Author Archives: Julie Mellby

The First Alphabet

Premiering this Wednesday is a documentary on the history of writing that experts have been working on for sixteen years; twelve years to puzzle out a story and four to film and edit. The first of three episodes will be airing on NOVA/PBS Wednesday, 23 September 2020, 9:00 pm EST.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/a-to-z-the-first-alphabet/

“Where would we be without the world’s alphabets? Writing has played a vital role in the expansion and domination of cultures throughout history. But researchers are only now uncovering the origin story to our own alphabet, which may have gotten its beginnings in a turquoise mine 4,000 years ago. From the shape of the letter A to the role of writing in trade and storytelling, discover how the written word shaped civilization itself.”

The second episode will air Wednesday, 30 September 2020, 9:00pm EST and the third will go online afterwards.

“Just as writing changed the course of human history, the evolution of paper and printing revolutionized the spread of information. The printing press kicked off the Industrial Revolution that fast-tracked us to the current digital age. But as the 4,000-year-old tradition of penmanship falls out of favor, should we consider what might be lost in this pursuit of ever more efficient communication?”

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/a-to-z-how-writing-changed-the-world/

“NOVA brings you stories from the frontlines of science and engineering, answering the big questions of today and tomorrow, from how our ancestors lived, to whether parallel universes exist, to how technology will transform our lives. Visit the official website to watch full-length documentaries, or explore our world through short-form video, on our digital publication NOVA Next.”

Uncirculated proof-like condition, eco-accommodating

When announcing the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933-2020), Fox news first posted an advertisement for Donald Trump Playing Cards, described as “uncirculated proof-like condition.” This is a variation on the US Mint descriptions for coins, not paper products. See glossary below.


Amazon sells them for the GOP shop, advertised as a gift for men.

“Made of superb paper, eco-accommodating, printed and covered well to ensure these cards work incredible for you, the edges are smooth, difficult to part, you can rearrange them easily. Playing cards are great for all card games: bridge, go fish, poker, euchre, hearts, blackjack, canasta, texas, pinochle, baccarat, casino night and more.”

Hand-crafted. Made in China

https://catalog.usmint.gov/faqs-faqcategory-products-programs/products-programs-coin-design.html?fdid=faqcategory-products-programs

Proof Coins: Are the finest quality of coin produced by the United States Mint. The term “proof” refers to the coin’s finish. Proof blanks are specially treated, hand-polished, and cleaned to ensure high-quality strikes. The blanks are then fed into presses fitted with specially polished dies and struck at least twice. The coins are then carefully packaged to showcase and preserve their exceptional finish.
These coins: Are struck at least twice, which gives the coin a frosted, sculpted foreground for a glamorous shine; defined, intricate design; and mirror-like background.

Uncirculated Coins: Are hand-loaded into the coining press and struck on specially burnished blanks, yet have a soft, matte-like finish appearance. These coins: Are made like circulating coins (which are used everyday as money), but with a special process that produces a brilliant finish.

These cards are not included in the Graphic Arts Collection.

Exércices d’imagination de differens charactéres[sic] …

Joseph François von Götz (baron, 1754-1815), Exercices d’imagination de differens Caractères et Formes humaines, inventés peints et dessinés par J.F.de Goez (Augsburg: Academie Imperiale d’Empire, ca. 1785). Graphic Arts Collection 2020-in process

 

Reproduced here are a few of the 100 engraving printed in differing shades of sanguine inks over black by Robert Brichet (French, active 1775–90) after designs by Götz (or by Götz himself). The social satires act as occupational “cries” of Augsburg rather than personal caricatures. This volume merges the French and German series, which appears elsewhere as Die heutige sichtbare Körperwelt oder 100 Charakter Züge. Only a very few copies were printed in colored ink.

 

Götz is credited with publishing the first graphic novel (Leonardo und Blandine, 1783). [c.f. Cohen-De Ricci, col. 443 («Il y a des exemplaires dont les figures sont tirées en rouge»); Hiler, p. 383; Lipperheide 3522; cf. Colas 1277, although as we all know, statements like that beg to be proven wrong. James Gillray was also publishing sequential image narratives. See: https://konkykru.com/e.goez.1783.lenardo.und.blandine.1.html

Decrees of the King’s Council of State

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired an important collection of 35 Arrêts du Conseil d’Etat du Roi = Decrees of the King’s Council of State (1771 to 1789). These join several other collections of decrees in special collections beginning in 1704. The new acquisitions include parliamentary papers regulating the printing and book trade in France, most published in Paris but some from Lille. Here are a few examples.

