For the frontispiece of their photography manual, The Art and Practice of Silver Printing, the authors H.P. Robinson and William Abney used a woodburytype rather than a silver print as an example of a permanent photograph.

The invention of the woodburytype process is credited to both Walter Bentley Woodbury (1834–1885) and Sir Joseph Wilson Swan (1828–1914). First called photo-mezzotint when Swan conceived of the idea, when Woodbury beat Swan to the patent in 1864 he gave the process his own name, woodburytype. They fought over this in print and in the courts for many years. To read the entire discourse, see Bill Jay’s essay.

The same thing happened in 1879 with Thomas Edison (1847–1931) claiming a patent for the electric light bulb, which Swan had already invented. Happily, this time Swan publicly demonstrated his light bulb to a crowd of 700 and then installed electric lights in his own house [seen above] long before Edison’s claim. Swan won this fight and was offered a partnership in Edison’s company. He went on to receive 70 patents in photography, electricity, engineering, and physics.

Woodbury and Swan were after the same thing in 1864, a permanent photographic image that would not fade or darken. Unfortunately, over 150 years later, we now know that the stability of the gelatin binder may easily be compromised with changes in temperature and humidity.

Many of these so called permanent prints are not aging well. Edges may begin to lift and separate from the paper support, causing a cracking of the image surface. Since woodburytypes were often used in book illustrations, it is a good idea to open up the volumes once in a while and check on your prints.

Read more in the Getty’s free publication: Woodburytype, The Atlas of Analytical Signatures of Photographic Processes by Dusan C. Stulik and Art Kaplan (2013)

H. P. Robinson (1830-1901) and William de Wiveleslie Abney (1843-1920), The art and practice of silver printing (New York: E. & H.T. Anthony & Co., 1881). Graphic Arts Collection 2003-0904N.

For a special Christmas treat in December 1912, Adolph S. Ochs (1858-1935), owner of The New York Times, presented his readers with the first complete pictorial newspaper section printed in rotogravure. Earlier that year, Ochs had purchased two modern German rotary presses and hired Julius Herman to train an American staff of printers to run them. These presses mechanically inked and wiped the circular metal plates, printing up to 3,500 pages from a continuous roll of paper each hour.

By 1914, at least six American newspapers offered regular rotogravure picture magazines or sections, usually on Wednesdays and Sundays. Besides The New York Times, the Boston Sun Herald, the Philadelphia Public Ledger, the Chicago Tribune, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Kansas City Star each featured a rotogravure section, which all became the most widely read section of the papers.

These picture sections even inspired Irving Berlin (1888-1989) to mention rotogravure into his song Easter Parade:

In your Easter bonnet, with all the frills upon it,
You’ll be the grandest lady in the Easter parade.
I’ll be all in clover and when they look you over,
I’ll be the proudest fellow in the Easter parade.

On the avenue, Fifth Avenue, the photographers will snap us,
And you’ll find that you’re in the rotogravure.
Oh, I could write a sonnet about your Easter bonnet,
And of the girl I’m taking to the Easter parade.

Initially developed by Karl Klič (also spelled Klietsch 1841-1926) for reproducing photographic images on rotary or cylinder presses, the first daily newspaper to publish both letterpress and rotogravure images together was the Freiburger Zeitung [Freiburg, Germany] in 1910.

To emphasize the connection with fine art intaglio printing, various commercial printing companies named themselves after famous engravers, such as the Rembrandt Intaglio Printing Company.

In his exposé “The Truth about Rotogravure,” Josephus Higgenbothem wrote,

“The rotogravure process has invaded the field of the graphic arts so noiselessly that few now realize the prominent place it has already attained. To many of our readers, who associate rotogravure only with the Sunday papers, it may be news to learn that this process is now extensively employed by mail-order catalogues, display advertising, and general direct-advertising literature.”

For many years, noted Higgenbothem, details of the process was kept secret.

“Instead of printing from type, stereotypes, or electrotypes, it was whispered that enormous cylinders of gleaming copper would be employed. Instead of impressing half-tone dots upon the paper, the new process promised to give the full tonal values heretofore to be seen in only the expensive hand-printed photogravures or still more costly mezzotints.

Make ready was to be entirely eliminated; the treacherous composition ink rollers were to be discarded. Of still greater moment was the fact that coated paper, always recognized as a makeshift at best, would no longer be required. Lastly, and most important of all, was the information that presswork infinitely superior to the best that could be achieved on a flatbed press would be done at magazine rotary speed.

