Chauncey Bradley Ives’ Noah Webster

After Chauncey Bradley Ives (1810–1894), Bust of Noah Webster, ca.1840. Plaster cast. (ex) 4766. Gift of Mrs. Theodore L. Bailey.

During the 21st-century renovation of Firestone Library, a cast plaster bust of Noah Webster (1758-1843) was relocated from the library tower to the newly constructed special collection vaults. It came with a possible attribution to the 19th-century sculptor John Henri Isaac Browere (1792-1834).

We can now confidently re-attribute the bust to Chauncey Bradley Ives (1810-1894), an American sculptor who worked primarily in the Neo-classic style. Today he is remembered for his portraits of celebrated Americans, both full-length statues and busts, including Noah Webster completed in 1840. Our bust was donated to Princeton by (or in honor of) Mrs. Theodore L. Bailey (died 1961). Mr. and Mrs. Bailey also donated a bronze cast of Ives’ Webster bust to Yale University in 1964, where the University also owns a painted cast plaster version of the bust.


In 1964, a New York Times reporter attended an outdoor auction of the household possessions and furnishings of the late Mrs. Theodore L. Bailey (died 1961). The sale included pieces belonging to Noah Webster, of whom Mrs. Bailey was a direct descendant.–“Picnicking’s Half the Fun at Auction,” New York Times November 14, 1964. This may explain their interest in having Webster’s likeness at the universities.  Mr. Theodore Bailey, Jr. was a member of the Princeton Class of 1926 and he also presented a bronze bust of Webster to the Mead Art Museum, Amherst College.

Noah Webster, Jr. (1758-1843), a graduate of Yale, wrote the first American dictionary, entitled A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language (1806) and followed it with An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828). Before the age thirty, Webster had already published a three volume study: A Grammatical Institute of the English Language, including a speller (1783), a grammar (1784), and a reader (1785). See more: https://www.merriam-webster.com/about-us/americas-first-dictionary

The former attribution was not a bad guess. In 1825, John Henri Isaac Browere (1792-1834) began using plaster life masks to create full three-dimensional busts of noted Americans, such as Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, De Witt Clinton, and Dolley Madison. It was his hope to establish a National Gallery of Notable Americans, but critics were divided on the merits of his technique, dubbing him a mechanic and calling his New York studio a “plaster factory.”

At his death, Browere’s collection of plasters was hidden from view until 1897, when McClure’s reporter Charles Henry Hart tracked them down and published “Unknown Life Masks of Great Americans…The Story of Their Production, Concealment from the Public, and Recent Recovery,” —McClure’s Magazine 9 1897. The Chicago Daily Tribune followed this with a front page article “Long Hidden Life Masks of Famous Americans” and the plaster busts were exhibited at the Chicago World’s Fair. Later, most of the collection was donated to the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, New York (formerly the New York State Historical Association). Browere’s work in plaster was not unlike the bust of Webster.

See: Life Masks of Noted Americans of 1825 by John H. I. Browere (Cooperstown, N.Y., The New York State Historical Association [1951?]). Firestone Library NB1293.N49

Visiting Laurence Hutton and others

Drama critic, journalist, and collector Laurence Hutton received an honorary Master of Art degree from Princeton University in 1897, where he returned to lecture in English from 1901 until his death in 1904. He is buried in the Princeton cemetery.

Hutton left his collection of manuscripts, rare books, and life/death masks to the Princeton University Library, including two books that describe his obsession with death masks: Talks in a library with Laurence Hutton, recorded by Isabel Moore (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1905) and Portraits in plaster: from the collection of Laurence Hutton (New York : Harper & Brothers, 1894). Images of the mask can be found at https://library.princeton.edu/libraries/firestone/rbsc/aids/C0770/

Here are a few of the other notable gravestones at the Princeton cemetery. An online brochure has more information: https://nassauchurch.org/about/princetoncemetery/brochure-and-map/

Both john Aaron Burr, Jr. (1756-1836), a colonel in the Army of the Revolution and vice president of the United States from 1801 to 1805; and his father Aaron Burr, Sr. (1716-1757), the second President of Princeton University (1748-1757) are buried in the Princeton cemetery. Burr Sr.’s grave is the oldest grave in the cemetery.