In order to understand the nature, evolution, and basic conceptions of French administrative law, it is essential to study the role of the Conseil d’État, the supreme administrative tribunal. Creative and dynamic, often even bold, the jurisprudence of this remarkable body remains nevertheless prudent and fundamentally evolutionary. One would search in vain for the major principle of French administrative law in the legislative texts; they have been developed by the jurisprudence of this Council as it proceeds, by a series of successive decisions, from specific cases to ultimate yet flexible generalizations, establishing basic legal concepts not only by the skillful interpretation of texts, but also by creative construction when the texts are silent.

Together with its doctrinal achievements, the Council’s usus fori or judicial practice forms a flexible source of principles applicable to specific cases. The legislator may regulate according to circumstances and the necessities of the moment, without concerning himself with general principles or even conforming rigorously to those created by jurisprudence and theory. But the administrative judge, in administering justice, performs a genuinely creative task and establishes bases for legal thought.– Georges Langrod, The French Council of State: Its Role in the Formulation and Implementation of Administrative Law: https://doi.org/10.2307/1951432

 


 

The new normal

We continue to teach live using the original material in the graphic arts collection to reach our students who are not on campus. Today was the practice run for Professor Linda Colley’s Junior Seminar in History, in which we will compare George III with George Washington while demonstrating the many mediums and formats through which you can learn. Here is a pochoir print reproducing the oil painting by Charles Willson Peale of George Washington at the Battle of Princeton together with a mezzotint after Thomas Gainsborough’s George the Third, King of Great Britain.

 

 

One of the many complications is adjusting the equipment to accommodate the very large as well as the very small, while continuing to talk about specific details.

Some material like the John Trumbull’s 1786 sketch of the Death of General Mercer [Sketch for The Battle of Princeton] is already digitized online: https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/10660639. But others, like the watch in an open face case worn by Col. Thomas Turbott during the Battle of Princeton, is not.

 

 

Besides it is more fun to see and talk about the material live, than to hand out digital addresses. Such as Baricou Montbrun’s L’Apotre de la liberte immortalize (The Apostle of Freedom Immortalized or The Apotheosis of Benjamin Franklin), [Paris: Montbrun, ca. 1790], a stipple engraving in which Franklin is being assumed into heaven as the world mourns his loss.

Or Wha wants me, 1792, in which Thomas Paine holds a scroll of the “rights of man” surrounded by injustices and standing on labels.

Thanks to the many, many people who have helped set this up and continue to make these classes possible.

 

 

Anaïs Nin’s first American Publisher

When Anaïs Nin bought a printing press and set up shop in Greenwich Village, Jimmy Cooney made a number of trips into town to give her printing lessons and publishing advice. Who was he?


In the 1930s, Blanche and James Cooney moved “on the Maverick,” an artists’ colony outside Woodstock, NY, founded by Hervey White in 1905. They had no telephone or indoor plumbing but acquired a full stockpile of metal type and a small hand press. Notices were placed in The New York Times Sunday book review section and the Herald Tribune asking for manuscripts to be published in a new magazine. “We would print it ourselves; it would be the rallying point, through it we would spread the word of a community of separate dwellings and shared land and stock and tools; …We would publish writers whose unpopular or seditious views would have no chance in the commercial press.” It would be called The Phoenix, in honor of D.H. Lawrence.

Henry Miller wrote from Paris that both he and his friend Anaïs Nin would send material, happy that someone welcomed their provocative stories. Each was published in The Phoenix several times before they were forced to leave Paris for New York City.

As soon as Anaïs was settled, she and her husband Hugh Guiler (Hugo) made a pilgrimage to meet the Cooneys and the press that was not afraid to publish her work. Anaïs’s famous diaries do not mention of this trip, probably because Hugo asked her not to write about him and she agreed. However, the visit is chronicled in Blanche Cooney’s autobiography:

“In 1940, on her return from Europe, Anaïs came to Woodstock with her husband Hugh Guiler to stay with us for a few days. She wanted to meet her first American publisher, we wanted to meet the fabled Etre Étoilique [Miller’s 1937 short story about Anaïs]. A great pleasure to look at, she moved like the dancer she was, a fluid supple line in a dress of purple wool. . . Hugo—Anaïs called him Hugo and he said we were also to call him Hugo—was the banker, an international banker. A tall lean Scotsman, gentle, handsome, he deferred to Anaïs, his adored one, his indulged one. No whim, no quirk, no passion, or bizarre appetite would he deny her, Yes to a houseboat on the Seine, Yes to the Miller connection, to a fling with a woman, an English poet, a Peruvian Indian, Yes….

