me. Instead of using
native type, they import it from Germany. How can
you establish an American school of type design unless
you give American designers a chance to live? I'd have
starved if I had been forced to depend on the printers
of the United States."

Mr. Goudy has certainly lost nothing by lack of for-
mal college training. His writing is excellent despite
the fact that he himself thinks little of lt.When he pens
his theories of design or type arrangement, his pithy,
well-planned statements show a keen mind. His Eve-
ning at Deepdene, a sentimentalised description of his es-
tate, is worthy of W. H. Hudson. Goudy has even tried
fiction in The City of Crafts, a fantasy; and has written
numerous small bits and essays, like The Type Speaks, To
0^93(0

-7—

Squeeze or Not to Squeez,e,TypeDesign: Past and Present, and
similar works.

In June of 1939, Syracuse University conferred the
honorary degree of "Dodtor of More Humane Letters,"
an honor for which Goudy had long hoped, with the
belief that his hopes would never be realised. At the
presentation ceremony he felt regret only for Bertha's
absence.

For years his husky voice and his capable pen have
been carrying on a one-man campaign for simplicity
and intelligence in the design and use of type. Head-
lines in newspapers and trade magazines have carried
the following and similar headlines: "Goudy, Design-
er of Type, Decries Modernism,' ' "The Tendency Away
From Simplicity and Beauty Is Deplored," "Frederic
Goudy Urges Simple Type,' ' ' 'Fancy Typography Is Im-
pertinent." His plea is that of a calm, intelligent schol-
ar, despite the fact that his remarks often look bombas-
tic in print. These arrows he has often shot from his
well-stocked supply: "Modernism is the wrong use of
good materials." "When the typography develops in-
terest and pleasure for itself alone and draws to itself
the attention that belongs to the author's words, it be-
comes typographic impertinence.' ' ' 'Bad printing in the
past was due largely to bad types; today both to bad
types and the bad use of good types." He has never
retreated or wavered since he announced to the world
in 1895 d 1 ^ he was going to become the proponent of
©>94<0

a style which "cannot be assailed." He still cries out as
hedid in 1895 that "Bizarre effedts may have their place
—few know the place.' '

People have always expressed the same curiosity about
Mr. Goudy's creative secrets as they express about those
of any artist. The curious expedt an almost metaphysi-
cal explanation, a "burning light" of some kind that leads
the artist to make superhuman efforts . When the old mill
foundry was adtive, Frederic Goudy's customary half-
humorous, half-modest explanation was that he merely
had the ideas, a pair of hands, some machinery, and put
them all to work. But in the design of type, as in any art,
there is more involved. Goudy has found in type design
as others have discovered in the writing of prose, poetry,
or music, or in the painting of a piclure, that there is a
co-ordination of parts, a pull toward the finale. Just as
in music where the whole completes itself in temporal
expectation so in letter design does the whole complete
itself in spatial expectation. In music one tone pulls to-
ward its successor; in type design, one stroke or move-
ment leads to the next. Goudy has found that in order to
design an integrated alphabet in which each letter has a
mutual affinity for its companions, he must get in on the
beginning of a swing or a visual or kinesthetic "set."
This may occur as a result of observation of other let-
ters or it may be initiated by such an unrelated experi-
ence as a ride on a trolley car. When he has been inactive
for any considerable time, he finds that it becomes diffi-
©>95<°

cult to lay the basis for this "set" toward c

Type is meant to be seen as a whole, and unless the
design is defective only conscious analysis should re-
veal the parts. This has been expressed in psychologi-
cal literature in the following terms, "The part-whole
relationship of an integration lies in the fad: that the prop-
erty of the whole is so different from the properties of
each of its ingredients that it can be determined only
by forming the integration itself, and the slightest mod-
ification of any one of the parts will produce a radical
change in the quality of the whole. A bit of salt added
to a plate of soup may not change its taste sufficiently to
become noticeable, but the taste has nevertheless been
destroyed." Goudy himself found empircially that this
was an essential quality that his types must possess, and
he once wrote: "I think of design as the inventive ar-
rangement of abstract lines and masses in such relation
to each other that they form a harmonious whole to
which each separate part contributes, but in such com-
bination with every other part that the result is a unity
of effed: which satisfies the artistic sense." And his types
prove that his knowledge of this idea is more than the-
oretical, as is his knowledge of every problem in type
design. There is nothing theoretical either about him
or his work. He has aptly said that he "debunked the
type-founding mystery."