 

 

A large plot in the Princeton cemetery holds the graves of Richard Stockton Jr. (1764-1828), a lawyer and son of a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He was a Federalist statesman who served his native New Jersey nationally, first in the Senate (1796-1799) and then in the House of Representatives (1813-1815). Nearby is Robert Field Stockton (1795-1866), son of Richard Stockton, Jr., who was a United States Senator (Democratic) from New Jersey (1851-1853). He was also president of the Delaware & Raritan Canal. Here is the grave of granddaughter Saidee.

Sylvia Beach (1887-1962), whose father was pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, founded Shakespeare & Company, a Paris bookshop which became a focus for struggling expatriate writers. In 1922 she published James Joyce’s Ulysses when others considered it obscene. At her death, a large collection of manuscripts, books, and other material came to Princeton University Library. https://library.princeton.edu/special-collections/collections/sylvia-beach-papers

 

Grover Cleveland (1837-1908) was a New Jersey native and lawyer. He was the Mayor of Buffalo, Governor of New York, and elected President of the United States twice from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897. He remains the only President of the United States to win the popular vote in three consecutive elections and serve two non-consecutive terms. His birthday (March 18) is celebrated annually at the Princeton Cemetery with a short eulogy and wreath-laying ceremony.

“Cleveland’s introduction to Princeton came during his second presidency when he spoke at the University’s 1896 sesquicentennial celebration. So enamored with Princeton were the Clevelands that in 1897 Grover and wife Frances Folsom purchased a mansion on Hodge Road, dubbing the estate “Westland.” As a resident of Princeton the ex-president became deeply involved in University affairs and was a staple on campus, lecturing once or twice a year and taking part in annual Commencement ceremonies. He was elected a trustee in 1901 and until his death seven years later was one of the Board’s most visible members, contributing vocally to the tumultuous debate on the graduate school and acting as chairman of the trustees committee on that topic (Cleveland sided with Dean Andrew Fleming West’s plan)”.–https://findingaids.princeton.edu/collections/AC348#description.

 

 

 

Clark Fisher (1835-1903), founded the Eagle Steel Works (later named Fisher & Norris Anvil Works) in Trenton, New Jersey. His wife Harriet White Fisher Andrew (1861-1939) was known for being the first woman to circle the globe in a automobile. After her husband’s death, she took over the management of Eagle Steel Works and was the only woman member of the National Association of Manufacturers.

 

Families at home together


In 1784, Thomas Rowlandson exhibited two watercolors at the Royal Academy, contrasting an Italian family with a French family, each dancing and playing music together in in their homes. Although the Italian family is poorly dressed, living in a bleak home lit only by one open window, they sing an operatic tune with great power and enjoyment. The harpsichord player doesn’t even have a table and chair but plays sitting on the floor. A mother sings while caring for the baby.

In an equally tattered room, the French family has pushed a bed against the wall to make room for dancing. Various pieces of elegant dress are worn over bare legs and torn sleeves. Even the dogs have been dressed up, while the hungry cat climbs into the cupboard looking for food,

Samuel Alken printed and hand colored reproductions of the two scenes, which were sold at his Soho shop as well as William Hinton’s printshop at Sweeting Alley in Cornhill. They must have been popular because in 1792, Samuel Fores had a second edition of the French Family published and sold from his shop, this time printed without aquatint.

 



[above] Samuel Alken (1756-1815), after a design by Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827), An Italian family, 1785. Hand colored etching with aquatint. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2014.00798. Gift of Dickson Q. Brown, Class of 1895.
[below] Samuel Alken (1756-1815), after a design by Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827), A French family, 1786. Hand colored etching with aquatint. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2014.00793. Gift of Dickson Q. Brown, Class of 1895.

