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Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630, source unknown. The world of John Sanders.
That’s All She Wrote
In 1941 Hannah Dustin French of the Wellesley College Library published an essay entitled “Early American Bookbinding by Hand.” In the essay, she makes mention of American’s first bookbinder:
Bookbinding was one of the very early crafts to be practiced in this country, but where the first book was bound and what it was like we do not know. A bookbinder, John Sanders by name, took the freeman’s oath in Boston in 1636 and purchased a shop for himself there in 1637.
French and other book historians drew their information from an exhibition catalogue published by the Grolier Club, a literary society in New York still in existence. In turn, the editor of that 1907 publication cites a much older work. Unfortunately, A History of American Manufacturers from 1608 to 1860, Volume I, gives no further source for the information.
Thus begins the frustrating search for the elusive Mr. Sanders. It is left to the armchair historian to head down rabbit holes, consult ancient texts and modern search engines, and extrapolate, conjecture, and theorize to come up with a portrait of the man and his work. In the process, she finds many tantalizing topics relating to publishing in early America, from the female owner of the first print shop in the Colonies, to the mass printing of “Indian Bibles” in the 1660s and the Native American called “James Printer” who helped with the translation and typesetting of that publication. She even stumbles upon a 20th century hoax involving a Puritan document and the first bookstore/coffee house in America.
The Freeman’s Oath
To understand a little bit about who John Sanders was, it is a good idea to start with the Freeman’s Oath. That testament was a declaration of loyalty to authority required by both the Plymouth Colony (founded 1620) and the Massachusetts Bay Colony (founded 1630) to be eligible for public office or even to vote in town meetings. As the name makes apparent, the Freeman’s Oath was available only to free men and not to slaves, indentured servants, apprentices, or women. Even then, a man had to demonstrate that he was of “a quiet and peaceful manner” and be sponsored by other freemen.
The Oath read, in part,
I [NAME], being, by God’s providence, an inhabitant & freeman within the jurisdiccon of this comonweale, doe freely acknowledge my selfe to be subject to the govermt thereof, & therefore doe here sweare, by the greate & dreadfull name of the eurlyving God, that I will be true & faithfull to the same….
Spellings may vary!
There is no known extant copy of the broadside Freeman’s Oath printed by Stephen Daye in 1639. The document above, touted as a rare find in 1985, turned out to be a hoax perpetrated by infamous forger and murderer Mark Hoffman in a bizarre case in the annals of archival history. Hoffman is currently serving a life sentence at the Utah State Prison.
Signs of the Times
French tells us that Sanders took the Freeman’s Oath in Boston in 1836. This was only six years after the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony of which Boston was the lead town. Although Massachusetts quickly grew to about 20,000 European inhabitants before 1840, it must have been a rough and ready community.
So, the question is begged: what was there to bind? In those days there would have been no book publishers, no newspapers, and no printing press! Indeed, the first printing press in Colonial America arrived by ship from England in 1638, a year after Sanders allegedly set up his bookbinding establishment. Venturing into conjecture now, it is possible his work consisted of repairing and rebinding bibles and hymnbooks for the good people of the colony. Perhaps there was also work binding personal correspondence, hand-written memoirs, and volumes of poetry.
All we don’t know
John Sanders left no signed work behind. Indeed, it would have been highly unusual if he had. Puritans generally frowned on prideful things. We do not know how long he was in the bookbinding trade. Without partnering with a printer, it is doubtful anyone could have made a living by bookbinding alone at that time. The first print shop was set up in Cambridge by the widow Glover and her employee, Stephen Day [or Daye] in 1638. Within three years the press had turned out a broadside of our Freeman’s Oath, an “Almanack,” and the Bay Psalm Book; however, there is no evidence that John Sanders or any other independent bookbinder was associated with this enterprise, which was the precursor to the Harvard University Press.
The history maven turns to online genealogical services in an attempt to find information on Mr. Sanders. Alas, the name Sanders or Saunders is quite common and there is no “match” for a bookbinder in Boston in 1637. It is tempting to identify our bookbinder in one John Saunders of Salem, Massachusetts, with the dates 1613 to 1643. Thanks to previous researchers there is a great deal of genealogical information on this man:
- John Saunders of Salem came to America as a teenager in about 1629, shortly before the official establishment of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which, it should be noted, encompassed both Boston and Salem, 15 miles apart.
