Patricia A. Cost
Linn Boyd Benton, Morris Fuller Benton, and Typemaking at ATF
Linn Boyd and Morris Fuller Benton, father and Nathaniel S. Benton, also in Little Falls. Charles son, each played crucial parts in the develop- was admitted to the bar in when he was ment of modern typefounding in the United twenty-five years old, but apparently was not States and the world. Both worked at the Amer- destined to pursue a legal career, since, as one ican Type Founders Company, which as a gen- hand-written obituary pointed out years later, eral policy did not promote or advertise the im- ‘‘he possessed a warm feeling-ed, human portance of individual employees. Although friendly for right and truth glowing heart, and a Morris “sublimated his talents to the needs of a man with one such heart, can as lawyer here not commercial type foundry,”¹ nevertheless “his successful be.’’ scores of remarkably successful designs . . . form When Charles Benton was twenty-two, he es- the backbone of American type design.” At the tablished the Mohawk Courier & Little Falls same time, “the mechanical wizardry that made Gazette. In Josiah A. Noonan became pub- the profusion of these types possible in the great lisher of the paper, with Benton as editor, which mechanical age of typefounding is due in no brought him prominence and a means for being small measure to the efforts of his illustrious fa- vocal on political issues. ther.”² In Charles married Emeline Fuller, As individuals, the Bentons are virtually un- whose family could trace its ancestry back at known. Linn Boyd was a gregarious man who, least to , when a Thomas Morris bought a all through life seized opportunities and found large mansion in New Haven, Connecticut. ways to produce the results he wanted. His son Amos Morris, a descendent of Thomas, served Morris was reticent, not eager to be noticed or in the Revolutionary War, and was taken captive praised, and even proved to be a difficult subject by the British. In , Eliphalet Fuller married for the Inland Printer reporter once sent to in- Amos’s daughter Amy, who became Emeline’s terview him. grandmother. The Benton name was brought to the United Two years after he married, Charles Benton States by an Englishman, Andrew Benton, who was elected to Congress from the th Congres- settled in Connecticut in . Linn Boyd Ben- sional District of New York State, and was re- ton’s father, Charles Swan Benton, was the elected in . While he was in Congress, Ben- youngest in a family of ten children. Charles was ton voted to aid Samuel Morse in building the born July , , in Fryeburg, Maine, to Dr. first electric telegraph line. Joseph Benton and Catherine Britton. Dr. Ben- During his term in Washington, D.C., Charles ton was a physician “of the old school, whose met a congressman named Linn Boyd from Ken- reputation extended for a circuit of a hundred tucky, who later became Speaker of the House of miles.”³ Charles developed a great respect for his Representatives. The two became close friends father, noting in later years that his scoldings and shared an interest in dueling. Boyd, while cured more people than did his medicines. teaching Charles the sport, declared: ‘‘Never When Charles was fourteen he was sent to Lit- fight a duel; never be afraid to fight a duellet tle Falls, New York, where he was apprenticed to them know you will fight and you will never his uncle, a tanner. Charles soon gave up the tan- have to fight.’’ On May , , Linn Boyd Ben- ner’s trade to attend the nearby Lowville Acad- ton was born and named after Charles’s es- emy, and then, at the age of , began to study teemed friend. law at the office of his oldest brother, Judge In , Charles Benton was elected Clerk of
Printing History The Bentons and Typemaking and ATF the Court of Appeals of New York State and served for two terms. His wife Emeline died dur- ing this time, less than five years after Linn Boyd was born. Boyd, as he came to be called, re- mained an only child and a motherless one for several years until when his father married Elizabeth Babcock Reynolds of Oswego, N.Y. She and Charles had one son, Charles R. Benton. At least for some of the time, Boyd was brought up by his maternal grandmother. He learned to rely on himself during those years, and became increasingly independent (fig. ). In , Boyd moved to Milwaukee, Wiscon- sin, to join his father who was by then the editor and part owner of the Milwaukee Daily News. Boyd, at the age of eleven, learned to set type in the composing room of the paper. Charles Ben- ton’s former publisher in Little Falls, Josiah A. Noonan, also moved to Milwaukee during this time, became a partner in a paper mill, opened a paper warehouse, and also established what came to be the Northwestern Type Foundry. Around , Charles Benton was appointed registrar of the land office in LaCrosse, Wiscon- Fig. . Linn Boyd Benton in his last formal portrait. Published sin, by President Franklin Pierce, and held that in the August, , issue of The Inland Printer. office until Abraham Lincoln was elected Presi- dent in . Charles Benton had actually been considered as a candidate for the presidency in stone. Evidently, he was not particularly apt. His the Democratic convention, but lost the mistakes had to be chiseled off, the tombstones nomination to Stephen Douglas. In he was smoothed down, and the work started over, all a candidate for Congress on the Democratic paid for out of Boyd’s own money. He later told ticket, and, while he had no hopes of winning his granddaughter that he never earned any cash the election in the highly Republican sixth dis- money because he ruined so many tombstones, trict of Wisconsin, he did carry LaCrosse though he did learn a lot about letters. County. After this, Charles took up farming in When a jeweler settled in LaCrosse, Boyd West Salem, Wisconsin, and later in Galesburg, Benton decided to leave the tombstone business Illinois, until , when he returned to to study jewelry repair. Detail and accuracy be- LaCrosse. came very important to young Boyd as he Because his family moved so often, Boyd Ben- learned to remake watch parts. His mechanical ton’s education was somewhat unusual. After at- aptitude became obvious when the jeweler gave tending schools in Little Falls and Milwaukee, he him a piece of gold that Boyd fashioned in his was sent to Galesville College in Galesville, Wis- spare time into a tiny model steam engine that consin, and later studied Latin, Greek, and other actually ran. The jeweler was so pleased that he advanced subjects for about two years with a pri- put the steam engine on display in the window vate tutor in LaCrosse. Determined not to be of his shop. taught from books all day, Boyd arranged with After completing his education, Boyd appar- his tutor to teach him in the mornings; if they ently went back to Milwaukee to work again at finished their lessons, Boyd could do as he the Daily News. But instead of exploiting Boyd’s wanted in the afternoons. talents, his employer used him mainly as an er- Boyd liked to work with the local tombstone rand boy. Another contemporary account has maker, learning to design letters and cut them in Boyd learning to print in the office of Charles
The Bentons and Typemaking and ATF