Samuel Alken (1756-1815), after a design by Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827), A French family, 1792. Hand colored etching. British Museum.

Unfolding Digital Images

Folding plates are trouble in an all-digital world. The brief joy of finding a title through temporary access to Hathi Trust can be tempered when you get blank pages staring back at you instead of unfolded plates.

 

Princeton University’s library catalog offers 18 digital versions and/or editions of: A journey to Jerusalem, or, A relation of the travels of fourteen English-men in the year 1669 : from Scanderoon, to Tripoly, Joppa, Ramah, Jerusalem, Bethlem, Jericho, the River Jordan, the Dead Sea, and back again to Aleppo … London : Printed by T.M. for N. Crouch …, 1672, with its wonderful series of fold-out plates.Unfortunately, I was not able to find one copy that offered the plates unfolded, looking in google books, hathi trust, or several other platforms. While it is possible to access the engravings from museums that have removed them from the books, then you have the image without the text.

 

A class favorite is William Hogarth’s Analysis of Beauty with two plates, usually front and back, folded multiple times to fit with the rest of the pages. Again, many museums have removed the plates and provide excellent digital access without the text but most online books either do not have the plates at all, or like ECCO, demand you look at the book at 10% of the original size, to see the entire print.The exception in this case is at Hathi Trust where you see the folded package and then, the opened image. Download this quickly before your one hour window is up.

 

There are a number of 19th-century journals that begin with a folded frontispiece, fun to teach with when you have the physical object. Finding a frontispiece in the all-digital world can itself be too daunting for most people. I had to look through a dozen or so issues before I found a few frontispieces in ProQuest., list under a title and interspersed with the articles/chapters.

The complete title of George Cruikshank’s satirical print seen above is Princely piety, or the worshippers at Wanstead. Here is the complete hand colored print in the British Museum:

One other option is offer, below, but is no better than the first.

 

So as not to only complain, here is a success story:

One example of beautifully handled folding plates comes from Princeton’s digital imaging studio, managed by Roel Munoz, whose staff captured this French costume book for the Graphic Arts Collection with great success: http://pudl.princeton.edu/boundart.php?obj=v118rf94k

Need a Project, no. 12? Ice Cream and Anarchists

From the George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress).

Political activist Emma Goldman (1869-1940) came to the United States in 1885 and was swept up in the anarchist movement that led to the attempted killing of Henry Clay Frick and the assassination of President William McKinley. In between, to pay the rent, she twice operated an ice cream parlor. The first was successful but given up to make the attempt on Frick’s life. The second was a failure and forgotten.

Together with her partner at the time, Alexander Berkman (1870-1936), she opened her first ice cream parlor in 1892 in Worcester, Massachusetts. The enterprise is well documented and there are several links below. Goldman did the cooking and serving, while Berkman helped out periodically.

S.N. Behrman went to Goldman’s ice cream parlor as a child living in Worcester and wrote about the experience in “Double Chocolate with Emma and Sasha,” The New Yorker, January 16, 1954: 24-29.

“One day, when I was still very young, Providence Street began to come alive with rumors and horrid allegations about the proprietors of a new ice-cream parlor that had been opened in our neighborhood. We children were forbidden to patronize the anathematized parlor, and it was a long time before I dared to defy the ban. Since the new entrepreneurs were Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman (whom Miss Goldman called Sasha), some people might have disapproved of them on political grounds; the hatred of the Providence Street parents was founded on religious ones.”