His work is distinctive because it is inseparable from
his personality. It is more than merely a "style;" there

is something deliberately Goudy about it. His foundry
was born because he was not content just to design
types . He insisted that they lose none of their individual
characteristics in being unsympathetically handled by
strange workmen. So he cut the matrices and cast the
type himself. It doesn't end there.Hiswriting,especially
samples like that above in which he reveals that he dis-
covered empirically what psychologists have found only
through experiments, shows that like his old Shelby
ville friend, Frank Broyles, he has an intuitive grasp
of the subjedt under analysis. The entire history of his
mid- western boyhood, and the obviously random train-
ing that he received, coupled with natural artistic abil-
ity equipped him for success in the vocation into which
he drifted. His direcl manner, his faithfulness to princi-
ple, his stubborn individualism, are as true of his work
as they are of his life, since his work is his life, and his
life his work. And it is here that Frederic Goudy is in-
teresting and outstanding. For in a world where tech-
nology so often smothers the individual, his individ-
ualism has triumphed.

Fame is strange and fickle. Goudy has been hailed a
genius, and yet there are people who have never heard
of him. Nevertheless, stories like this one are gratifying.
The Princess Veronica Emoukhvari, of Santa Cruz,, Cali-
fornia, an American woman who married a Russian no-
bleman, knows Goudy well, and tells the story of a little
twelve-year old boy, the son of a neighbor, who owns
C>>99 (O

a small printing press. The boy showed her some speci-
mens of his work and she told him that she knew a print-
er back East. He thought that was very nice. Then she
said that he was also a type designer. The boy inquired
■who it might be. When the Princess replied, "Goudy,"
the boy brightened and asked, "Do you mean Frederic
Goudy?" The Princess reports that from that day on
the little printer followed her around like a pet dog.
Her title had not impressed him one bit, but the fa<5t
that she knew Fred Goudy made her a person of great
importance.

In his fantasy, The City of Crafts, Frederic Goudy says
that it is "a city peopled only by workers in the art pre-
servative of all arts, and toward which place journey
all -who excel in good work.' ' There is a discussion in the
City by men who bear the names of the world's great-
est printers. "Not, indeed, every printer's name, but only
the ones who had been judged worthy of the honor: As
often as one among the earthly craftsmen is found to ex-
cel above others the Court is convened." At the end of
the fantasy the "names of Rudge, Munder, and March-
banks were ordered set down in the books by the Court."
But where is the name of Frederic W. Goudy?
We forgot; he wrote the story.

THE ETHICS AND AESTHETICS OF TYPE
AND TYPOGRAPHY

THE ETHI

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•

THE ETHICS AND AESTHETICS OF TYPE

AND TYPOGRAPHY

An address delivered at Carnegie Institute of

Technology, Pittsburgh, February 12, 1938

by Frederic W. Goudy

IAST FALL WHEN PROFESSOR GLEN U. CLEETON invited
-/ me to be one of the speakers at this Celebration, I
accepted gladly, but I fear not wisely. I did not then real-
ise that through the steady drafts upon its not' too great
depth, the well of my typographic thought had so near
run dry, and it is only by considerable priming that I
am able to bring up any fresh wisdom, and worse yet,
I also seem to be running out of priming material.

But having promised, I set about the work of getting
together some odds and ends of typographic lore which
I hoped to present in as interesting a manner as possi-
ble, and the question of a title for my talk came into my
mind. At this time, Professor Cleeton had not suggested
to me the subject printed in your programs, so I tried
this phrase and that without finding one that pleased me.
By this time, after discarding a number, I began to feel
like the young woman who had been given a piece of
wedding cake to place under her pillow so that she
might dream of her future fiance. The next day when
O>io 3 ,©

she was asked of whom she had dreamed, she replied,
' 'What do you think: I dreamed of the 6gth regiment.' '
For more than twenty-five years, I have preached the
gospel of simplicity, of dignity, of legibility, of beauty
in type and typography, and only now am I beginning
to feel that my words— so freely dispensed through the
years, those arrows of typographic thought shot into the
air— have not all fallen to earth entirely unnoticed nor
completely disregarded.