again, and so Morris Fuller Benton, born on No- vember , , was to be their only child (fig. ). He was named after Boyd’s maternal grand- mother’s brother, Morris E. Fuller. Josiah Noonan went bankrupt in the panic of , enabling Boyd and a partner named Cramer to purchase Noonan’s type and elec- trotype foundry. Years later Boyd lamented that if he had known anything about typefounding at the time, he would have thrown the entire plant into the lake as a measure of economy! Instead, he went on to master that difficult art and change it dramatically with a series of important improvements and inventions. In Cramer sold his half-interest in the type foundry to Lieutenant-Commander Frank M. Gove, a man who knew nothing about the foundry business but who would prove to be a most successful and popular salesman for the firm. The new partners changed the name of the firm to Benton, Gove and Company. While Gove handled the business end, Boyd Benton learned everything he could about manufacturing type Fig. . Morris Fuller Benton, ca. . in a highly competitive market. Many years later, in , Henry Lewis Bullen, the historian and publicist for the American Type Founders Company, described this period Seymour’s LaCrosse Republican, and then leav- of Boyd’s life in an article for The Inland Printer: ing to work as a bookkeeper for a leather house Before Gove died, Benton had completed his self- in the same town. instruction in typefounding and found himself on In any event, Boyd must have had some ac- the most intimate terms with decimal fractions counting training because in he became the and measurements of ten thousandths of an inch. bookkeeper for Josiah Noonan’s Northwestern He had and still has a mania for accuracy to the Type Foundry in Milwaukee. Soon after, Boyd vanishing point, not only knowing, as the books was promoted to buyer for Noonan’s warehouse. tell us, that a hot breath impinged on a small piece One summer night while out for a walk, Boyd of steel changes its dimensions, but actually taking heard the lovely music of banjos and mandolins that solemn fact to heart, grieving that it cannot be being played by several young women as they sat overcome. The bane of Benton’s career has been on the steps outside one of their homes. Stop- the limitations of error which are made necessary ping to enjoy the music, he quickly recognized by the disposition of all metals to refuse to resist molecular action. What other mortals cheerfully one of the young women as Jessie Elizabeth accept as accuracy Benton regards as a calamity.⁴ Donaldson, a friend from his youth whom he had first met in a dancing class but had not seen Benton’s first type-related patent was regis- in years. Following a romantic courtship, Boyd tered in and described a multiple mold for and Jessie were married in Milwaukee in . casting leads and slugs. Benton claimed that this Perhaps because he had been an only child for machine, ‘‘with one man operating it, could cast eleven years, Boyd longed to have a large family. more spacing material in a ten-hour day than Jessie, too, wanted many children. Their plans ten men working the same period could turn out were altered, however, when Jessie’s first child with other methods.’’⁵ In the same year, Benton was delivered in a breech birth. Boyd swore began to work on a typesetting machine with never to put her through such an experience automatic justification. He devised a system,
The Bentons and Typemaking and ATF based on his so-called “self-spacing type,” that moved away from Lake Michigan. So the family shortened the time required for justification by moved to the west of Milwaukee to Wauwatosa, reducing the number of character widths in a and Morris again set up a workshop for his font of type. Thus, printing type was cast for the printing and photography. first time to pre-determined widths.⁶ The relocation took its toll on the social life Gove died in , and Benton sold a one- that Boyd and Jessie had enjoyed so much in third interest to R. V. Waldo, a former wholesale Milwaukee. The city was several hours by horse grocer who in time proved to be an ideal partner. and buggy, and the last train left Milwaukee too Again the firm’s name changed, this time to Ben- early in the evening for the Bentons to attend the ton, Waldo & Co. theater. Calling upon the same inventiveness Linn Boyd Benton continued to invent and that he brought to his business, Boyd quickly perfect machines for his type foundry. By found a solution to the dilemma. Boyd’s grand- the foundry was using the first version of a pan- daughter Caroline recalled: ‘‘My grandfather tograph machine he invented for engraving steel and two or three buddies decided to buy a train punches. Benton received a patent for the third from the Milwaukee railroad.’’⁸ Running an en- version in . He was becoming well known in gine and one car, the young entrepreneurs could the printing industry, though his company was take their friends to Milwaukee to see all the not as influential as other foundries. The Sep- shows and other evening activities that inter- tember Inland Printer reported that Benton ested them, and leave the city just before mid- was ‘‘an intelligent, entertaining, unostentatious night. The enterprise was so successful that they gentleman, a mechanical genius of whom [Mil- bought a second car, and then a third. At the end waukee] has every right to feel proud; . . . one of the year the railroad bought back the train. such man is of more value to the community than In September , at the age of twenty, Mor- all of the brainless dudes to be found throughout ris left Milwaukee for Cornell University in the length and breadth of the country.’’⁷ Ithaca, N.Y. He was older than most of his fellow Though Benton spent much of his time devel- students because of the school time lost to child- oping his business, he still made time for outside hood illnesses. Morris did not intend to follow interests. He had a fine baritone voice and sang his father into the typefounding business and, in a number of Milwaukee church choirs. Boyd when he first matriculated at Cornell, was still and Jessie also belonged to a singing society in open-minded about his career. Only later did he Milwaukee, and performed in a number of decide to study mechanical engineering, per- Gilbert and Sullivan productions, as well as haps because he realized he had a knack for it. other light operas. An interest in music was also One thesis requirement was to work for part cultivated in young Morris. He sang as a choir- of a semester at a machine shop. Morris’s assign- boy, studied the violin, and later, like his mother, ment was to choose a piece of machinery in the learned to play the mandolin. shop, draw blueprints of it, and then build a As Boyd had learned to set type at age eleven model. While at Cornell he also designed a can- with the help of his father, so Morris Fuller Ben- non, built a model of it out of brass, and, for ton spent time in his youth working at his own years afterwards, fired it every fourth of July. printing press in the family’s home on Wells Morris’s best grades were in mechanical draw- Street in Milwaukee. When he was eleven, Mor- ing, but he had trouble with the language re- ris designed and printed admittance tickets for quirement. Caroline remembers her father re- children’s music classes, tickets for neighbor- calling his struggle with French: ‘‘He kept going hood shows, receipts for work he did for his fa- in to take the test in French. He’d bone up on it ther, and booklets of riddles. He also printed a and he’d go inhe only had to have a reading parody of “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” and knowledge, I think . . . And finally, senior year, he named it To an Electric Light. had his thesis all written (and he had a little Morris was not a strong boy and suffered trouble on thatthe professor lost the thesis, through a variety of childhood ailments, includ- and had to give him a grade off the top of his ing scarlet fever. As a result of Morris’s poor head)but finally, the French professor said, health, his doctor recommended that he be ‘I’ve seen too much of you. You bone up once
The Bentons and Typemaking and ATF
