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We& #39;re not in our lab space much these days. But we did recently scoop up some loose type, old book-cloth, & job-printed diplomas (never delivered) for our institution. The diplomas are interesting--some printed on sheepskin, & some on parchment, with names added in blackletter.
These were retrieved from the same wonderful commercial shop (Crayton-Heritage) where we& #39;ve retrieved loads of unused type, cases, & cabinets (thank you!). Here& #39;s a shot of what it looked like right before we began pulling things out. (We miss those days--so many discoveries!)
We& #39;re down to the last bits. Old type, a few loose press points. Stray spacing. When they call saying they found something else, it& #39;s always worth the trip. These containers were labeled, so they don& #39;t seem marked for the hellbox, but they& #39;re not very useful as stored.
One of the tubs in the shoebox had an interesting slab serif face, seemingly labeled "Tower" (paleographers?), in 24-point. Definitely worth re-sorting. And there was a little box of random items.
That last box was what prompted this thread: we didn& #39;t notice until we took some photos the phrase "New Goose" set in Brush.
Heritage Press (consolidated into Crayton-Heritage) was a Charlotte-based commercial printer, but they also did job work for Jonathan Williams& #39;s Jargon Society--one of the most important American small press ventures of the mid-20th century.
Williams attended Black Mountain College ( @bmcmuseum), lived in & around Asheville for most of his life after, and dedicated his publishing to emerging, avant-garde, and neglected poets. In 1968/9, he published Lorine Niedecker& #39;s T&G: Collected Poems, shortly before she died.
Niedecker was a remarkable, second generation modernist poet affiliated with the Objectivists (Zukofsky, Oppen, etc.). Her first book (1946) was New Goose, published by a small press in Illinois. Decker used Brush on the cover-leaf of New Goose.
According to the back matter, T&G was printed in Philadelphia--neither Illinois nor Charlotte. The Brush script in this unique phrase here in one of the shops Williams frequently used remains a mystery--perhaps ephemera was printed? A proof sheet? Facsimile pages? Titling?
This material connection to past generations of printers & book-makers is one of the most exciting aspects of re-claiming equipment. While often anonymous, when we discovered the specific Jargon connection here, it became that much more meaningful to have this type in hand.