Hugo, Anaïs said, will be studying engraving with Stanley Hayter at the New School. Hugo had a definite talent; he will do the covers and illustrations for her books, she said; they will find a printer and publish privately. “my text and Hugo’s decorations.” Anaïs smiled into Hugo’s eyes with intimate secret reference. The visit went well, no explosions, no denunciations . . . .”–Blanche Cooney, In My Own Sweet Time (Ohio: Swallow Press, 1993). Z473 .C755 1993

The Phoenix ([Haydenville, Mass.: Morning Star Press, 1938-1984.]). Vol. 1, no. 1 (Mar./May 1938)-v. 9, no. 3 & 4 (1984). AP2 .P464

Natashia Troubetskoia, Anaïs Nin, ca. 1932. Oil on canvas. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Want to know more? Please join us at 2:00 p.m. on September 25, 2020 for the fifth in our series of webinars highlighting the Graphic Arts Collection at Princeton University. Register for free here: https://libcal.princeton.edu/event/6949414

 

The history of the Maverick: https://player.vimeo.com/video/11435652

Kaloolah or Journeyings to the Djébel Kumri: by someone related to the Folgers, the Macys and the Starbucks

We recently digitized another sensational female-slave narrative with a frontispiece by Felix Octavius Carr Darley (1822-1888), engraved by Benjamin F. Childs (1814-1863):
William Starbuck Mayo (1812-1895), Kaloolah, or, Journeyings to the Djébel Kumri : an autobiography of Jonathan Romer edited by W.S. Mayo, M.D. (New York : George P. Putnam; London : David Bogue, 1849). Graphic Arts Collection Hamilton 603(a) https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/2526136

The following letter will best explain the way in which these pages came into the editor’s hands, and the degree of credit that may be fairly given to them as an authentic record of the travels and adventures of a young American:

Dear Doctor : You must know that I have recently come into the possession of a manuscript, purporting to be the travels and adventures of a young American, in various parts of the world, but mainly in the deserts of Africa, and in the unknown, and hitherto unvisited countries south of the Soudan. The manuscript strikes me as being curious, interesting, and apparently authentic; but I have so little confidence in my own judgment, in such matters, that after a deal of patient and painful cogitation upon the subject, I find myself utterly unable to decide two questions that present themselves, to wit, is it worth publishing? and if so, what will be the best manner of giving it to the world?

 

“Life of adventure may be justly considered my birthright. Descended, on both sides of the house, from some of the earliest settlers of Nantucket, and more or less intimately related to the Coffins, the Folgers, the Macys and the Starbucks of that adventurous population, it would seem that I have a natural right to a roving disposition, and to a life of peril, privation, and vicissitude. Nearly all the male members of my family, for several generations, have been “followers of the sea.” Some of them in the calm and peaceful employment of the merchant service; others, and by far the greater number, in the more dangerous pursuit of the ocean monster. Whaling, it is well known, has been, almost from the first settlement of this country, the chief employment of the inhabitants of “the Island.” All were directly or indirectly interested in it. By it were bounded the hopes of the young and the memories of the old.”

 

 

Expedition to the Dead Sea, Petra, and the Left Bank of the Jordan

Honore Theodore Paul Joseph D’Albert Duc de Luynes (1802-1867), Voyage d’exploration à la Mer Morte, à Petra, et sur la Rive Gauche du Jourdain [= Expedition to the Dead Sea, Petra, and the Left Bank of the Jordan] (Paris: Arthus Bertrand, n.d. [ca.1868-74]). Graphic Arts Off-Site Storage RECAP-33945831

 

Alphonse Poitevin (1819-1882) won both of the 1856 photographic competitions sponsored by the Société françoise de photographie to discover a way (in short) to stop photographic prints from fading. Poitevin’s prize money was donated by Honoré d’Albert duc de Luynes (1802-1867) but when the Duke needed someone to print the photographs from his 1864 expedition to the Dead Sea basin and interior of Jordan, he passed on Poitevin and chose Charles Nègre (1820-1880).

An amateur archaeologist, Luynes organized the expedition to examine the region’s ancient ruins and perform geological and scientific observations. He took with him scientists, historians, and Lieutenant Louis Vignes (1831-1896), who served as the expedition’s photographer after receiving extensive training from Nègre. Vignes made both paper and glass plate negatives, which were carefully transported back to Paris and printed in ink as photogravures for the atlas documenting the expedition. Voyage d’Exploration a la Mer Morte à Petra et sur la Rive Gauche du Jourdain.