time came several years later to sell the house, Morris handled most of the arrangements. A few months after Morris graduated from Cornell, he became his father’s assistant at . He designed machines and began to learn about typefaces. On September , , after a three- year engagement, Morris Benton married Ethel Bottum, the daughter of Boyd’s patent attorney. The young couple took up residence in a small, somewhat dingy apartment on Staten Is- land, ten blocks away from the senior Bentons. Each morning, Morris and his father would meet and take the ferry to New York City. The foundry was at that time on the southernmost tip of Manhattan. Ethel was alone all day, and when her first daughter, Elizabeth Boyd, was born the following year, she became terribly lonesome. Caroline explained, ‘‘She didn’t know anybody, not a soul, on Staten Island.’’ Shortly after the baby’s birth, the young family moved in with Boyd and Jessie, who had recently bought a large Victorian house at Central Avenue in Fig. . Mary Ethel Bottum Benton and her two daughters Thompkinsville, Staten Island. Another daugh- Elizabeth (left) and Caroline, ca. . ter, Caroline, was born in (fig. ). The two families lived together on Staten Island for nine years. After moved to Communipaw Avenue in more and come in and we’ll see what we can do.’ Jersey City, N.J., in , Boyd and Morris de- So he went in and took it once more and [the cided to leave Staten Island and move closer to professor] gave him a passing grade.’’ Morris the company. They eventually chose Plainfield, graduated in June , having taken prizes in N.J., for its schools and because it was famous freehand drawing, mechanical drawing, and for its clean artesian well water. In Boyd machine shop work. rented a home for the whole family, a large Vic- torian house at Crescent Avenue. About two *** years later he bought a house with three and a In , just as Morris was entering Cornell, half acres of lawn and gardens at Crescent twenty-three American type foundriesinclud- Avenue (fig. ). Boyd had always wanted a large ing the Benton, Waldo firmmerged to form the family, and both he and Jessie were pleased with American Type Founders Company, or as it the three-generation arrangement (fig. ). soon came to be called. For the first few chaotic Morris’s interest in hobbies was as keen as months after the merger, the elder Bentons re- ever. He took color photographs and developed mained in Milwaukee, but it soon became evi- them in his own darkroom on the third floor of dent that Boyd’s genius and experience were re- the new house. The darkroom contained a work quired in New York where the new company had table and a lathe, as well as equipment for exper- decided to situate its offices. Boyd moved his imenting with stereotypes. Morris also amused foundry to New York in , but left Waldo in himself with target shooting, though he did not Milwaukee to handle a sales office. He also held care for hunting. He had inherited a collection onto his house on Wells Street. Morris was in of some fourteen guns from his father-in-law, charge of renting out the Wells Street house and and he belonged to a local gun club. He kept his spent a few summer vacations away from Cor- guns, target records, and ammunition locked in nell, looking after the family property. When the his darkroom. Morris kept the guns oiled and
The Bentons and Typemaking and ATF
Fig. . The Benton’s house in Plainfield, N.J., at Crescent Ave., ca. . Photograph by Morris Fuller Benton.
cleaned, and later taught his daughters how to shoot at tin cans. The children had toy pan- Fig. . Linn Boyd Benton wrote this letter in tographs and Morris once electrified a mechan- the outline of a dog to his six-year-old grand- ical train for them, before electric trains were daughter Caroline on July . readily available. Music was an important feature of family life in the Benton household, and both of Morris’s was an avid figure-skater, and took the family to daughters were encouraged to study the piano. the Adirondacks for vacations, where they Very much like his father, who expected perfec- would hike with map and compass. Caroline de- tion from mechanical parts, Morris often re- scribed one of her father’s foolproof methods for tuned the piano after the regular piano tuner finding their way back: ‘‘He would take red tags had left the house. Caroline recalled that ‘‘he had and hang them on the trees, and then coming the theory that every individual piano had cer- back, he’d collect the tags again.’’ Daughter Eliz- tain tonal areas which needed to be balanced abeth recalled that he took slides of the family with extra care in the tuning.’’ vacations and later would give slide shows back He owned an Edison phonograph and, later, a in Plainfield. Victrola, and loved to listen to Enrico Caruso Boyd was more sociable than his son. His and most classical music, except Brahms. He grandchildren described him as a “big, powerful also owned an Aeolian Orchestrelle, a pump or- character.” He would often orate at the dinner gan with stops that Benton would manipulate to table, especially about politics. He was what peo- get the tone he wanted, while the paper roll took ple then called a “single taxer” who did not sup- care of the notes. His daughter Elizabeth re- port the income tax law, saying,‘‘That’s ter- membered: ‘‘He used to play Tannhauser, and rible! It’s socialism.’’ He would often slap the my little bed upstairs would rock!’’ table to make a point, startling his wife in the Morris was a patient man, and explained process. things carefully to his daughters. He drew dia- Morris channelled his own considerable drive grams on the paper tablecloth after dinner to il- and ambition into careful and conscientious lustrate points he was making and, when the work. Prior to coming to New Jersey, Morris had table was set with good linen, would use the salt helped his father to further develop the punch- and pepper shakers to represent in simple terms and matrix-engraving machines, in addition to some complex piece of machinery. his work on other typefounding equipment. Both Morris and Ethel loved the outdoors. He Throughout his career, Morris’s lack of preten-
The Bentons and Typemaking and ATF sion won him considerable respect in the com- apartment about half a block away and re- pany, even if accounts of his achievements did mained there for seven years. not reach far beyond Jersey City. According to In the mid-s Morris’s health suffered Caroline, he was never adequately compensated again with the onset of serious stomach ulcers, for his many contributions to . ‘‘which probably [were caused by] coping with Caroline remembered the two Bentons con- Grandpa,’’ Caroline explained, ‘‘because Grand- sulting over some of the later inventions. pa wasn’t as sweet and lovable as he had been ‘‘[They] would talk things over sometimes, [but] when he was younger.’’ The added pressures at not at the [dinner] table. Grandpa would say, work also took their toll. ‘‘If things didn’t go ‘Oh, Morris, before you go upstairs, I’d like to right at the foundry, then he [Morris] was the ask you something.’ And they would go into a one that had to straighten them out,’’ Caroline huddle together and discuss [it]. . . . After my explained, and there were times when he was so grandfather died I [asked] my father about tired, he would just have bread and milk for working on one of the recent machines grandpa supper. had perfected, and I said, ‘Did you work on that To other observers, Boyd’s advancing age only too?’ And he said, ‘Oh, yes.’ And then I said found him more affable. In , when Boyd was ‘Well, you had a mechanical engineering degree, seventy-eight years old, Henry Lewis Bullen did you work on the others?’ And he said, ‘I wrote, ‘‘Mr. Benton outdoes his youthful years in think I worked on practically all of them.’” humor and geniality. An observant man, he has Morris Fuller Benton had become ’s chief accumulated a great fund of genial anecdotes.’’ type designer in . Painstakingly researching Bullen also noted that Boyd Benton retained ‘‘as each new typeface idea, Morris studied the mar- ardent an interest . . . in every detail of type- ket to determine what sort of face was needed. founding as ever he had when confronting its Richard Marder, whose grandfather John most difficult problems in earlier years. He [per- Marder was one of the original founders of , mitted] nothing to interfere with a most punc- remembered seeing Benton in the company’s tual attention to his duties, though these [were] renowned typographic library on Saturdays, largely self-imposed.’’¹⁰ His character, according which then were half workdays for employees. ‘‘I to Bullen, was beyond reproach. In the used to spend a lot of my time on Saturdays in the American Printer described Boyd Benton as ‘‘one library. . . . [Benton’s] inspiration came from that of those men, quietly doing their day’s work, library. That’s one of the reasons it was created.’’⁹ who have had a tremendous influence on the About the time that Morris Benton’s great American printing industry.’’¹¹ Century Schoolbook typeface was making its Boyd loved workinghis friends were at debut, he endured a personal tragedy that made and his social life revolved around the company. him even more reticent. On March , , his He did not have the same interest in hobbies, wife Ethel died suddenly of an infection after an sports, and the outdoors that his son had, so he operation. She was only forty-two years old, and put off thoughts of retirement, even though his her death was a shock to the family. Shortly after eyesight became worse and worse. In , when Ethel’s death, Morris shared some thoughts with he was eighty-six years old, he received a patent Caroline. ‘‘[He said that] life divided itself up “for an important improvement in the larger into compartments, and they didn’t necessarily printing types used in newspaper headings.”¹² follow through, they cut off, . . . . He just felt that On September of the same year, Jessie Ben- one [had] ended, and he was very, I wouldn’t say ton died at the age of eighty-four. Boyd missed that he was philosophical, but he did accept the her greatly. Caroline remembered: ‘‘He would fact that the facts were the facts. He had to make stand at the dining room table and bring his fist a new life.’’ down, saying, ‘Damnable! I’ve lost my little In , Morris married Katrina Ten Eck doll!’’’ Wheeler, his second cousin on his father’s side of After his mother died, Morris and Katrina the family. She was thirty-one at the time, moved back to the big white house with Boyd. twenty years younger than Morris. They moved The two men continued to go to work together out of the big white house in Plainfield to an every day. Caroline recalled, ‘‘Papa said, [Boyd]
The Bentons and Typemaking and ATF would come into the foundry and all hell would and The Inland Printer, which printed the fol- break looseeverything had to be just so. . . . lowing testament: ‘‘In recognition of the benefits That’s the trouble when you work ’til you’re , showered upon the industry through the genius you know, somebody has to help you. And you of this great figure, some of whose achievements know who did it.’’ But Caroline stressed that are here recorded, the seat of honor, as it were, in Morris remained ‘‘very patient with his father, this issue is given over to his most recent por- and very sweet.’’ trait. Turn to the frontispiece . . . , study the Linn Boyd Benton retired from his position as kindly, intelligent features, recognize that he manager of ’s general manufacturing depart- worked to benefit youeven after years of prac- ment on July , . He died suddenly on July tical blindnessuntil past eighty-eight, and re- of a cerebral hemorrhage. member him as one of the truly great in the in- The minutes of the directors’ meeting for dustry’s march of progress. The Editor.’’¹⁴ October , included the following state- Morris Benton remained at for another ment: five years after his father’s death, but it was a : That the Directors of the American difficult period for the company. Already in the Typefounders Company place upon record their s, profits had begun to decline, and the s sorrow and deep sense of loss to themselves per- brought a brush with bankruptcy. Caroline at- sonally and to the Company in the death of tributed some of ’s problems to a lack of , who has been a member of the planningmanagement seemed unwilling to Board of Directors since its first organization in groom successors for the company’s ageing exec- , a period of forty years. utives. “Everyone was getting old,” she said, “and Devoting his great natural genius of invention I think that was the trouble. . . . It was very exclusively for the advantage of this Company short-sighted not to take in younger men and from the time, forty years ago, he became a Direc- train them, and they didn’t. They were satisfied tor of the Company, and Manager of its General Manufacturing Department, Mr. Benton’s inven- with getting their profits.” tions revolutionized the typefounding art and In , at the age of sixty-five, Morris Benton craft, and placed the Company in a position of retired from the American Type Founders Com- leadership, to the great advantage of the Company pany. He apparently maintained few contacts and the printing industry which it serves. These with the firm, because in an August , , letter benefits have been, from the beginning, of incal- to Ben Lewis, he stated, “I have definitely retired culable value. These benefits will continue as long from business and am no longer connected with as the indispensible art of typography survives. the A.T.F.’’ Those engaged in the arts of typography In , after Jessie and Linn Boyd Benton had throughout the world have acknowledged Mr. been dead for several years, Morris and Katrina Benton’s genius, and the resulting benefits. This bought a house on Long Hill Road in Milling- Company has benefitted by his prestige. No other man connected with the Company has served it ton, N.J., about six miles from Plainfield, and more valuably than our late departed friend. sold the “White Elephant.” Their new house in- As a Man Mr. Benton endeared himself to us by cluded a large landscaped area on a slope and a his modesty, his delightful humor, and his probity lovely view on three sides. Morris loved the Long in all matters, intellectual and material. He was Hill Road house since, according to his daughter ever faithful to his conscience and also to this Caroline, it was the one home he could truly call Company and the Board of Directors, who were his own. Though advised by his doctor that his conscious of the honor of being associated with so recurrent ulcers required treatment and possibly great and fine a Man. surgery, Morris nevertheless resisted exposing The Directors respectfully present this appreci- himself to the same risk that had taken his first ation of the Man and his character and genius to wife. his Family in profound sympathy with their grief.¹³ Morris enjoyed the remaining nine years of his life, spending summer vacations at a cottage Other lengthy obituaries appeared in the on Beaver Lake, N.J. Like his father, he offered Plainfield Courier-News, the American Printer, political advice, cautioning daughter Caroline to
