Suave Mechanicals: Essays on the History of Bookbinding

Vol. 9

Julia Miller, editor

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This volume is the last in the series and is expected to be published in Summer 2025. The authors included in this book are: Whitney Baker, Guilherme Canhão, Ashley Cataldo, Kyle Clark, Tom Conroy, Amy Crist, Steffi Dippold, Anna Embree, Anne McLain, John Nove, Todd Pattison, Jeff Peachey, Olivia Primanis, Richard Saunders, and Jay Tanner.

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Charles Hart’s Lithography: Its Theory and Practice

Georgia B. Barnhill

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Barnhill, retired curator, American Antiquarian Society, and author/editor of numerous books on printmaking, has long been interested in Hart's unpublished manuscript, Lithography: Its Theory and Practice, held by the New York Public Library. Recently transcribed, the manuscript will be published in its entirely with an introduction by the author. Hart was a "proofer" in the Endicott Co., one of the few long-surviving lithographic firms in the United States during the 1800s. Hart details how lithographs were made, writes of his personal experiences in the trade, and presents biographies of many of the personalities that worked for this firm in New York City. Publication is expected in Summer 2025.

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As Good as Our Tools:

Equipment and Tool Builders for Hand Papermakers

Aimee Lee

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Hand papermaking would not be possible without the tools needed to process fibers and form them into sheets or manipulate them into artwork. Over a number of years, Lee interviewed important people worldwide, most of them in person, who have devoted a good deal of their interesting lives to producing those essential tools. Alas, too many of these people have reached retirement age or, regrettably, have died, leaving a potential void in our ability to make paper by hand. Lee asks where the next generation of papermaking tool builders will come from as hand paper-making becomes even more popular, not only to sustain the traditional craft but also to ensure that the burgeoning paper-art movement thrives. The people that Lee writes about detailing their critical contributions to the craft are:

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Beater Builders: Helmut Becker (1931–2024), Howard Clark, Lee McDonald, David Reina, Peter Gentenaar, Mark Lander, and Robert Woodruff

 

Traditional Mouldmakers: Ron Macdonald (1933–2017), Serge Pirard (1974–2024), Claudine Latron, Timothy Moore

 

Contemporary Mould- and Toolmakers: John Gerard, Bob Walp, and

Alejandro Geiler, Brian Queen

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Lee is an artist who makes paper, writes, and advocates for Korean papermaking practices

as an Ohio Arts Council Heritage Fellow and Midwest Culture Bearer Awardee. Her Fulbright research led her to establish the first hanji studio in North America, to write an award-winning book, Hanji Unfurled (Ann Arbor, Mich.: The Legacy Press, 2012), and to establish an active studio practice that includes jiseung, joomchi, paper textile, botanical paper, and natural dyeing techniques. Her Fulbright Senior Scholar research focused on bamboo screens for hanji-making in Korea. She travels the world to teach, exhibit, and serves as a resident artist while also building and enhancing studios for Korean and East Asian papermaking. Publication is expected in Summer 2025.

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A Printer with My Hands: The Life and Work of Carl P. Rollins

Katherine M. Ruffin

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From the Introduction: "As a member of a network of printers, designers, and bibliophiles associated with the “Renaissance in American Printing,” Carl Purington Rollins (1880–1960) helped transform graphic design and bibliographic studies in the United States. By applying the ideals of the Arts and Crafts Movement and design principles based on historical precedents to contemporary books and ephemera, this group of practitioners influenced the appearance of printed materials in twentieth-century America. This survey of the life and work of Rollins tells the story of the presses and collaborations with which he was involved." Publication is expected in Summer 2025.

 

Ruffin is Director of the Book Studies Program and a Lecturer in Art at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Mass. In addition to managing the college’s Book Arts Lab and the Paper-making Studio, she directs the activities of the Annis Press, the lab’s imprint. Katherine also teaches the history of the book at the School of Library and Information Science at Simmons University, and with John Kristensen of Firefly Press, she teaches a class on the History of 19th and 20th Century Typography and Printing at Rare Book School at the University of Virginia.

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A Global Exploration of Birch Bark Books and Manuscripts

Marieka Kaye  •  Oa Sjoblom

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Contributing authors

Kelly Church, Mary Hamilton French, Crystal Maitland,

Blaire Morseau, and Radha Pandey

 

The need to learn more about the history and material technology of birch bark in bookmaking arose when two conservators, Oa Sjoblom and Marieka Kaye, received damaged copies of Simon Pokagon’s (Pokagon Band of Potawatomi) birch bark books, The Red Man’s Greeting (1893) and The Red Man’s Rebuke (1893), at the Weissman Preservation Center, Harvard Library, and the conservation lab at the University of Michigan Library, respectively. These small and delicate books, letterpress printed on the bark of the North American paper birch and sold at the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893, are frequently studied for their importance to Indigenous book history and the strong statements that Pokagon made, advocating for the rights of Indigenous communities. The damage found in the books made them unsafe to handle and repair was required to continue allowing use. Conversations with experts in related disciplines and current Indigenous artists working with birch bark were a vital part of these treatments and led to collaborative projects. For this essay, they interviewed Indigenous birch bark artists Kelly Church and Devon Kicknosway, and learned about how birch bark was harvested and prepared by the Anishinaabe.

 

Sjoblom and Kaye’s original focus for this research was North American birch bark books. These artifacts have been pillaged and pulled from their communities, and now is the time to focus on returning them, with respect for their true homes. According to Morseau, the descendants of the creators of these birch bark narratives are uniquely equipped to understand and preserve them. Speaking with conservators who had worked with these books, including Maitland and French, Sjoblom and Kaye were struck by the similarities and differences and felt their research would benefit from expanding their focus.

 

The global use of the material is the focus of this book, providing pathways to explore the similarities and differences in how birch bark has been used for books and manuscripts across the world in very different times. In our attempt to include contemporary artists in our discussion, we also stretch outside birch to include Radha Pandey’s study of the use of sanchi bark in India for books and manuscripts through her interview with artist Mridu Bora. This type of bark is harvested and prepared in much the same way as birch bark and reveals yet another dimension to the way bark has been used in the history of written culture. 

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The Typefounder's Hand Mould

R. Stanley Nelson

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This long-awaited book, by the acknowledged expert on the subject, R. Stanley "Stan" Nelson, will be published in early Autumn 2025. Nelson is Curator Emeritus at the NMAH, Graphic Arts Division, where for decades, he gave typecasting demonstrations to museum goers. He soon began taking orders to make replica hand moulds for collections around the world. And it is fitting that he should write this book, which covers not only the history of the typemould, focusing on moulds from European collections, such as Museum of Plantin-Moretus, but Nelson also gives instructions about how to make a typemould.

 

"To some, typefounding may seem an unusually esoteric subject but consider that moveable type was the foundation for the success of Gutenberg’s integrated process for the mass production of books and writing using movable letters. It was the typemould that made accurate and efficient types both possible and economical. When considering the entire subject of printing history, typefounding represents an essential element that is worthy of much more attention than it has received. Thus this book."

  

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In addition to the above titles, The Legacy Press will be publishing a few more titles in 2025. Keep watching this space! These new titles will be last new ones that will appear under my imprint. However, The Legacy Press will continue to issue reprints and new editions of previously published books, and Oak Knoll will continue to distribute The Legacy Press books. 

 

I thank everyone – authors, editors, customers, and donors – for supporting the work of The Legacy Press since it began publishing in 1997, and I hope you will keep in touch over the coming years. Once these new titles are at the printer, I will continue my research into the earliest

Western-made wove papers in order to write a book on the subject; this book will not be published by The Legacy Press, however.