- John Saunders of Salem became a “freeman” (i.e. took the Freeman’s Oath) in 1836, the same year as John Sanders the bookbinder. In fact, in a 1906 compilation of freemen in the colony, there is only one John Sanders listed for that year. (List of Freemen, Massachusetts Bay Colony from 1630 to 1691, Exira Printing Company, 1906)
- John Sanders of Salem became a freeman approximately seven years after arriving from England; could it be that he came as an indentured servant and, having completed his service in Salem, hied himself to the big city to try his hand at business?
It is here that the researcher finds herself falling down a rabbit hole lined with the proceedings of various obscure historical societies and hopes for a soft landing, particular after reading the following from a meticulously researched work by a 19th century Saunders:
During the years 1635-38 there were so many of the name of Sanders who came to the new settlement, their advent so united, their means so liberal, and their ability so acknowledged, that one can but infer they were members of one family. (The Founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Sarah Saunders Smith, 1897)
Tools of the Trade
Conjecture is a dangerous business. Better that we use our imagination to picture the establishment of Mr. Sanders. It would likely have been a modest workshop adjoining living quarters. Mr. Sanders no doubt employed the basic tools of the trade: sewing frame, glue pot, beating hammer, and plough. If he did more than simple repairs of existing bindings, he would likely have employed sheep or calf skin over oak or birch boards, using materials readily available in the colony. (A tannery was established in the Massachusetts Bay Colony during the 1630s.) He would likely have manufactured his own tools or employed the services of a carpenter. If he ventured into ornamentation at all, it would have consisted of blind tooling leather covers with simple geometric or natural imagery. There would have been no thought of gilt.
We do not know how long Mr. Sanders remained in business. The historian Hugh Amory, writing in the 1990s, goes one step farther than other writers and states that John Saunders worked until 1651, but, he provides no citation for this assertion. If, in fact, Bookbinder Saunders continued in work through the 1640s he might have found work with the printer of the Bay Psalm Book, then located at Harvard College. If he endured into the 1660s, he might have been involved in the production of the Eliot Indian Bible. In that huge undertaking, he would have had competition from other bookbinders, including one John Ratliffe (or Racliffe).
But all that is a story for another decade.
Not a forgery: The Bay Psalm Book was the first book printed in America. Whether John Sanders might have had a hand in binding the work is unknown.
Sources include:
- Leander Bishop, M.D., A History of American Manufacturers from 1608 to 1860, Volume I, 1861, available through Google Books.
Hannah Dustin French, “Early American Bookbinding by Hand,” in Bookbinding in America: Three Essays, 1941.
Lawrence C. Wroth, The Colonial Printer, 1931.
The Grolier Club, The Grolier Catalogue of Ornamental Bookbindings Executed in America before 1850, 1907, available through Google Books.
Hugh Amory, Bibliography and the Book Trades: Studies in the Print Culture of Early New England, essays edited by David D. Hall, 2013.
ABM Guest Blogger Eleanor Boba is a public historian who blogs about historic places off the beaten path and other curious matters. She lives in Seattle.
Posted May 15th, 2017 by Stephanie Stokes in Guest Blogger, History
You have probably walked into a library at some point and seen rows of books in solid-colored hardbound covers; some may have muted-color pictures on the cover, but more often than not they have plain covers. Title and author appear on the spine and cover in unornamented white, yellow, or light-blue lettering. These books may be familiar to you as run-of-the-mill library books, but what you might not know is that these books are specially bound in what is called “library binding” — a formal bookbinding practice with standards and guidelines that has been around since 1923 (1). That’s right, you can get specially certified as a Library Binder.
What is Library Binding?
Library binding is a preservation technique for library books, which often face the tough reality of rough handling, many borrowers over their circulating lifetime, and the need to stick around for a long while. Library binding is a protective hardbound binding that is meant to protect the book, or bound set of serials, for durability and long-term preservation. The longer the shelf-life of library books, the more the library can save on the cost of re-buying books over time. Additionally, books are kept in better condition, providing a nicer experience for the reader. (more…)
Posted April 28th, 2017 by Stephanie Stokes in Library Bindings
Many of us have personal libraries, and within those libraries the chance that we own a standard hardcover book is high. Modern case bindings (also known as hardcovers) are everywhere. These bindings are constructed from paper boards covered by a sturdy cloth or decorated paper, and the cover is generally made separately from the text block and attached later by endpapers.
