Taking a Break with Some Wood Type

Yes, I'm obsessed enough about the Hamilton Wood Type Museum to spend part of spring break there helping out as a volunteer. As I wrote last summer, the museum received a huge donation of presses, type and images from the Globe Corporation of Chicago, and hadn't had time to unpack it all.


I'm happy to report that a lot of progress has been made in the nine months since my last visit. The images have all been shelved by category, and much of the type has been sorted and put away as well. More boxes of type await sorting and shelving, so I did a bit of that.

While there, I also got a look at this intact printing form from 1893, created by the Hamilton Company for the Columbian Exhibition in Chicago:


It was never actually printed; instead, Hamilton workers painted some of the letters red, yellow and black and left others natural. It has been on display in the corporate office from the late 19th century until now, moving only so the museum can print it to make commemorative posters for its 10th anniversary celebration this Memorial Day weekend. (In case you're wondering -- they're shrink-wrapping the whole thing in plastic before inking it, so it won't affect the appearance of the form.)


Greg Corrigan, technical director of the museum, showed us some of the less-often-seen parts of the collection.


It's hard for me to describe how beautiful each piece of type is as an object, but this R begins to get at it. Cut from a solid piece of rock maple and about 5" tall, the letter appears to have never been printed.

It's just one letter in a pile of letters at the museum, waiting to be put away.