I am glad to be here at this celebration of the silver
jubilee of the Department of Printing. I have watched
the growth and work of the department and have re-
ceived with interest many of the items produced by the
students. Myself denied the opportunity for collegiate
or university training, I consider it a great honor to be
asked to speak before the officials, the students, and the
alumni of this institution. I do not consider myself a
printer, nor even a typographer, although occasionally
I do print; but I have studied assiduously the work of
the great printers and of the great type designers of the
past. I have studied them that I might pursue my own
work intelligently inasmuch as I am no heaven-born
genius. Yet even a great genius does not trust entirely to
the resources of his own mind. Just as a great composer
borrows another's theme only to make it his own by
the originality of the setting, so the great designer ran-
sacks a thousand minds, and uses the findings and wis-
dom of the ages to amplify and extend the boundaries
C>> 104 <©

of his own mental and artistic limitations. The genius
who wisely recogniz.es precedent does not find that it
is necessary to imitate his exemplars slavishly; he stud-
ies their achievements that he may add to his own store
of ideas, and he draws with independence from the most
varied sources.

No art, no great printing, nor any great type ever de-
veloped by the rejection of the canons of good design
found in the work of preceding generations. Style, dis-
tinction, and originality have grown invariably out of
a preceding style, not merely by taking thought, but by
gradual modification of the older work to meet changed
conditions of a later time-the new work hardly betray-
ing its origin.

A little more than fifty years ago William Blades, an
English printer and writer on typographical history
-an authority, too, on the life and work of William
Caxton-wrote a book entitled The Pentateuch of Print-
tng. The title seems somewhat fanciful, yet there is, after
all, an analogy between the Genesis of the World and
the genesis of printing. The spread of printing is not in-
aptly typified by Exodus; the laws set out in Leviticus
have a parallel in the laws and principles that govern
book-making; Numbers suggest the great names on the
Printer's Roll of Honor; and Deuteronomy may signify
the second birth of the vital conditions introduced into
printing by more highly improved appliances. For my-
self, I do not wish you to imagine that I am attempting
C>> 105^0

to preach to you, but if this paper were intended as an
homily I might selecT: as my text a portion of a passage
from St. Paul's letter to the Philippians-"whatsoever
things are true; whatsoever things are honest, whatso-
ever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, what-
soever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good
report, if there be any virtue and if there be any praise,
think on these things.' ' I draw your attention more espe-
cially to that portion of my text which refers to things
"honest" and "lovely" and will speak of the ethics and
aesthetics of types and typography, with little refer-
ence to the historical side. And now, having announced
my text, we need not refer to it again.

First, as some of you know already, I am a designer
of types. Now type design is a minor art, if it can be
called an art at all. One thing, however, is certain; good
type design may be practiced only by an artist with pe-
culiar capabilities. One of the most essential of these is
the ability to discover beauty in abstract forms (forms
on which he lavishes his art), the shapes that have de-
veloped from the hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt to the
work of the Carolingian scribes which now constitute
the medium of communication. They recall to us the
wisdom of the past and preserve the knowledge of to-
day for future generations.The shapes we call letters are
now classic, and we may not tamper with their essen-
tial forms unduly, lest we compel readers to acquaint
themselves with a new literary currency. The letter-

norm, that is, the mere letter stripped of everything ex-
cept its primitive and essential corpus, we may— if we
have taste, culture, and feeling— clothe and make more
modest and presentable, yet not necessarily more useful,
but better suited to the thought it is to convey. But alas:
letter-norms may be badly clothed, and by that I mean
the clothing that gives us the tawdry, the bizarre, the
fanciful atrocities— I had almost said "monstrosities"
—so often seen; their use disturbs my sense of fitness
and actually decreases their usefulness in my eyes.

The types intended for fine printing, in the main, are
not different in form from those intended specifically
for commerce; the difference lies more in the handling
of them, and the commercial printer will do well to
avoid any effort toward pseudo-aestheticism. He should
attempt, rather, to present printing with its own proper
goodness for the purposes intended, studiously plain
and starkly efficient. Printing for commerce, to be good,
requires types and the handling of them to be free from
studied exuberance and fancy. Too often, types, good
enough for certain uses, are employed in the attempt
to produce a piece of work really better than the ex-
igencies demand— that is, to attempt to give to adver-
tising or mere commercialism the manner and aspecfl of
a fine book. Understand me, I am not intending to de-
cry or belittle the importance of printing for commerce,
but the printing of an advertisement or even a simple
narrative should no more be given the form or treat-
ed 107,©

ment of an epic poem or dignified essay than a farm
house should be built to look like a city mansion, or a
cottage be given the air and character of an ornate vil-
la. When printing for industry is too elaborate or too
fanciful the more inexcusable it becomes, the greater is
its vulgarity of display, and its impertinent indecency
I find almost nauseating.