Case bindings are made the same way now as they were made in the 1800s, and so often the problems I see with older books are the same problems that will eventually happen to the new book sitting on your shelf. In fact, it even happened to a friend’s copy of a recently bought Game of Thrones book!
Some mechanical problems that are frequently met in case bindings:
- Before the text block is out of the case you may find that the joints are loose and simply need to be tightened (I will cover this in more detail further down).
- The text block falls out of the case but the entire case is intact. This will require that the text block will need to be rehung in the case.
- If the text block has separated from the case, you could have text block problems or spine problems, and this will require re-backing the text block and possibly re-sewing.
- Damaged and weak corners on the board.
- The case is falling apart (as when the spine of the case has come away from the boards leaving the boards attached to the text block but the spine missing).
The most issue common with case bindings is joint problems. If you’re able to catch it in time, a little bit of PVA glue to tighten up the joints will go a long way in preserving your books and preventing them from falling apart.
Joint Problems
Since the covers and text block are often held together only by endpapers, joint problems are the biggest issue we run into with standard hardcover books. There is little that can be done to prevent it: it’s simply going to happen eventually. Because the weight of the text block when the book is standing pulls downward on the spine and over time the end paper cannot hold it.
In the photograph below you can see the looseness of the joints. This, as I mentioned before, is an easy fix. It requires taking a skinny metal rod (perhaps cut from a clothes hanger), dipping the rod in PVA glue and then sliding it into the joint where the paper is coming loose. Once you’ve applied glue to the joints that need it, from the top and bottom if necessary, you press the book for a minute or so until the PVA is dry.
Photo credit: Arielle VanderSchans
Once the joints are tightened you can see that the paper now fits snuggly against the boards.
Photo credit: Arielle VanderSchans
This repair is quick and easy, and will help the book last longer, as you’re catching the joint problem before the paper can tear away from the boards completely (which would leave you with a detached text block!).
Another problem that can occur with case bindings is that if the end pages tear, the text block can come completely out of the case, or the spine of the case can tear and come completely off but the boards remain attached to the text block. Below is a photo that shows a text block detached from the case. This text block also had to be resewn.
Photo credit: Arielle VanderSchans
These fixes require a bit more work, from resewing the spine to re-backing and attaching a hollow tube on the text block. If your book reaches this state, consult a professional who can determine what steps are needed to repair the book.
Other common issues to look out for in book preservation are:
Mold
Mold can develop on any book and the risk of mold comes in areas of high humidity. If you’re worried about mold growing on your books, try to lower the humidity of the room to make the mold inactive. If you do find mold on one of your books, take it off the shelf and let the mold dry up. Small amounts of mold can be vacuumed up using the upholstery attachment of your vacuum. You can also wipe the bindings and text block edges with cheesecloth dipped in 70% alcohol and wrung out very well!
Dirt & Soot
A book can be easily cleaned of dirt, soot and dust by wiping it gently with a dry-cleaning sponge. You can also vacuum the book with the upholstery attachment. Start with the top of your book and wipe from the back of the book to the front, or the spine to the edge of the text block.
Storage
Keep an eye out for bugs like silverfish that commonly live in homes. Store your books off the floor to keep them away from silverfish that might live in the carpets. A few other tips for storiage to keep in mind:
- Store books that are the similar heights together; if they are 15 inches or less in height and of medium thickness store them standing upright but if they are taller or thicker lay them on their sides.
- Leather-covered books shouldn’t be stored next to cloth- or paper-covered books because the leather may stain the other books.
- Give your books room to breathe: don’t shelve them tightly together or it may cause distortion– but keep them close enough together so that they support each other.
These are just some of the things to keep in mind when working with hardcover books! Store them properly, take care of them, try to catch joint problems early on and your case binding will last a long time!
References:
Brown, Michele. Preserving Books in Your Home Library. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Library, PDF.
CBBAG: Repair & Restoration Workshop. Dan Mezza, London ON. January 2017.