. . . The success of this innovation was so sudden and dramatic that it constitutes the theme for one of the most exciting stories in American journalism. The increase is circulation was phenomenal.” –Higgenbothem “The Truth About Rotogravure” The Printing Art 38 (1922)

See: The New York Times Typographical Standards; Regulations Governing Typography of Advertising Classification In The New York Times, With Information Regarding the Preparation and Treatment of Illustrations and Cuts For Newspaper Advertisements. Also, Some Notes on the Treatment of Copy for Rotogravure Advertisements … 3rd ed. (New York, New York Times Company, 1927). Recap 070 N4956 and GAX 2004-2919N

Portfolio of the European War: Rotogravure Etchings / selected from the Mid-week Pictorial of the New York Times (New York: New York Times, 1917). (XL) D522. P678 1917f

Detail: Francis Speir Jr., and William Berryman Scott second row left

William Berryman Scott (1858-1947) was 15 years old when he passed the oral entrance examination to enter Princeton as a member of the Class of 1877. “It was at Princeton that Scott began a life-long friendship with Henry Fairfield Osborn and Francis Speir; the 3 were inseparable and were given the nickname “The Triumvirate” by their classmates. In their junior year, they were inspired by a Harper’s Magazine article describing O.C. Marsh’s Yale College Scientific Expeditions and decided to undertake their own expedition to the West in search of fossil vertebrates. Planning continued throughout their senior year, and in the summer of 1877 the first Princeton Scientific Expedition set out for Colorado and Wyoming.” — Peabody Museum of Natural History

“In 1876 the Nassau Scientific Association was formed. It was organized by members of the class of ’77, and was An Association to undertake the work of Western Exploration. Under the leadership of Professors Brackett and Karge the first party started in the early part of the summer of 1877. The party was divided into two sections, the geologists, botanists and mineralogists working in Colorado, while the palaeontologists and typographers worked in Utah and Wyoming.” —Alumni Princetonian 1, No. 32 (20 March 1895)

“The University Library has recently received from Miss E. Leßaron Schanck, of Princeton, daughter of the late Professor Schanck, a full set of fifty large photographs of the Princeton Scientific Expedition to Colorado, in 1877. The expedition was composed of twenty members and was led by Professor C. F. Brackett and the late Professor Karge, whose military experience in the west was of great service.”–Daily Princetonian 26, No. 120 (11 November 1901)

Boston’s 1st Corps of Cadets, also known as the Company of Gentlemen Cadets, was chartered in 1741 (history: http://www.afcc1741.org/). In the 1890s, William Gibbons Preston (1842-1910) was commissioned to build them an armory at the corner of Arlington Street and Columbus Avenue, financed through the Cadet Theatricals, musical performances with all-male casts.

The 1897 production at the Tremont Theater was called Simple Simon, with a score by George Lowell Tracy (1855-1921) and Alfred Baldwin Sloane (1872-1926). The Boston Globe noted on January 19, 1897 that high premiums were paid for tickets.

“Society itself . . . was out in force at the Tremont theater yesterday afternoon at 1.30, when the auction sale of seats for “Simple Simon,” this year’s Cadet theatricals, opened for the first two performances . . . . There were fully 300 people in attendance, including many of the best-known professional and business men of Boston, together with a goodly sprinkling of the cadets themselves, a dozen or more speculators and quite a number of “proxies.” …The sale lasted from 1.30 o’clock to 5, when, according to the figures of manager Seymour and his associates, a total of nearly $4000 was represented for the opening night alone.”

This photograph was taken by Nathaniel Livermore Stebbins (1847-1922), a member of the Boston Yacht Club and author of several books on sailing, including American and English Yachts. Illustrated by the photogravure process, plates from the Press of Lithotype Printing and Publishing Company, Gardner, Mass. (New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1887).

“Norman White, who had been active in the Pi Eta shows while at Harvard, played the lead role, making his entrance on a bicycle in a costume so loud that the orchestra cannot be heard when he has it on, and so bright that the electric lights can be turned off and no one notice it.”– Anne Alison Barnet, Extravaganza King: Robert Barnet and Boston Musical Theatre (2004).

Nathaniel Livermore Stebbins (1847-1922), Simple Simon, 1897. Gelatin silver print. GA 2013.00503.Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.