The Bentons and Typemaking and ATF pattern is right, then the more accurate and pre- feeling and taste of the designer.”¹⁷ cise the machine, the more perfect the reproduc- The concept can be illustrated easily by reduc- tion of the designer’s art.”¹⁶ ing -point type, for example, to nine or ten points. The serifs will start to disappear, the Preliminary Research counters may begin to close up, and conse- Before Morris Benton began to draw a new type- quently the letters will lose their appeal. Though face, he studied the historic exemplars in ’s type designers understood the concept of optical extensive typographical library. Even when he scaling, a article in The Inland Printer was designing a completely modern face, Benton stated, “The belief is widespread that a type face first conducted extensive research. He believed originates by some designer submitting the that gathering thorough background informa- drawing of an alphabet to the founder who . . . tion for a new face was an essential part of the then proceeds to photograph it to the various designer’s job. Benton studied original type- sizes to make up a series.”¹⁸ This was far from the founders’ specimen sheets, as well as booksin- case. The original drawings were simply the cluding incunabulaprinted in a wide variety starting point for the design department. of typefaces. Many of these resources were lo- cated in ’s splendid library and museum. The Delineating Apparatus The next step in type production was to get the The Drawings characters to an appropriate size for making pat- Morris Benton and his colleagues began with terns. Each drawing for a typeface was placed in pencil drawings, which would then be inked-in a special delineating machine invented by Linn for evaluation. These would be used to get a Boyd Benton where an enlarged outline was sense of what the letters would look like. madeso large, in fact, that all errors could be An original drawing could be of any size, but easily seen and corrected. preferably was -point or larger. Some faces be- The delineating machine was a refined panto- gan life as just one word: Balloon Light and Ex- graph with a microscope attachment, enabling trabold, for example, both originated from the the operator to enlarge or reduce a single char- word . acter very accurately. Benton’s patent applica- Every year received hundreds of proposed tion for the machine was at first rejected by the type faces from enthusiastic letterers. The origi- United States Patent Office on the grounds that nal drawings they provided could seldom be it described a mechanical impossibility! But af- used as working drawings because independent ter a demonstration on an delineating ma- designers rarely realized the complexities of the chine that had been in operation for several type manufacturing process. Most designs had months, the patent was promptly granted. to be redrawn to conform to technical limita- The face of the microscope attached to the de- tions and peculiar word combinations. For ex- lineator held two single filaments of silk, crossed ample, Bertram Goodhue’s drawings for Chel- in the center of the focal point. Directly beneath tenham were not directly translated into the focal point, a small bed or plate held the patterns for cutting matrices upon reception by character, clamped in place. The larger bed of ’s design department. Morris Benton first the machine held a sheet of paper under the pan- had to adapt them to the appropriate specifica- tograph’s tracing point, which for enlarging op- tions for typecasting. erations held a small pencil. The cross-hairs of Some designers were prepared to make the the microscope were focused on the outline of slight design changes that were needed to com- the character being traced. Then the operator, pensate for the different sizes of a face. D. B. Up- looking through the microscope, followed the dike, for example, wrote that “a design for a type outline of the design by moving the pencil alphabet that may be entirely successful for the holder and, in so doing, traced an enlarged out- size for which it is drawn, cannot be successfully line of the character. applied to all other sizes of the same series. Each The bed of the holder on which the original size is a law unto itself, and is often bettered by character was clamped could be swiveled to any modifications in the original design made by the angle, “thereby changing the style of the letter to
The Bentons and Typemaking and ATF
nity, making its loss of body type sales to the Linotype and Monotype machines less painful. Linn Boyd, for his part, raised the standards of typemaking to levels that made type ad- mired throughout the world. Though the com- pany itself is no longer in business, much of its Benton-designed or modified machinery was saved from the scrap heap and still carries on its precision duties. * * * How Type Was Made at ATF In December , the American Machinist mag- azine published an article by W. J. Kaup on the American Type Founders Company, noting that the making of type “is an art where the little things, measured in fractions of a thousandth of an inch, are the big things as exemplified by Fig. . Microphotograph of the Lord’s Prayer cast on the end [], whose system makes each small step a re- of an -point piece of type. The matrix was cut so that the text finement link in the whole chain of microscopic would be right-reading. This exhibition of the precision of accuracy.”¹⁵ This accuracy was what both Linn Benton’s matrix engraving machine was used for advertising purposes. (Photo credit, Sheila Donnelley). Boyd and Morris Fuller Benton demanded of themselves and others. Father and son were per- fectly suited to this type of work, and the results vote for Wilkie, not Roosevelt, in the presi- they achieved were phenomenal. dential election. He was, claimed an October One of ’s advertising devices, used as early letter to her that year, “firmly and completely as , was a piece of type on which was cast the convinced that another four years of FDR entire Lord’s Prayer: sixty-six words, made up of [would] be the finish of the U.S.” A few years af- characters, including punctuation. On an ter the election he wrote, “The doctor says there eight-point version of the Lord’s Prayer, the is nothing the matter with me; but the multitude lower case letters were ." in height; the ma- of complications of the present times gets my trix was cut by a tool measuring ." in diam- goat easier than it would twenty years ago.’’ eter and its area was constrained to a six-point Morris Benton died of an embolism after a square, that is, a square measuring /th of an brief illness on June , , in All Souls Hospi- inch on each side. Amazingly, the words are en- tal in Morristown, N.J., at the age of seventy-five. tirely legible under a microscope (fig. ). He had smoked heavily and, said Caroline, “if he also cast and distributed another version of the hadn’t had an ulcer he probably would have had Lord’s Prayer on a -point body. lung cancer.” The microscopic detail of this advertising Brief obituaries of Morris Benton appeared in piece was made possible by Linn Boyd Benton’s The New York Times and The Inland Printer and, greatest invention: the matrix-engraving ma- in each case, dwelled for a precious sentence or chine. But an accurate matrix engraver would be two on his father’s importance to the type- of little use if the design of the type was not also founding industry. precise. And type design was Morris Benton’s The two Bentons, in separate and equally im- jobhe oversaw the design department at portant ways, revived a moribund industry. with a zeal and passion for quality that equaled Morris’s outstanding program of type design his father’s. As independent type designer Fred- helped the American Type Founders Co. define eric W. Goudy said, “The machine itself may be new markets for itself in the advertising commu- hard and uncompromising, but its product is entirely within the control of the patternif the
The Bentons and Typemaking and ATF
Fig. . The delineating machine. A, tracing point; B, fingers for clamping the pattern character; C, bed plate show- ing angle possibilities. Note that the character shown is clamped at an angle, enabling the operator to produce a condensed version of the original. (Redrawn from an illustration in the American Machinist, December .)