Guest blogger Arielle VanderSchans is a linguist and librarian living in Canada. She currently studies bookbinding through the Canadian Bookbinding and Book Arts Guild. You can follow her as she learns the trade here: https://ariellesbindery.com
Posted April 26th, 2017 by Stephanie Stokes in Blog, Case Binding, Conservation, Guest Blogger
1 Comment
Preservation Week is here again! This weeklong celebration of preservation and conservation activities in libraries, archives, and museums is the brainchild of ALCTS, the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services, a branch of the American Library Association. Later this week we’ll be sharing two guest blog posts on the preservation and conservation concerns of two common kinds of bindings: case binding and library binding.
While conservation and preservation are words used somewhat interchangeably in everyday conversation, in the library world they have specific, but intertwining, meanings. Preservation refers to the steps taken to slow the deterioration of materials. These steps include environmental controls provided by an HVAC system, housing items in neutral-pH folders and boxes, and reducing exposure to light whenever possible. Conservation refers to the steps taken once an item has been damaged and needs repair, cleaning, or restoration. If you’ve been following our Instagram feed, you may have noticed some photographs of metal artifacts at various points in the cleaning process. This is a conservation project we’re currently tackling.
If you have questions about preservation, conservation, or Preservation Week, don’t hesitate to contact us here at the museum. There are also lots of great free resources at the Preservation Week website.
Posted April 24th, 2017 by Elspeth Olson in Announcements, Conservation, From the Archivist's Desk, From the Librarian's Desk
“I am not so regular in my sleep as the Doctor (Rush) says he was, devoting to it from five to eight hours, according as my company or the book I am reading interests me; and I never go to bed without an hour or half an hour’s previous reading of something moral, whereon to ruminate in the intervals of sleep.” (Jefferson, quoted in Boutell, 1891.)
Thomas Jefferson is known primarily as the Father of the Constitution and the third President, but he was also an ardent supporter, admirer, and reader of books. To him, books were far more than a pastime; they contributed to both a moral and democratic education. And Jefferson liked to read the classics in their original form, “in all the beauties of their originals” (Boutell, 1891, p. 40). It was Jefferson’s library of 6,487 works that replaced the Congressional Library when it was burned by the British in 1814 (for which he was paid $23,950), arguably making Jefferson also the Father of the Library of Congress. The Library of Congress has gathered together many of these original books (see also this video).
Jefferson carefully collected and curated his library, spending a summer or two in Parisian bookstores “turning over every book with my own hand, and putting by everything which related to America. . .” (Boutell, 1891, p. 42). Given the expense and effort required to develop a book collection, Jefferson’s was notable, and thought by many to be one of the largest in the country. We can imagine what Jefferson’s library might have looked like. Jefferson notes that “nearly the whole are well-bound” (p. 43). Jefferson’s library would have probably contained a combination of leather bound books with gold tooling; books still in their original plain paper wrappers temporarily sewn together until Jefferson could take them to his own binder; and books bound with stiff covers with adverts printed on them. One list of Jefferson’s books indicates that some were purchased “bound” while others had a “fancy binding” and still others were in “Boards” (Jefferson, 2011). A letter from Jefferson to Robert Skipwith tells of the books needed to put together a beginning library, and mentions that the binding of the books will result in varying costs. “These books if bound quite plain will cost the prices affixed in this catalogue. If bound elegantly, gilt, lettered, and marbled on the leaves, they will cost 20.p. Cent more. If bound by Bumgarden in fine Marbled bindings, they will cost 50.p. Cent more” (Boyd, 1950).
Jefferson engaged in some bookbinding of his own. In 1819 he created what has come to be known as the “Jefferson Bible”. He did not use the usual bookbinding strategies; instead he carefully removed pages from the Gospels in four languages (English, Latin, French and Greek) and glued them to paper. The 86-page presentation presents a multi-lingual history of Jesus’ life from an enlightenment perspective (no miracles, angels, saints or other-worldly contents were included). He sent his handmade creation on to Frederick August Mayo to be bound. A facsimile copy of the Bible was produced in 1902 and was presented to Senators on the day they took office until the copies ran out in 1957.