Not long after she was released from prison, Goldman opened her second ice cream parlor in the spring of 1895, together with her friends Claus Timmerman and Edward Brady. Located in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, it only lasted three months. In her autobiography Goldman writes,

“It occurred to me that we might try something like our ice-cream parlour in Worcester. It had been successful there; why not in New York? Ed approved of the project and suggested that we proceed at once. I had saved a little money and Fedya offered us more. Friends advised Brownsville: it was a growing centre, and a store could be got not far from the race-tracks, where thousands of people were passing daily. So to Brownsville we went, and fixed up a beautiful place. Thousands did pass by there, but they kept on passing. They were in a hurry to get to the race-track, and on their way home they had already visited some ice-cream store nearer the track. Our daily receipts were not enough to cover our expenses. We could not even keep up the weekly payments on the furniture we had bought for the two rooms we had rented in Brownsville. One afternoon a wagon drove up and proceeded to collect beds, tables, chairs, and everything else we had. …In three months we had lost five hundred dollars, besides the work.” –Emma Goldman, Living My Life, Volume 1

This week’s challenge:
Where exactly was the second ice cream parlor located? Might it be the same building where she helped her friend Margaret Sanger (1879-1966) opened the first birth control clinic in the United States: 46 Amboy Street, Brooklyn, New York? When you find the answer, please email jmellby@princeton.edu.


46 Amboy Street, Brooklyn, New York. Above: ca. 1916.  Below: 2020.

Soon after this, Goldman moved into 208 East 13th Street, where she published a monthly magazine, Mother Earth, that served as a forum of anarchist ideas and a venue for radical artists and writers. Happily, Hathi Trust is providing open access for students while the library is closed. Firestone Library HX821.M85

 

Here are some other accounts of the ice cream parlor:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=67893771
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2015/04/ice-cream-the-dessert-of-revolution
http://www.snbehrman.com/library/newyorker/54.1.16.NY.htm
https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-anarchism-with-whipped-cream-and-a-cherry-on-top-20150401-column.html

A preview of the PBS American Experience episode on Emma Goldman:

The full hour can be streamed here: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/goldman/#part01

Scott Printing Machine Works, Plainfield, New Jersey

525 South Avenue, Plainfield, New Jersey, in 2020.

 

Scott Printing Press Co.’s Works, Plainfield, N.J., Industrial Area, side view of the factory along with the water tank. Plainfield Public Library. https://plainfieldlibrarynj.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p17109coll3

In 1884, Walter Scott (1844-1907) moved his printing press manufacturing business from Chicago to Plainfield, New Jersey, taking over the lot previously used by New Jersey’s Central Baseball Club. By 1903, Walter Scott & Company covered five acres of downtown Plainfield. “The buildings are of brick, contain a floor space of upwards of 115,000 square feet and are connected with each other by a narrow-gauge railroad, 2,300 feet in length, which runs through the buildings.” —Newspaperdom 10 (January 1, 1903).

Scott operated the largest printing press manufacturing firm in the United States (claimed to be the largest in the world), known especially for high-speed presses and folding machines used by newspapers. In 1893, the New York World installed the first color press in America adapted to newspaper printing, which was built by Scott’s Company in Plainfield. Known as a brilliant inventor, he received his first patent in 1874 and by 1903, held 200 patents. When he died 1907, his widow, Isabella Scott, operated the business until her death in 1931.

Google maps overview of the factory buildings still standing in 2020. The New Jersey Transit Raritan line still runs along the rear of the buildings.

 

Advertisements: The Inland printer. v.3 (1885/86) and American Printer and Lithographer 31 (1900).

 

A biographical sketch of Scott was published in The Inland Printer that begins “It is with pleasure that we are enabled to place before our readers the portrait of a gentleman whose name is familiar to every printer in the United States, Mr. Walter Scott. Blessed with great genius, tireless energy, indomitable perseverance, and administrative ability, he has succeeded in building up what is now the largest and most progressive printing press manufacturing establishment in the world.” It continues:

“Mr. Scott was born in Scotland on May 22, 1844. He was educated at the Ayr Academy, studied theoretical and applied mechanics, and learned the machinist trade. He came to the United States in 1869 and settled in Chicago. He was employed in several printing offices, and was for many years foreman of the pressrooms of the Inter Ocean. In 1872 he commenced to make inventions in printing machinery. His mechanical skill and thorough knowledge of the requirements of the printing office enabled him to produce economical and labor-saving machinery which was eagerly sought after by the appreciative printer. Among his inventions at that time was the printing from a web, pasting, cutting and folding, so as to produce a newspaper with the leaves cut in book from at one operation; also a new rotary web printing and folding machine which produced 30,000 copies per hour.

