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We'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've retrieved loads of unused type, cases, & cabinets (thank you!). Here's a shot of what it looked like right before we began pulling things out. (We miss those days--so many discoveries!)
We're down to the last bits. Old type, a few loose press points. Stray spacing. When they call saying they found something else, it's always worth the trip. These containers were labeled, so they don't seem marked for the hellbox, but they'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'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'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'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.