There was a time in the golden age of type design
when a page decoration, a head-piece, a fleuron, a new
type face might have proved a key to typographic dis-
tinction because it was recognised as the work of a mas-
ter and respected accordingly. But by this I do not in-
tend to imply that deference must necessarily be given
to old types or old work of little merit merely because
they are old. Many, unfortunately, possess shortcom-
ings even as those of later vintage. Yet even the best of
the old types should not be revived, imitated, adapted,
reproduced, or copied for present day use with camera-
like fidelity— prima facie evidence of modern poverty
of invention (or artistic or mental laziness). The orig-
inals had matchless charm because they were stamped
with the personality of their makers. The reproductions
invariably lack the spirit of idealism of the originators
and cannot fail to betray the fact that the faker can never
do entire justice to the distinctive qualities that made
the original designs great.

My own feeling in regard to this endless reviving of

old type is the same feeling I have toward dead and liv-

Q> 108^0

ing literatun
ergy that is i

progress ai

i, or a

revil-

ing literature; the new never transcends itself and is al-
ways imitative, never moving with the spontaneous en-
ergy that is indicative of freshness and originality.

Professor Cleeton suggested a topic for my remarks.
I imagine he had something in mind which I have not
touched upon; he probably wished me to speak of the
progress and development or improvement in type de-
sign that may have taken place in the past quarter cen-
tury I have chosen, rather, to ignore his suggestion and
speak generally of past work and more specifically of
my own conclusions as to types and typography. Yet,
to be frank, I cannot honestly say that for me the years
since 1913 have brought forth many outstanding types
by American designers. It has been largely our German
contemporaries who have produced the bulk of orig-
inal type work, and it is a lamentable fact that for the
past ten years foreign importations have almost driven
our own productions into the limbo of the forgotten.

Printers, and especially users of advertising, have not
been kind nor even fair to native talent; they have in-
sisted on the importations of foreign types to gain the
elusive touch of novelty. What incentive is there for the
young designer to enter the lists if his efforts are sure
to receive little or no encouragement in America? As I
have frequently maintained it is much easier to design
a type than it is to sell it and, thereby, put it to use.

The inexperienced designer says to himself, "I will

design a new type.' ' He does not as yet realise that who-

Q>> 109 <<D

ever imagines a tree must also imagine a sky or a back-
ground against which to see it standing. He cannot im-
agine a type unless he imagines also its destination. He
must have visions whose power is his power. He must
deal with what is logical as if it were a miracle; yet, as
a matter of fact, what he is attempting to produce is
something which should long have been in his mind,
perhaps without his being conscious of the fact, and
from what he has studied and arranged he has now
only to read and project what already is there.

And now I will say a few words about fine printing
in its relation to fine literature. Fine literature, being
permanent, demands a dignified and beautiful typo-
graphical setting, a setting that will preserve the au-
thor's words in monumental form suited to their worth.
Printing may be adequate and entirely satisfactory for
commercial necessities; yet, even that printing on which
the craftsman has exercised more than usual thought
and care for technical requirements, or upon which
more elaborate details have been lavished, may, after
all, be merely good printing. Fine printing requires
even more than the points I mention; for it, type, dec-
oration, proportion appropriate to the subject treated,
its destination, and its purpose should receive equally
the craftsman's most scrupulous and fastidious atten-
tion. Where the types are correctly chosen and their
arrangement good; the capitals harmonious and suited
to the type and the text; the paper pleasing to the eye
C>> nofO

in tone, pliable to the hand, its surface kind to the types
and unobtrusive as to wire-marks; and the presswork
admirable— in that printing, the result may be altogether
charming and yet not fine, in the sense that a work of art
is fine. /

Print, to be fine and not merely charming, must in-
clude a beauty of proportion. Therein, the trained taste
finds ever an appeal to delight; a beauty of form and
rhythm in consonance, showing the control of the crafts-
man over every detail of the work; and a well-propor-
tioned leaf whereon type has been handsomely placed,
the lines well-spaced, the decorations harmonious (no
detail pretending or seeming to be more important than
the thing adorned), of like origin with the types, cut
with like tools, and with similar strokes. Fine print-
ing, too, is simple in arrangement, but is not the sim-
plicity gained by pretending simplicity; it is the result
of simple thinking. The work must be fundamentally
beautiful by force of the typography itself, its beauty
organic and a development of its construction. It must
be done on a fine type, and must have style— the living
expression controlling both the form and structure of the
vehicle which reveals and preserves the author's words.
Printing becomes only then an art and a means to high-
er aims and higher ideals.