Bookbinding was clearly important to Jefferson in building his own collection, and it has also played an important role in preserving his works. His 1783 Book Catalog was bound and is preserved at the Massachusetts Historical Society. In 2000 the Society disbound, cleaned, deacidified, and repaired the volume using Japanese tissue paper and wheat paste, returning it to its original bound condition. The volume was also digitized at this time. The Government printing office rebinds Jefferson’s Manual for House of Representatives Procedures every two years, using some traditional methods, including marbling the manual’s edges, assembling leather covers, and gold stamping them. A recent bookbinding exhibit featured Thomas Jefferson’s Paris Walks, a book of Jefferson’s sketches and commentary, together with modern photographs, which was especially bound for the exhibit using traditional methods.
As we celebrate Jefferson’s 274th birthday, we can appreciate his passionate appreciation of books–and bookbinding. Binding provided the tools for projects like the Jefferson Bible, and the bound record of his large book collection. The utility of binding has preserved his work; the beauty of bindings delighted his eye–and ours.
Dr. Mary Vasudeva has a PhD in English and currently teaches writing and critical thinking at Diablo Valley College. She is also studying for her Masters in Library and Information Science at San Jose State University. Recent publications include a book review of Overcoming Information Poverty, by Anthony McKeown and selected writing sections for the textbook, Asking the Right Questions, in the forthcoming 12th edition.
Works Consulted
Boutell, L. (1891). Thomas Jefferson, the man of letters. Chicago: Press of S. Thompson & Co. Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/boutelljefferson00lewirich
Boyd, J. ed (1950). From Thomas Jefferson to Robert Skipwith, with a List of Books for a Private Library, 3 August 1771,” Founders Online, National Archives, last modified December 28, 2016, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-01-02-0056. Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 1, 1760–1776. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 76–81.
Jefferson, T., & Looney, J. J. (2011). The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series: Volume 7: 28 November 1813 to 30 September 1814. Princeton University Press.
Martin, R. (1988), Jefferson’s Bookmarks. Monticello Research Department. Retrieved from https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/jeffersons-bookmarks
Posted April 13th, 2017 by Stephanie Stokes in Blog, Guest Blogger, History
The ABM will not be open tonight for Yerba Buena Third Thursday. Check back with us in April!
Posted March 16th, 2017 by Mad Robins in Uncategorized
We recently wrote about the tedious and arduous process of hand-sewn book binding and the hard work of the young women involved. But what about the book covers themselves? We thought it might be interesting to take a look at women’s role in crafting book covers. Early book covers were individually crafted when a book was purchased. In the 1830s case-binding started replacing most hand-crafted covers, and engravers and die-makers created the brass plates used to emboss the cases. With these changes, book production slowly increased as prices decreased. Towards the end of the 19th century, mass-produced books with book covers crafted by well-respected designers became both popular and relatively affordable.
Tiverton Tales, by Alice Brown. Cover designed by Sarah Wyman Whitman.
The height of book cover design may have been the late 19th century as publishers responded to increasing criticism of the “ugly” and “cheap” books they were producing, and the middle class began to read en masse. Books were symbols of education, and people began to purchase them as (relatively) affordable art objects. This shift also corresponded with the end of the Civil War and the increase in widowed, impoverished women. In the face of a growing number of families headed by women after the devastation of the Civil War, social reformers responded with offering educational and professional opportunities for women. This confluence of a rise in demand for trained book designers and a willingness to hire women contributed to what many believe is the pinnacle of artistic book cover design. Alice Cordelia Morse (1863-1961), Margaret Neilson Armstrong (1867-1944) and Sarah W. Whitman (1842-1904), are considered by some to be the best book cover designers of that era. The three worked to bring principles of good design to mass production. In many ways, these women were also instrumental in paving the way for women artists to gain professional status.
Whitman, born in Lowell, Massachusetts, to a wealthy, upper-class family, was one of the earliest and most influential book cover designers, creating her first design in 1884. She originally studied painting and then moved towards stained glass. Morse, born in Hammondsville, Ohio, was raised in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York. She studied art and design, specializing in drawing, in Manhattan at the Woman’s Art School of the Cooper Union, one of the only art schools at that time that was open for women. Cooper Union often placed its female students with manufacturers to help gain them employment. Armstrong was born into a wealthy family in New York City, began designing holiday cards in her teens, and eventually moved to book cover design.