The demand for Mr. Scott’s improved machines became so great … that in 1884 it was found necessary to erect extensive and commodious works at Plainfield, New Jersey, a cut and description of which will be found below. Messrs. Walter Scott & Co. now makes no less than 117 different kinds and sizes of printing machines, ranging from a small cylinder press to a large book and newspaper machine costing $40,000 and capable of printing, pasting, cutting, and folding 96,000 eight-page papers per hour; besides many other machine and appliances connected with printing.

…This extensive manufactory is situated on South Avenue, between Richmond and Berckman Streets, and adjacent to the central Railroad of New Jersey, in the city of Plainfield. The works occupy five acres, are connected with the central Railroad by a siding and 1,700 feet of rails are laid through the yard to the various building. … The area of floor space is over 78,000 square feet. The buildings are beautifully lighted up by 25 arc and 400 incandescent electric lights, the dynamos of which are placed in the engine room.

…The factory and its equipment are the most complete of anything we have ever seen in this line of manufacture, and we understand it is the largest exclusively devoted to the manufacture of printing and kindred machinery in the United States, over one hundred and fifty machines being in process of construction at one time.– The Inland Printer, American Lithographer 7 (1889/1890): 564-66

See also:
Frederick W. Hamilton, Type and presses in America, a brief historical sketch of the development of type casting and press building in the United States ([Chicago] Pub. by the Committee on education, United typothetae of America, 1918). Graphic Arts Collection 2006-1856N

Herbert L. Baker, Cylinder printing machines, being a study of the mechanism and operation of the principal types of cylinder printing machines ([Chicago] Pub. by the Committee on education, United typothetae of America, 1918). Graphic Arts Collection 2007-0021N

 

 

The New York Times, May 24, 2020

In case you do not get The New York Times or didn’t see today’s paper, here is the front page. Access this page as a high-resolution PDF: VIEW PDF. This file is keyword searchable to find individuals, occupations, and locations. To order a high-quality reprint of this page, click here.

“Numbers alone cannot possibly measure the impact of the coronavirus on America, whether it is the number of patients treated, jobs interrupted or lives cut short. As the country nears a grim milestone of 100,000 deaths attributed to the virus, The New York Times scoured obituaries and death notices of the victims. The 1,000 people here reflect just 1 percent of the toll. None were mere numbers.”

Need a Project, no. 11? Paper theaters identified

With enormous thanks to Alain Lecucq, actor, director, and paper theater historian writing from France, our two paper theaters have been identified: the prosceniums made in Vienna, Austria, at the beginning of the 20th century.

Theatre one in: Anna Feja Seitler and Heino Seitler, Papiertheater: die Sammlung Anna Feja Seitler und Heino Seitler, edited by Norbert Donhofer (Wien : F. Deuticke, 1992). Access: http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb356821235

Theatre two in: Katharina Siefert and Ingrid Wambsganz, Papiertheater: Die Bühne im Salon: Einblicke in den Sammlungsbestand des Germanischen Nationalmuseums: Begleitpublikation zur Ausstellung “Theaterdonner” im Germanischen Nationalmuseum, 19.12.2002-23.3.2003 (Nürnberg: Verl. des Germanischen Nationalmuseums, 2002). Access: http://swbplus.bsz-bw.de/bsz102833435inh.htm

See also:
Alain Lecucq, Le Théâtre de papier: des origines à nos jours (Epinal: Centre départemental de documentation pédagogique des Vosges, 1984).