I have spoken of a fine type in the foregoing. Summing
up, I am tempted to repeat what I have so often said
about the type I regard as"fine."Type,tobefine,mustbe

legible, not merely readable, but pleasantly and easily
legible; decorative in form, but not ornate; beautiful in
itself and in company of its kinsmen in the font; austere
and formal, but with no stale or uninteresting regularity
in its dissimilar characters; simple in design, but not the
bastard simplicity that arises from mere crudity of out-
line; elegant, that is, gracious in line; fluid in form, but
not archaic; and, most important, it must possess unmis-
takably that quality called "art," which is the spirit the
designer puts into the body of his work, the product of
his study and taste. How many of the types demanded by
advertisers or the typographic advisers would be able to
stand analysis of this sort?

And speaking of legibility, I am reminded of a proof-
reader on the Tribune who is reported to have said of
the illegible handwriting of Horace Greeley, ' 'If Greeley
had written that dread inscription on the Babylonian
palace wall, Belshaz^ar, himself, would have been more
frightened than the Bible account says he was." I hope
somewhere in these rambling remarks will be found
here and there grains of real thought among the chaff,
and that what I have said may not fall entirely on deaf
ears. I realise that I have little facility of expression,
yet my words are not those of an aesthetic theorist;
they are the conclusions of a practical craftsman— prac-
tical in the sense that with my own hands, from blank
paper to the printed page I perform every detail of my
work, and the principles presented here are those that

guide me in my work. I endeavor by precept and ex-
ample to bring about a greater public interest in good
typography, to arouse a more general esteem for better
types, and I have never intentionally permitted myself
to utilise the message I was attempting to present to
serve as a mere framework upon which to exploit my
own handicraft, nor ever to allow my craft to become
an end in itself instead of a means to a desirable and
useful end.

I have been too long winded, I fear. I remember hear-
ing of a lawyer arguing a case in Superior Court. He
noticed that the judge was rather inattentive and he
caught a suggestion of a yawn. Rather sarcastically he
remarked, "I hope I am not trespassing unduly on the
time of this Court."

"There is some difference," His Honor replied, "be-
tween trespassing on time and encroaching on eternity' '
A man was asked to make an address, something he
had never done before. When he wrote out what he
wanted to say he couldn't seem to make a satisfactory
ending, so he asked a friend accustomed to giving talks
how to end his speech. His friend said, when he had
reached a place where everything had gone off well and
his audience was still interested, that was a good place

to stop, but if he reached a point where he sensed the

audience wasn't with him and he wasn't doing so

well, that was a damned good place to stop.

I seem to have reached that point.

This volume was produced as a student project in the 1540-41
class in Printing Production of the Department of Printing at
Carnegie Institute of Technology. Student assignments were as
follows: machine composition, Walter Pretz,at, Lip King Wong,
and Bernard Lewis; hand composition, makeup, and lock-up,
Walter Pretz,at, Donald H. Opel, and Kenneth M. Macrorie;
proofreading, Howard N.Keefe;presswork,John S.Anderson
and Donald H. Opel; correcting original galleys, Irwin Copier.
Supervision assignments: typography and production, Charles
W. Pitkin; Monotype composition, Stanley Hlasta; illustrations
and binding, Homer E. Sterling; presswork, Kenneth R. Bur-
chard; proofreading, Glen U.Cleeton.The illustrations in collo-
type were printed by the Fredrick Photogelatine Press of New
York City. The Russell-Rutter Company of New York bound
the book. Six hundred copies were distributed as keepsakes by
the American Institute of Graphic Arts, and one thousand
copies were issued to individual subscribers by the Carne-
gie Department of Printing. Monotype Goudy Village
410 was used for text pages. The paper used both
for illustrations and type pages was Worthy
Sterling Laid; printed on a Miller
Simplex Press.

■■& m the 1940-41
H 0/ Printing at
ignments were as
, Lip King Wong,
i'up, and lock-up,
eth M. Uacrorie;
'ohn S.Anderson
eys, Irwin Copier,
idudion, Charles
asta; illustrations
Kenneth R. Bur-
titrations in colic
:inePressofNew
Sew York bound
I as keepsakes by
id one thousand
> by the Came-
ioudy Village
r used both
Worthy
Her

- flRSJ StMtSftrN

- SECOND SEMESTER

- Summer semester

521S1U08 OO'l

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