Morse, like Whitman before her, began her career working with stained glass artist John La Farge and then became an employee for Louis C. Tiffany and a designer of stained glass windows (One of the windows in Beecher Memorial Church in Brooklyn was designed by Morse). Morse left her stained glass work after two years and began designing book covers in the 1890s. Whitman was commissioned to work in the Central Congregational Church in Worcester, MA on stained glass and opened her own studio and factory where she employed several artisans. Eventually, she was employed by Houghton Mifflin to oversee all their book cover designs. Armstrong skipped the stained glass phase, though her sister and father did work with Tiffany, and moved straight to book design. She was the primary designer for Harper Brothers and Scribner’s Sons, where she often worked with Morse.
Perhaps because of the attention being paid to social reform at this time, Morse and Whitman also encouraged the development of the arts for other women. In 1893, Morse chaired the Subcommittee on Book Covers, Wood Engraving, and Illustration of the Board of Women Managers for the Woman’s Building at the World’s Columbian Exposition. She also exhibited her own book covers and
Knoxboy Travellers, by Thomas W. Knox. Cover design by Alice Morse.
was awarded both a diploma and a gold medal. This exhibition had a significant impact on bringing women artists to the public eye and increasing their success in commercial art endeavors. Similarly, Whitman inaugurated the Boston Water Color Club for women in addition to working tirelessly to establish the women’s college of Radcliffe.
Morse was also active in supporting other women artists and worked for the New York Society of Decorative Arts from 1893-1895, an organization dedicated to helping women artists find training and employment. She believed, it is said, that women were the best designers because of an intuitive sense of beauty. There was a also a sense that the women designers contributed a “moral” value to the books. The Arts and Crafts Movement of the era was built on the ideas of design, morality, utility and beauty. Whitman, Morse, and to a lesser extent Armstrong, were influenced by this aesthetic sense and the idea that the middle class should have access to good design. It is worth noting, however, that there was some criticism of this mix of social reform with craft. Ellen Gates Starr (1860-1894), who established a bookbindery in the 1890s, eventually closed down shop because she realized that her books would only ever be purchased by the rich.
Morse’s standing in the book design community grew through the turn of the 19th century, and she created an estimated 83 covers, often for expensive publications and for a variety of types of books from poetry to travel literature. She also contributed in-text illustrations and borders. Whitman was incredibly prolific, producing at least 200 book covers with a minimalist design that was quite unusual for its time. Whitman was a highly sought after, and expensive, designer. Armstrong is often compared to Whitman though Armstrong, with 250 book covers to her name, is remembered for how distinctive her book cover
Days Off, by Henry Van Dyke. Cover design by Margaret Armstrong.
designs were and her book cover sets where she would design several works by one author using related designs across the books. Some of Armstrong’s work is signed with a small MA on the cover.
Morse began her book designing years with a focus on classical ornament from Roman and Renaissance art but began to broaden out to encompass a variety of design styles from Celtic to Gothic, Rococo to Arts and Crafts. Her versatile designs tended to be highly stylized patterns of organic forms as she attempted to depict the book’s main ideas in her art. In contrast, Whitman’s illustrations emphasized the Arts and Crafts design aesthetic as well but she had an almost radical minimalism with an unusual emphasis on negative space that ended up influencing later artists to develop a more minimal and less decorative approach to book covers. Armstrong favored the Art Nouveau style with bold colors, stylized plants and often asymmetrical designs.
While less expensive than individually tooled books, the book design process was labor intensive. The artist would design two or three different sketches for each book, and the publisher would select the cover depending on issues of cost and availability of materials. The book cover designer would then prepare a finished colored drawing of the selected design. Books were bound using “case binding” where the books are manufactured separately from the text blocks. The covers require transferring the hand drawn designs to brass stamps, one for each color required in the design.
As printing technologies advanced at the turn of the century, the demand for the labor-intensive and expensively-designed cloth bound books and covers of individual designers declined with the rise of paper book jackets. The art of book design became more commercial and inexpensive, a boon for book buyers because of the decline in cost but a loss to those who admired the unique and beautiful designs.