wide, narrow, back slope or italic, both the italic point or less. This reduced outline was inked in, and back slope being produced through the giving it the appearance of a sharp impression combination of angles,” explained Kaup in the from a piece of type. A solid letter so made lent American Machinist (fig. ). itself more readily to further evaluation. If the In his essay “The Making of Type,” Linn reduced image was not satisfactory, the ten-inch Boyd Benton noted that, “with the aid of the de- outline drawing was again altered, and the lineating machine, the operator, besides being process was repeated until the letter was ap- able to produce an accurately enlarged outline proved. pencil tracing of a design, is also enabled, by var- Thus the delineator was used both to enlarge ious adjustments, to change the form of the pen- and reduce characters. If the original drawings cil tracing in such a manner that it becomes pro- came in very large, the process was simply re- portionately more condensed or extended, and versed, first reducing the image and inking it in, even italicized or back-sloped.”¹⁹ and then making the appropriate ten-inch out- The resulting enlarged outline drawing was line drawings. The focal length of the delin- normally made about ten inches high, and the eator’s magnifier could be changed to meet the designer now evaluated it. Judging an enlarged requirements of the changes in the size of the letter and visualizing it in a text size required letter. considerable skill. Inevitably the drawings of an independent letter designer not thoroughly Design Considerations trained and experienced in typemaking always The three-dimensional nature of type imposed had to be adjusted by a trained specialist. “Be- limitations on its design. Hairlines and serifs lieve me, it isn’t easy,” Richard Marder ex- had to be well supported to prevent breakage. plained. Counters had to be deep enough, especially in The enlarged outline drawings were modified the smaller sizes, to prevent being filled up with to meet the limits of the standard lining and ink and paper dust during printing. In short, de- point systems, and from there went back to the signers had to consider a number of mechanical delineating machine. This time, however, the factors in designing practical, useable type. microscope attachment was removed, and a small pencil arm was attached to trace a small- Working Drawings scale outline of the letter by moving the long Before final drawings were released by the design arm pencil over the large outline. The operator department, they were worked and reworked reduced the design to a practical size, say, - many times. The delineating machine enabled a
The Bentons and Typemaking and ATF designer to reduce the original ten-inch outline tern determined the shape of the letter, but its drawings to various sizes and study them with- size and any design variations from the pattern out the expense of actually casting the type. were determined later by means of adjustments Thus adjustments could easily be made at the on the engraving machine. drawing stage for different type sizes. The approved traced outline of a character Engraving a Matrix was used to make its actual working drawing. If While still in Milwaukee, Benton had invented a the designer wanted a vertical line to be perfectly pantographic machine to cut punches from straight, for example, he would use a straight which matrices would be struck and used to cast edge on the working drawing. Each such draw- the “self-spacing types” sold by Benton, Waldo ing was marked with measurements that would & Co. The matrix engraver was an adaptation of be helpful during later processes. the punch-cutting machine and was developed in the early s when decided that engrav- The Pattern ing directly into a matrix blank was more practi- Once the ten-inch working drawings were ap- cal than either cutting a punch or cutting a proved, the next step was to create a pattern plate model from which new matrices could be grown for each character. These were made either in electrolytically. wax and then electrotyped, or directly in metal, The matrix engraver consisted of two hous- depending on whether a punch or a matrix was ings between which a long pendulum swung required. Another Linn Boyd Benton panto- (fig. ). The pendulum was suspended, as de- graph machine was used to make the patterns scribed in the American Machinist, in a com- (fig. ). Henry Lewis Bullen called one early ver- pound yoke by means of gimbal screws which sion “Benton’s Wax Plate Machine.” gave it a toggle-joint effect. The free end of this If a punch was required, the pantograph ma- pendulum could be moved all around a pattern, chine was fitted with a glass or brass plate coated which was placed on the bed of the machine, di- with wax. The operator used a “follower” to rectly in front of the operator. Matrices could be trace the ten-inch outline drawing, while the cut for different point sizes of a given type design cutting tool engraved a smaller outline of this simply by adjusting the reproduction ratio be- character entirely through the wax. The charac- tween the pattern and the cutting tool. ter was reduced in this process to about a third of The nickel brass matrix blank was fixed in a jig the working drawing’s size, or about ½" high. and inserted into the cutting platform of the en- A thin layer of copper was electrically de- graver; there it was held fast by a thumbscrew posited on the plate, which was then backed up above the operator’s head. This blank or with metal, trimmed, and finished. The result “planchet” became the matrix after the cutting was now called the “pattern”; it had a raised out- protocol was completed. Minute cutters, spin- line image, and was ready to be used on Benton’s ning in ball-bearing races within the “quill” as- punch cutting machine. sembly, cut the character step by step. Pattern plates to be used for matrix engraving The quill, or the head which housed the cut- were of lead or zinc into which the characters ting tool, was perhaps the most highly developed were incised. Later, copper electro wax shells part of the engraving machine. “The steel is spe- (backed with lead) were done by outside con- cially selected and machined and then laid away tract. During the war materiels shortage years of for three or four months for seasoning or ad- –, Gorton-engraved brass plates were justment of the various strains inherent in all used; after photoengraved zinc plates were steels,” the American Machinist explained. Only used. When the plant in Elizabeth, New Jer- after such time was it fitted into its guides. The sey, closed in , many hundreds of such pat- allowable tolerance in the construction of this terns were scattered helter-skelter over tables head was within .". and cabinets. There were three kinds of cutting tools, each Matrices of all the regular type sizes could be used in turn to engrave the matrix: the first or cut from these pattern plates. As Linn Boyd Ben- roughing cutter (also used to cut the counter ar- ton explained in “The Making of Type,” the pat- eas of a character); the medium tool; and, third,
The Bentons and Typemaking and ATF
Fig. . The wax-plate delineator. D, tracing point inverted; E, frame for holding plate. (Redrawn from an illus- tration in the American Machinist, December .)
Fig. . The matrix engraving machine. F, pendulum; G, yoke; H, quill; I, flexible shaft drive; J, matrix; K, microme- ter adjustment; L, follower. (Redrawn from an illustration in the American Machinist, December .)