“Nègre was to complete the work by January 1868 for the sum of 23,250 francs. The photographs, made by the Duke’s second in command, Lieutenant L. Vignes, are for the most part rather contrasty and lacking in detail in the shadow areas. It is remarkable how Nègre was able to open up the shadows and fill them with light, detail and space. But undoubtedly the main reason the Duke chose Nègre to perform this task lay in the quality of the prints Nègre was capable of producing. Quite possibly de Luynes had expected the artist to win the prize of the Société Francaise competition, for he had achieved a control over his process which resulted in prints of rich tones, fine detail, transparency and effect.” – Borcoman, Charles Negre, pp. 45-46 and plates 199 and 200.

Together with three volumes of text, the atlas volume presents 64 of the Nègre photogravures; plus 18 lithographs, 2 maps, and 1 chart. Rachel Stuhlman, George Eastman House, writes that Nègre produced “printing plates capable of reproducing the entire gradation of tones, from the white of the paper to the strongest black…” and that he “…transformed the dull photographs into evocative images of great poetry.”

 

Contents: t. 1. Relation du voyage.–t. 2. De Petra à Palmyre, par m. Vignes.–Voyage de Jérusalem à Karak et à Chaubak, par mm. Mauss et Sauvaire.–t. 3 Géologie, par m. L. Lartet.–Atlas.

Decoration at Pynson Printers

Several years ago, while renovating Firestone Library, a canvas was found abandoned inside a temporary wall. The enormous painting of a Chinese bonsai tree could not be identified and was placed in our painting storage vault. Until now.

Recently we discovered this was the painting that hung in the offices of Elmer Adler’s Pynson Printers, positioned between his Pegasus logo and that of his colleague type designer Lucian Bernhard. Bernhard sublet space from Adler, who rented an entire floor in the New York Times Annex on 43rd Street beginning in 1923.

“From the twentieth of March, 1922, the Pynson Printers are at your service for the planning and production of all printing in which quality is the first consideration. We have founded our organization on the belief that the printer should be primarily an artist—a designer and a creator rather than a mere manufacturer. Toward this end, we have assembled a group whose several abilities and varied experience cover every phase of the art and business of printing. . . . We will do no work in which quality must be sacrificed to exigencies of time or cost” (Reprinted in Lawrance Thompson “Forty Mercer Street,” Princeton University Library Chronicle 2, no. 1 (November 1940): 32).

Together with designers Walter Dorwin Teague (1883-1960), Hubert L. Canfield, and David Silvé, Adler opened a small, fine press printing shop at 122 East 32nd Street named Pynson Printers, after the sixteenth-century printer Richard Pynson. Within six months, the others had moved on, leaving Adler the sole owner of the firm (see: John F. Peckham “Forty Mercer,” Princeton Alumni Weekly 41, no. 12 (December 16, 1940): 8). As stated in the opening announcement, concerns with quality rather than commercial practicality led production.

The Pynson Printers office moved to the New York Times Annex at 239 West 43rd Street, elegantly decorated by Lucien Bernhard. In a 1925 letter to Rockwell Kent (1882-1971), with whom he was already in business, Adler wrote, “Since you were last here Mr. [Lucien] Bernhard has arranged to build a studio adjoining our shop which will help create more of the kind of thing we want to have….” (Adler to Kent, February 13, 1925. CO262, box 32, Adler papers). These three men, Adler, Kent, and the recently emigrated German designer Lucien Bernhard (1883-1972), began working together on a variety of printing and design projects. Their first fine press book, Candide, began in 1925 when 27-year-old Bennett Cerf and his 23-year-old friend Donald Klopfer decided they wanted a business of their own, which became Random House.

Adler closed the Pynson Printers in 1940, when he was invited to move to Princeton, New Jersey, and established a department of Graphic Arts for Princeton University. He brought with him a personal collection—fourteen tons of books, prints, paintings, records, and equipment—which became the basis for the graphic arts collection we enjoy today. Although he donated some records of the Pynson Press to the NYPL in 1936, he retained a large amount of material with which to teach, including papers, proofs, and plates, which he sold to the Princeton University Library in 1948 for one dollar.
See also: https://graphicarts.princeton.edu/2014/03/21/exhibition-chronology-of-the-little-gallery-of-the-pynson-printers/

 