UNIMA 2000: l’art mondial de la marionnette = The Worldwide Art of Puppetry, edited by Marek Waszkiel; Penny Francis; and Alain Lecucq ([Prague]: Union internationale de la marionnette, 2000).

http://www.papiertheatre.com/

Petite histoire du Théâtre de papier… Cette technique de manipulation de figurines plates dans une scénographie miniature naît, vrais emblablement, au début du XIX e siècle en Angleterre. C’est en 1811, qu’I.K.Green publie, à Londres, la première façade de théâtre à monter. Ces théâtres vont se composer de plusieurs éléments indispensables pour jouer un spectacle : une façade, souvent inspirée de théâtres existants, des décors et des coulisses, des personnages dans des positions variées et un texte, résumé souvent malhabile de celui d’origine. Ces feuilles seront mises en couleurs par l’imprimeur avec des techniques diérentes selon les pays – peinture à la main, au pochoir, lithographie…ou par l’acheteur lui-même. A la maison, l’heureux possesseur de ces feuilles les collera sur du carton puis les découpera, les assemblera, et présentera son spectacle à sa famille ou à ses amis.La taille de ces théâtres dépassera rarement les cinquante ou soixante centimètres. Outre l’Angleterre, on trouve des théâtres de papier en Autriche, en Allemagne, au Danemark, en Espagne, en Italie, en Moravie et en France

A little history of the Paper Theater … This technique of handling flat figurines in a miniature scenography was born, most probably, at the beginning of the 19th century in England. It was in 1811 that I. K. Green published the first theater facade to be erected in London. These theaters will consist of several elements essential to play a show: a facade, often inspired by existing theaters, sets and backstage, characters in various positions and a text, often clumsy summary of the original one. These sheets will be colored by the printer with different techniques depending on the country–hand painting, stenciling, lithography–or by the buyer himself. At home, the happy owner of these sheets will stick them on cardboard and then cut them, assemble them, and present his show to his family or friends. The size of these theaters will rarely exceed fifty or sixty centimeters. Besides England, there are paper theaters in Austria, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Italy, Moravia and France

A Born Classic

Mark Argetsinger, A Grammar of Typography: Classical Book Design in the Digital Age (Boston: David R. Godine, 2020). 528 pages; 8.5 x 12 inches; illustrated with over 425 images, many in full color.

The arrival of Mark Argetsinger’s new book, A Grammar of Typography, sent me running to a thesaurus in search of a word larger than comprehensive. Should we describe it as thorough? Inclusive? Far-reaching, in-depth, sweeping, or simply grand?

The publisher’s material begins: “A Grammar of Typography is a comprehensive guide to traditional book design that is both practical and historical. Interspersed with discussions of digital typesetting and page layout are broad historical views of the tradition of the book along with specific reference to the printer’s grammar or manual, the industry’s own codification of its usage, from Joseph Moxon in the seventeenth century through Theodore Low De Vinne in the nineteenth. In addition, there are chapters on house style, proof-reading, copy-editing, paper, binding, and appendices on typographical ornaments and Greek type. The book ends with an annotated bibliography and an index.”

How can you not love a book with an introduction titled “The Hidden Soul of Harmony: The Classical Tradition. A Practice in Search of a Theory”? Although Argetsinger claims “this is primarily a practical manual, not a scholarly treatise,” one would be hard-pressed to find a more philosophical look at “marks of quotation,” “font editing,” or “horizontal space.”

There is also biography and chronology. “In addition, Aldus was the first to cast in type the humanist’s running or cursive hand, known as the Italic. The busy work of the humanist, who daily, it seemed, uncovered new works of the Ancients, lying long neglected in the monastic or royal libraries of Europe, had required an efficient script to match the urgent copying of new texts.”

In his preface, Argetsinger writes, “This book intends to provide a historical context to the enterprise of book-making. The term grammar appears in its title both in reference to the historical phenomenon of ‘grammars’ of printing, regarding which much will be said along the way, as well as in reference to a certain graphical literacy that is requisite for the intelligent use of design and production tools in the digital age. Historical context is important both from the point of view of tracking evolving trends in the composition and display of printed matter, as well as from the point of view of preserving the traditions of its best practices.”

Open it anywhere and start reading.