The Bentons and Typemaking and ATF the finishing tool. When Theodore Low racy of the matrix depended to a large extent on DeVinne described Benton’s earlier punch-cut- the accuracy of the cutting tools. So perfectly or- ting machine, he was especially impressed with dered was the procedure that only if a tool was the precision of the cutting tools: “The cutting damaged was the resulting matrix faulty. In tools are exceedingly minute, but they are made those cases where a tool edge was broken or with the nicest accuracy, and are rotated at high damaged, necessitating its removal in the middle speed by steam power.”²⁰ of the operation, it was essential that some Once in place, the cutting tool was driven by a means of grinding or renewing the edge be avail- flexible shaft spinning at a speed of , to able to the operator, to ensure that the tool re- , revolutions per minute. The dimension mained within proper tolerances. of the facet of the cutting edge of each tool var- Typically when faced with challenges of this ied from ." to ." in width (depending kind, Linn Boyd Benton invented a special ma- on the amount of metal to be removed). The chine. In this case, he designed a device to grind largest was used to rough out the major portion the cutting tools automatically and with extraor- of the design, while the smallest was used for fin- dinary accuracy when a gauge on the machine ishing. was properly set. Any desired width of tool face A follower was inserted in the taper-end collet could thus be obtained. of the pendulum, and used by the operator to The cutting tools, after being re-ground, were trace around the edges of the pattern. There inspected under a microscope. “Across the cen- were large followers which fit into a ball-end ter of the face or lens of the microscope, is shank, and smaller, finisher-followers with ta- arranged a fine scale reading in . of an pered shanks to fit the collet. The American Ma- inch,” the American Machinist explained. This is chinist described the precision required to cut an about half the thickness of a cigarette paper. A accurate matrix: “a light spring in tension cutting tool looks like a heavy nail under this mi- against the end of the pin holds the follower al- croscope, and so the cutting tools could easily be ways in position. The size of the follower is in di- gauged by eyethe ." tool covered lines rect ratio with the size of the tool, as for exam- on the scale, and the ." tool covered two ple, the pendulum arm with a ratio of to , lines. using a tool with a .-inch face, would re- The Benton engraving machine was hailed by quire a follower ten times as large, or .-inch type foundries around the world as a miracle of diameter.” accuracy. Though Benton had leased out some The operator guided the follower along the of his early machines while still in Milwaukee, he inside edges of the pattern, while simultaneously later had to reacquire them as part of his hiring the cutting tool above cut the outline of the agreement with . In the early s, many character on the matrix. The matrix moved in companies copied its design for themselves. The unison (but at a proportionately reduced scale) Stempel foundry in Frankfurt, Germany, had with the follower and was pushed against the one, and most American composing machine fixed tool in the cutting head assembly. The manufacturers used modified versions of it. work moved, not the cutting tool, which rotated at high speed in place, perpendicular to the ma- Cutting Slips trix blank. A rough character was made first, and At , engraving instructions, or “cutting slips” the surplus metal removed. After an adjustment, were written out for each size of a typeface (fig. another circuit of the pattern was made, refining ). These slips guided the engraving machine the incision and removing more metal. The op- operator in choosing the proper followers, cutting erator also guided the follower/cutting tool over tools, and precision steel adjustment standards. the inner area of the pattern between the charac- Apparently Benton used such cutting slips ter’s outlines. Different tools were used for many from the very beginning. An advertisement successive cuts, and finally a finishing tool was for Benton’s punch-cutting machine reads, “The used to make the last precision cuts. operator is provided with a card on which is The operator periodically examined the cut- printed a series of numbers, corresponding with ting tools through a microscope, since the accu- numbers stamped on the followers, opposite
The Bentons and Typemaking and ATF
Fig. . The ATF cutting slip for -point Bernhard Gothic Light. (Photo taken by author at ATF, November ).
which are a series of figures identical with figures to obtain different sizes of a given design.”²² on the micrometer. This card indicates to the Beatrice Warde, in an article on machine-cut operator the order in which the different follow- typefaces published in the Dolphin No. , men- ers should be used, and the number to which the tioned Benton’s device in a footnote: “[T]here micrometer is to be set for each succeeding exists an ingenious mechanism by which a cer- change of follower.”²¹ tain amount of reproportioning can be done by adjusting the machine. Opinions differ as to the Adjusting the Machine wisdom (from the designer’s point of view) of While the Benton matrix engraver could accu- using the adjustment.”²³ rately reproduce the image on the pattern plate D. B. Updike was among those who were ap- in any type size, it was also capable of altering prehensive of such machine adjustments. “In that image, deviating from exactly proportional point of fact,” he wrote in Printing Types, “the reproductions, when the operator so adjusted first types produced by punch-cutting machines the machine. Henry Lewis Bullen explained in did seem to show a certain rigidity from the that it was capable of “infinitesimal grada- point of view of design. That there has been an tions in all directions.” Thus, Benton’s matrix improvement of late in type cut by machine is engraver could be adjusted to compensate for undeniable, and yet there has been practically no the optical variables that occur when letter sizes change in its mechanism. This improvement, I change. learn, has come to pass through a more sympa- Dr. James Eckman, an avid historian of Amer- thetic and subtle manipulation of the machine ican type foundries, confirmed that such adjust- itself, and by modifications of rules by the eye of ments were made at . “In the matrix-engrav- the workman who operates it.”²⁴ Updike con- ing department of the American Type Founders cluded that the trained eye must remain the pri- Company,” he wrote, “I have seen, on the walls, mary judge of good design, and that machine al- great charts of trigonometric projections of terations must be made by operators with a curves for use in correcting aberrations pro- sense of good design. duced by magnification of letter forms from a Morris Benton used cutting slips to make cer- beginning prototype of one size of a letter. I tain that ’s engraving machine operators pre- think there is, therefore, no doubt that both cisely and consistently adjusted the machine for Bentons accepted and employed magnification every point size. The operators were not permit-
