Page:Historic printing types, a lecture read before the Grolier club of New York, January 25, 1885, with additions and new illustrations; by De Vinne, Theodore Low, 1828-1914; Grolier Club.djvu/101

lishment of rival type-foundries in New York and Boston. British types only taken as Considering the difficulties encountered by the pioneer models. American founders in getting proper tools and skilled work- men, the quality as well as the quantity of types made by them before 1835 is remarkable. 1 Their workmanship was good, but not one style of the many they cast can be offered as original or even really characteristic. All the founders took British forms for their models. The styles of Jackson, Thorne, Fry, Martin, and Wilson successively came in and went out of fashion. No one tried to imitate or to copy the styles of Fournier, Didot, Bodoni, or the Dutch founders. No one tried to originate new forms or features. The contributions which America made to type-founding were in the field of mechanical improvement. The type- ct ^ n e e made by invention casting machine, invented by David Bruce, Jr., of New of type-cast- . ing machine. York, in 1838, and soon after introduced in all American foundries, has been adopted, in its more valuable features, by the type-founders of all countries. It made a revolution in the business, by producing types quicker, cheaper, and better than they had been made by the old hand-casting process. Ornamental types which could not be profitably made by hand were properly cast by the machine. The growing use of ornamental types was soon after largely increased by the introduction of small printing machines, specially made for printing cards and circu- 1 Early American printing also de- "Cato Major " and Fry & Kammerer's serves more respectful notice than it edition of Joel Barlow's "Columbiad" has received. Franklin's edition of are books of excellent workmanship. 13