Graphic Arts reference collection holds four enormous volumes documenting jobs produced by Elmer Adler’s Pynson Printers from 1922 to 1940 when the press was closed. An index to these volumes has been created by Sherry X. Zhang and Jena Mayer with help from Brianna R. Cregle and AnnaLee Pauls, which is key word searchable allowing researchers, for the first time, to study Adler’s commercial work. PDFs are attached here and to the voyager record for these scrapbooks. https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/7343684 Pynson Printers jobs. Graphic Arts: Reference Collection Oversize Z232.P99 A9f
Volume one:Copy of PynsonPrinters_Volume 1
Volume two:Copy of PynsonPrinters_vol.2
Volume three:Copy of PynsonPrinters_vol.3
Volume four:Copy of PynsonPrinters_vol.4 (1) (1)
Extras: Copy of PynsonPrinters_Presses

What the Rebels Claimed in 1861

The Progress of the Union Armies. What the Rebels Claimed in 1861. What They Hold in 1863 ([New York, August 1863]). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2020- in process

This rare American Civil War broadside is thought to have been published in the late Summer of 1863. To put it in perspective, here’s a brief timeline taken from: https://www.nps.gov/gett/learn/historyculture/civil-war-timeline.htm

January 1, 1863- The Emancipation Proclamation goes into effect. Applauded by many abolitionists including Frederick Douglass, there are others who feel it does not go far enough to totally abolish slavery.

May 18, 1863– Siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi begins. Union forces under General Ulysses S. Grant attack Confederate defenses outside the city on May 19-22. If Vicksburg falls, the Mississippi River will be completely controlled by the Union.

July 1-3– The Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The bloodiest battle of the Civil War dashes Robert E. Lee’s hopes for a successful invasion of the North.

July 4– Vicksburg, Mississippi, surrenders to the Union Army under Grant. The capture of Vicksburg gives the Union complete control of the Mississippi River, a vital supply line for the Confederate states in the west. At Gettysburg, Lee begins his retreat to Virginia.

July 13, 1863– Draft Riots begin in New York City and elsewhere as disgruntled workers and laborers, seething over the draft system that seemingly favors the rich, attack the draft office and African American churches. The riots continue through July 16.

Publication of this broadside/election propaganda.

September –November 1863– The Siege of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Confederate forces under Braxton Bragg surround the occupied city. General Ulysses S. Grant is assigned to command the troops there and begins immediate plans to relieve the besieged Union army.

November 19, 1863– Dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery at Gettysburg. President Abraham Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address.

December 8, 1863– Lincoln Issues his Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, which would pardon those who participated in the “existing rebellion” if they take an oath to the Union.

The broadside’s map of the United States in 1863 shows the “Free States and Delaware” in white, with the partially shaded area indicating “the States and Territories claimed by Jeff. Davis, and over which for a considerable period his Rebel arms were triumphant, but which have been wrested from him by our heroic soldiers.” The darkest area indicates Confederate control. A table contrasts “The Claim of the Confederacy, 1861” with “The Situation—August, 1863.”

Recognized today as a campaign poster for the 1863 New York State elections, the broadside promotes a slanted perspective on the success of the Union army. Susan Schulten observes:

“There were no shortage of war maps for the northern public, but these were unique, recording conflict as a story of territorial control rather than discrete battles. Indeed they were a kind of first draft of history, an attempt to create a story where the outcome was not as yet unknown. Yet in generalization, they imply a steady state of progress and control that was at odds with the chaos on the ground. Again, one thing that strikes me about the use of such imagery is the suggestion of ongoing territorial progress. Such a depiction allows little room to acknowledge the notorious reversals of territorial control in the east. But to boost the flagging spirits in the Union, the image was compelling indeed, supported by extensive statistics of square miles and population under Union control.”– Mapping the Nation  http://www.mappingthenation.com/blog/mapping-the-progress-of-the-union-army/

Compare this map to another clearly labeled as a campaign promotion:

United States: map showing loyal states in green, what the rebels still hold in red, and what the Union soldiers have wrested from them in yellow. New York; Boston; Chicago, H. H. Lloyd & Co.;B. B. Russell; R. R. Landon, [1864].

The last line of the broadside reads: “Voters of New York, the good work must go on! While our brave soldiers, of your own blood and kindred, are fighting in the field for the Union, let your votes be recorded in the same glorious cause at home!”

Two tables near the bottom emphasize the point of the map, outlining the population of the Confederate and border states and territories in 1861, contrasted by how much land had been recovered by the Union, as compared to what remained in the hands of the rebels. The tables show that of the 1,222,385 square miles possessed by the Confederacy in 1861, 909,275 of that had been reclaimed by the Union.