Sarah Wyman Whitman died in 1904 before the shift away from artist designed book covers. With the loss of the book design business, Alice Cordelia Morse turned to teaching and became a public school teacher in Scranton PA, where she made a better living than she ever could as a designer. Margaret Neilson Armstrong turned to writing her own books on wild flowers to support herself and wrote several mystery novels in her seventies. Still, Morse, Whitman and Armstrong’s talent and activism stand out as an excellent example of the art of book design and also marks progress that women were making into the book arts and the commercial world.
Dr. Mary Vasudeva has a PhD in English and currently teaches writing and critical thinking at Diablo Valley College. She is also studying for her Masters in Library and Information Science at San Jose State University. Recent publications include a book review of Overcoming Information Poverty, by Anthony McKeown and selected writing sections for the textbook, Asking the Right Questions, in the forthcoming 12th edition.
Sources Consulted
Dubansky, M. (2009). Alice Cordelia Morse (1863-1961). The Met. Retrieved from http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/mors/hd_mors.htm.
Eckel, Molly, “”A Touch of Art”: Sarah Wyman Whitman and the Art of the Book in Boston” (2012). Honors Thesis Collection. Paper 67.
Frelinghuysen, A., Dunn, J., & Dubansky, M. (2008). The proper decoration of book covers: the life and work of Alice C. Morse. New York: Grolier Club.
Thomson, E. M. (1997). The origins of graphic design in America, 1870-1920. New Haven: Yale University Press.
University of Rochester. (2015). “Beauty for Commerce: Margaret Armstrong”. River Campus Libraries. Retrieved from http://rbscp.lib.rochester.edu/3351.
Posted March 13th, 2017 by Elspeth Olson in Guest Blogger, Women in the Bindery
The history of unions in the US is firmly rooted in the much older Guild system that arose in medieval Europe (and which in turn may have sprung from the collegia of the Roman Empire). It’s easy to forget, with all the anti- and pro-union rhetoric that gets slung around in this day and age, what an astonishing and effective system the Guilds were. They were generally divided into three classes: merchant guilds, craft guilds, and service guilds. The merchant guilds were for… well, merchants, those who traded between cities and nations, as well as locally. They might sell raw materials to artisans, or sell an artisan’s product (wool, woven into cloth, for example) but they were not generally producers. Craft guilds, which included makers of all sorts, from victuallers (bakers, butchers, brewers) to printers, papermakers, and bookbinders, were focused on production. Lastly, there were service guilds, to which clerks, drivers, and barbers would have belonged (remember that barbers were dentists and surgeons as well as tonsorial experts).
It may not be the first thing we think of now, but guilds’ primary function was to serve “as mechanisms for organizing, managing, and financing the collective quest for eternal salvation”1 by enforcing routine participation in religious services, organizing alms and festivals on Holy Days, and providing burial, funeral masses, and distributing alms in the name of the deceased. Guilds required standards of piety in their members, in line with Christian values: honesty, chastity, respect for authority, rest on the Sabbath. Would the man-on-the-street in medieval Europe have been familiar with these standards? Of course. But the guilds reinforced them, essentially policing piety among members for their souls’ sakes.
Guilds also provided enforcement of professional standards. It was in the interest of all members that workmanship and merchandise be of the highest standard; to that end, some guilds sent out inspectors to check members’ products, even their homes and workshops, to ensure that all the guild rules were being met.2 If a member failed to keep his work to the guild’s standard he might be fined; if he continued to do so he could–and often was–expelled from the guild. This was no small matter: not only would he be barred from practicing his own trade, but the guild would cease involvement in the member’s religious life: no burial or masses provided, no alms distributed in his name. Members were, in fact, forbidden to pray for him.