 

 

“After the first necessities of life, nothing is more precious to us than books. The Art of Typography, which produces them, provides essential services to society and secures incalculable benefits. …Thus one could rightly call it par excellence the art of all arts and the science of all sciences.” –Pierre-Simon Fournier, le jeune, Manuel Typographique, Book 1 (1764).

 

 

A classical book designer, Argetsinger also embraces 21st-century technology, writing:
“There is something wonderful about working out the proportion of the page on screen, precisely mapping out its structure with the (by turns visible or invisible) grid and and page line; setting up one’s font with a complement of sorts so vast, even Christopher Plantin would feel a twinge of envy; readily changing size, font, color, position; and arraying, say, a two-volume, 800-page book heavy with illustrations and then placing its entire content on a digital thumb-drive….”

[Forgive my poor photography, the book itself is perfect.]

Colophon: “A Grammar of Typography set in DTL’s Fleischmann and printed on 115 Gem Munken print cream. All printing and binding by PBtisk Printing Company in the Czech Republic. This first edition consists of 1,875 hardcover trade copies as well as a deluxe slipcased edition of 125 copies signed and numbered by the author and only available directly from the publisher. Designed and composed by Mark Argetsinger, Holyoke, Massachusetts.”

 

A PostScript: My favorite Argetsinger design, proof he can do it all.

2:00 New Theories on the Oldest American Woodcut

Puzzle: https://jigex.com/ZX6K
If you are not able to attend today’s 2:00 talk “New Theories on the Oldest American Woodcut: The Portrait of Richard Mather by John Foster, ca. 1670,” which is almost fully registered, (https://libcal.princeton.edu/event/6715887) at least you can enjoy the Mather portrait puzzle designed here:https://jigex.com/ZX6K

Thanks to the template provided by Jigsaw Puzzle Explorer.

Below is a link to the recording of the presentation:
https://mediacentral.princeton.edu/media/New+Theories+on+the+Oldest+American+WoodcutA+The+Portrait+of+Richard+Mather+by+John+Foster%2C+ca.+1670/1_s9zed1co

Thank you for your help!
Here is the timeline covered in the presentation:
1630 Dorchester founded, just a few months before the founding of the city of Boston
1635 Reverend Richard Mather arrived at Boston and settled in Dorchester
1638/39 The first European printing press arrived in Colonial America
1648 John Foster born in Dorchester and baptized by Mather
1667 Foster graduated from Harvard College and returned to Dorchester as a schoolteacher
1669 Richard Mather died
1670 Increase Mather wrote The Life and Death of that Reverend Man of God, Mr. Richard Mather
1670? Foster carved a portrait of Mather and printed the two composite blocks on the Cambridge press of Marmaduke Johnson and/or Samuel Green
1674 Johnson moved his press to Boston but died the same year. With Increase Mather’s help, Foster took over the press and became the first printer in Boston
1681 Foster died of consumption age 33 and equipment went to Bartholomew Green (and blocks?)
1732 Green died and equipment went to John Draper (and blocks?)

 
These are the sizes of the collotype reproductions printed with Gillette Griffin’s article 1959. They are not from the original impressions:
Harvard University 150 x 122 mm
University of Virginia 151 x 125 mm
American Antiquarian Society 153 x 122 mm
Princeton University 154 x 128 mm
Mass. Hist. Society 153 x 128 mm

Here is a selected bibliography so you can read more about Foster’s woodcut:

Increase Mather (1639-1723), The Life And Death Of That Reverend Man Of God, Mr. Richard Mather, Teacher Of The Church In Dorchester In New-England: [seven lines of quotations] (Cambridge [Mass.]: Printed by S.G. and M.J. [i.e., Samuel Green and Marmaduke Johnson], 1670). William H. Scheide Library 101.19. Dedication signed: Increase Mather. Boston N.E. Septemb. 6. 1670. WHS copy has engraved portrait of Increase Mather pasted on verso of t.p., with inscription: Crescentius Matherus. Aetatis Suae 49. 1688. Vanderspirit pinxit. R. White Sculp. Londini. WHS copy is Thomas M. Waller and Edith A. Pollard’s copy, acquired 6/2/38 from Goodspeed; inv. 483.