Finally, guilds provided continuity of knowledge through the apprentice system.3 A boy, apprenticed to a master craftsman, would learn all parts of the master’s work and–hopefully–become first a journeyman (a skilled employee or day-laborer) and, then a master himself. In the wake of the Black Death the apprentice system became important as a way of creating an informal structure for both children and craftsmen who had lost some or all of their families, and assured that the skills and experience of one generation would not be lost to the next. However, the progression from apprentice to journeyman to master was not always so orderly. Some apprentices rebelled and ran away from their masters; some journeymen never had the ambition to become master themselves, or could not save enough money to set up a shop and create the “masterpiece” that would permit him entry into the guild (in London, in 1747, the cost to set up a bindery could be between £50-£100).4
Medieval guilds flourished, becoming the center of social, and of religious life in cities and towns, but with the advent of the Reformation their influence began to wane (not least because their primary religious function was out of step with new beliefs). In some nations guilds were suppressed; in others some guilds dwindled into “friendly societies,” where “it was the custom of many of the journeymen to meet in public houses adjoining their workshops, to drink ‘a social pint of porter.’”5 Sometimes–as in London in the 1780s–these societies grew into trade associations, journeymen banded together to negotiate, or force, better terms from the masters. These societies differed from the guilds because they were no longer groups that included all binders: they were meant specifically to advocate for the journeymen against the masters.
There we see the the genesis of the modern labor union. In the US, where the guild system was a remnant of the medieval system, “friendly societies” and “brotherhoods” became trade unions. In the UK, where guilds persisted, even co-existed with trade unions, they came to occupy a position of some civic power and a good deal of ceremonial pomp. It is doubtful a medieval apprentice, journeyman, or master would recognize the current incarnation of the guild.
1 https://eh.net/encyclopedia/medieval-guilds/
2 Ibid.
3 http://www.public.iastate.edu/~gbetcher/373/guilds.htm
4 https://books.google.com/books?id=nNoHAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA331&lpg=PA331&dq=The+numbers+annexed+to+the+Names+in+the+first+column&source=bl&ots=6zsmnK3C5Y&sig=f2WJPvp2DxCCA7k_K_ED3lNjpgI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi1i77CwLPSAhUUUWMKHeq6DdkQ6AEIGjAA#v=onepage&q=The%20numbers%20annexed%20to%20the%20Names%20in%20the%20first%20column&f=false
5 https://books.google.com/books?id=BqA3AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA68&lpg=PA68&dq=1786+bookbinding+strike&source=bl&ots=PBGnSSg5m4&sig=zSXBEI0wdYZpJJnvfKyDIl4IDKI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjnl5T67rPSAhVHwFQKHfnvCsQQ6AEIKjAD#v=onepage&q=1786%20bookbinding%20strike&f=false
Posted March 1st, 2017 by Mad Robins in History, Unions in the Bindery
It’s that time again! It’s Color Our Collections week, a project hosted by the New York Academy of Medicine, in which museums, libraries, and archives around the world create coloring pages inspired by items in their collections. Officially it runs February 6-10, 2017, but really, you can print our pages and share them whenever you want. We’ll be happy to see your creative work!
This year we’re sharing most of the pages we made last year, and adding in some new ones. Feel free to print them, share them with your kids and your friends, and color them in however you want – all we ask is that you share a picture with us on social media. Tag us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and share your pictures with the hashtag #ColorOurCollections!
Find our coloring pages here: bookbindersmuseum_coloringpages2017
Posted February 6th, 2017 by Elspeth Olson in Announcements, Community, Event, International Community
Two major events in the Bay Area this month for book lovers and book artists.
Codex 2017 is part of the 6th Bienniel International Book Fair and Symposium at the Craneway Pavilion, 1414 Harbor Way South, in Richmond. The Book Fair is open to the public, and runs Sunday, February 5 through Wednesday, February 8. Multi-day tickets are $30; Single-day tickets are $10; Student tickets (with ID) are $5. The Codex Book Fair brings the “Best of the Best book artists and fine press printers from around the world to share their work, explore new and old concepts, and to start an on-going conversation about the fate and future of the book as an essential art form.”
The 50th California International Antiquarian Book Fair will be at the Oakland Marriott City Center, 1001 Broadway, Oakland, from Friday, February 10 through Sunday, February 12. The Fair allows attendees an incredible opportunity to browse and buy books from nearly 200 booksellers from around the world.
In addition to booksellers, the Antiquarian Book Fair features special exhibits, seminars, and presentations, all of which are free to the public with a paid admission. Look for a special group of “book arts” related exhibitors–including The American Bookbinders Museum, displaying binding, letterpress printing, calligraphy, and ephemera. Tickets are $23 for a three-day pass and $13 for a Saturday-Sunday pass; with Student ID a three-day pass is $20, and Saturday-Sunday is $10.
Posted January 31st, 2017 by Mad Robins in Community, Event
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