Thomas Tilestone, A Funeral Elegy, Dedicated To The Memory Of His Worthy Friend, [Microform]: The Learned & Religious Mr. John Foster; Who Deceased In Dorchester, The 9th. Of September. 1681 ([Cambridge, Mass.: Printed by Samuel Green, 1681]).

Richard Mather (1596-1660), Journal of Richard Mather, 1635: His Life And Death, 1670 (Boston [Mass.]: D. Clapp, 1850). Reproduction of the original from the American Antiquarian Society.

Samuel G. Drake (1798-1875), A Memoir Of The Rev. Cotton Mather, D. D., With A Genealogy Of The Family Of Mather (Boston: C. C. P. Moody, printer, 1851).

Samuel A. Green (1830-1918), John Foster: the Earliest American Engraver and the First Boston Printer (Boston: Published by the Massachusetts Historical Society at the Charge of the Waterston fund, No. 2., 1909). Graphic Arts Collection Z232.F7 G8. Graphic Arts copy “Elmer Adler, Princeton”–Written in pen on p. [2] of cover.

“An Early Printer: John Foster the First to Establish a Press in Boston,” The Hartford Courant, November 12, 1909: 5.

Frederick I. Weis, “Checklist of the Portraits in the American Antiquarian Society,” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society; Worcester, Mass. Vol. 56, issue 1, (January 1, 1947): 55.

Sinclair Hamilton, “Portrait of a Puritan: John Foster’s Woodcut of Richard Mather,” The Princeton University Library Chronicle 18, no. 2 (Winter 1957): 43-48

Sinclair Hamilton, Early American Book Illustrators And Wood Engravers, 1670-1870: A Catalogue Of A Collection Of American Books Illustrated For The Most Part With Woodcuts And Wood Engravings (Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 1958).

Gillett Griffin (1928-2016), “John Foster’s woodcut of Richard Mather,” PaGA, Printing & Graphic Arts v. 7, no. 1 (1959): 1-19.

Richard Holman, “Some Remarks on Mr. Richard Mather,” PaGA, Printing & Graphic Arts v. 7, no. 1 (1959): 57-63.

Increase Mather (1639-1723), Life and Death of Richard Mather (1670). A facsimile reprint with an introd. by Benjamin Franklin V, and William K. Bottorff (Athens, Ohio: 1966). Firestone Library BX7260.M368 M3 1670. Facsim. of the Boston Public Library copy, except the port.

Robert Middlekauff, The Mathers; Three Generations of Puritan Intellectuals, 1596-1728 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971). Firestone Library F67 .M4865 1971.

Melissa Johnson Kane, John Foster, the Ingenious Mathematician & Printer ([Charlottesville, Va.], 1973). Thesis: M.A.; University of Virginia; 1973.

B. R. Burg, Richard Mather of Dorchester ([Lexington, Ky.]: University Press of Kentucky, 1976). ReCAP BX7260.M368B87

James Lawton, “John Foster (December 1648-9 September 1681),” American Colonial Writers, 1606-1734, edited by Emory Elliott. Dictionary of Literary Biography 24 (1984): 123-25.

Herschel C. Logan, John Foster and America’s First Woodcut: 1670 (Fellerton, CA: Lyceum Press; Lorson’s Books & Prints, 1988).

Cotton Mather (1663-1728), Two Mather Biographies: Life and Death and Parentator, edited by William J. Scheick (Bethlehem, Pa.: Lehigh University Press, 1989). ReCAP, BX7259 .M32 1989

Georgia Brady Barnhill, “The Catalogue of American Engravings: A Manual for Users,” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society; Worcester, Mass. Vol. 108, Issue 1 (January 1, 1998): 113.

Elisabeth Louise Roark, Artists of Colonial America (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2003).