The Bentons and Typemaking and ATF ted to deviate from the cutting slip specifications bled in the printed page they will present a very when preparing replacement blanks, thereby en- ragged appearance. Some letters will appear suring continuity and uniformity. The repro- slanting backwards, some be above the line, oth- duction tolerance for replacement work was ± ers below; some will perforate the paper, while .". Consulting the cutting slips, the opera- others will not print at all; the distances between tors made the optical changes for the different the letters will everywhere be unequal, and some point sizes based on previously determined cal- will print on but one edge. Indeed, a single letter culations. may have half of these faults, but when the ma- “These adjustments are all established for trices are properly fitted, the printed page pre- each size of each face on the cutting slips,” sents a smooth and even appearance.”²⁶ Richard Marder explained. Precision steel stan- So the unfinished matrix went to a fitter, who dards were used to adjust the machine to pro- made final adjustments on yet another Benton duce either narrower than normal or wider than invention, the matrix fitting machine. According normal matrices from the same pattern plate. to Richard Marder, “the matrix as delivered Linn Boyd Benton himself wrote: “The adjust- from the Benton engraving machine required ments are such that the operator is enabled to very precise trimming in order to place the en- engrave the letter proportionately more ex- graved letter cavity exactly central to the to-be- tended or condensed, and lighter or heavier in cast body and absolutely straight and on the face, than the pattern. All these variations are proper baseline.”²⁷ necessary for the production of a properly The fitter had to know where the baseline of graded modern series containing the usual sizes. the type fell in relation to its set of matrices, a In fact, on account of the laws of optics, which position not always apparent when dealing with cannot be gone into here, only one size of a se- characters such as o or c. If all the letters were ries is cut in absolutely exact proportion to the placed exactly on the type’s true baseline, they patterns.”²⁵ would appear to be bouncing up and down on it, For example, only the -point size of the because letter combinations and shapes give rise typeface News Gothic was cut exactly propor- to optical illusions. Deviations have to be made tional to the pattern plate. Going down in size, to trick the eye into believing that all the letters the face was actually extended in width but not in a font of type sit on a common baseline. These in height. Above -point, the letters were con- irregularities cannot be systematized, but vary densed relative to the standard. On the other with each new alphabet design, and, to an ex- hand, Richard Marder recalled that ’s Amer- tent, with every size of a given design. ican Caslon, cut in sizes from - to -point, was The left and right edges of the matrix deter- not adjusted at all from size to size. Each size, mined the “set” of the letter, or, how much space then, was photographically proportional to the would appear around that letter when it was pattern plate. placed beside another character in the font. As In the s, the great contemporary type de- new designs were readied for production, proofs signer Hermann Zapf was designing type for the were made for each letter in combination with Stempel foundry while it still used a Benton ma- every other letter, and the results would be stud- trix engraver. He explained that the normal ied for legibility and beauty. Certain letters, such practice at Stempel was to produce three sets of as H, O, o, and m, because of their shapes and patterns for each typeface. Adjustments on the proportions, were used as standards and printed machine itself were only used to widen charac- beside each character in the font to judge the set. ters in the very smallest point sizes. Casting Fitting, or Justification ’s type was cast from a mixture of tin, anti- “The adjusting of the matrix to the mould is mony, lead, and a small amount of copper. The technically called fitting,” Linn Boyd Benton ex- mixture was proportioned so that, according to plained, “and requires great skill. If type is cast Linn Boyd Benton, “the expansion of the anti- from unfitted matrices, be the letters ever so mony will practically counteract the shrinkage cleverly designed and perfectly cut, when assem- of other ingredients.” In actuality, antimony
The Bentons and Typemaking and ATF does not expand but rather acts as a retardant in complete. Morris Fuller Benton spent his entire the shrinking process of the alloy. The propor- working life at , while his father devoted tion of the mixture was even varied according to some forty years of his own career to the same the size and style of the type and the purposes company. Their influence on the type-making for which it would be used. industry was far-reaching and of a significance The casting machine was a marvel of engi- still not truly appreciated. neering. Invented in by Henry Barth, presi- dent of the Cincinnati Type Foundry, the Barth The author is grateful to Richard C. Marder, Theo automatic type caster not only cast the type, but Rehak, and Dan Carr for reading and comment- broke off the jets, ploughed grooves to form the ing on the the technical aspects of this article. She feet, cut four trimmed edges on each type char- also wishes to express her sincere thanks to Karen acter at the mold/matrix interface, and delivered Reimringer, whose editorial expertise and encour- them in lines ready for inspection. Soon after the agement enabled this project to be resurrected after formation of the American Type Founders many years of dormancy. Company, Barth was made a director with his son Henry O. Barth as assistant. After the senior Barth’s death in , Linn Boyd Benton made several improvements to the machine and re- ceived patents for them. Notes Each Barth machine at was set up to cast . Alexander Lawson, “Morris Fuller Benton Deserves More than a single body size. The matrices for a font of, say, Obscurity,” The Inland Printer/American Lithographer (October ): . -point Cheltenham, were held firmly and ac- . M. F. McGrew, “The Bentons, Father & Son,” Typographic i curately in turn against the Barth machine’s ad- (March ): []. justable mold, which allowed each character’s . “Colonel Charles S. Benton Called from the Scene of Action,” set width to be properly fixed. After every cast, [LaCrosse newspaper, ca. May ]. . Henry Lewis Bullen, “Linn Boyd BentonThe Man and His the matrix was pulled away from the mold and Work,” The Inland Printer (Oct. ): . the type sent on its way to a series of finishing . James Eckman, “The Immortal Century Type Face and the Ben- operations. tons, Father and Son,” The Printer’s Digest (Nov. ): . Benton described the casting sequence thusly: . Henry Lewis Bullen, “Discursions of a Retired Printer, No. VII,” The Inland Printer (Jan. ): . The melted type metal is forced by a pump into . “Of Interest to the Craft,” The Inland Printer (Sept. ): . the mould and the matrix, and when solidified, . Caroline Benton Gregg, interview with author, Milwaukee, the type is ejected from the mould and moved be- March, . Subsequent recollections quoted in this article are tween knives which trim all four sides. The type is based on the same interview. delivered side by side on a specially grooved piece . Richard C. Marder, interview with author, Plainfield and Eliza- of wood, three feet long, called a “stick,” on which beth, New Jersey, November . they are removed from the machine for inspec- . Bullen, “Linn Boyd Benton,” . tion. Type is cast at the rate of from one to two . “Little Life Stories of Live Men Known to the Printers of Amer- ica. Linn Boyd Benton: Typefounder, Inventor,” The American hundred and forty per minute, according to the Printer (March , ): . size, the speed being limited only by the time it . “Hails Linn Benton’s Type Invention as One of Greatest of Pres- takes metal to solidify. To accelerate this, a stream ent Era,” Plainfield Courier-News, October . of cold water is forced through passages surround- . Resolution recorded in the minutes of the American Type ing the mould, and a jet of cold air is blown against Founders Company board meeting, October . (Typewrit- the outside.²⁸ ten). . J. L. Frazier, “Achievements of Linn Boyd Benton Vital to In- An inspector then examined the type under a dustry’s Progress,” The Inland Printer (August ): . . W. J. Kaup, “Modern Automatic Type Making,” American Ma- magnifying glass, and discarded any flawed type. chinist (December , ): . The perfect type was sent to the “fonting” room, . Frederic W. Goudy, “Type Design: A Homily,” Ars Typographica where it was weighed, counted, and packaged for (Autumn ): . sale. . Daniel Berkeley Updike, Printing Types: Their History, Forms, and Use (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, ), . * * * . A. Raymond Hopper, “Fitting: A Vital Step in the Perfection of a Type Face,” The Inland Printer (April ): . The story of the Bentons given here is far from
The Bentons and Typemaking and ATF
. Linn Boyd Benton, “The Making of Type,” in The Building of a . Beatrice L. Warde, “Cutting Types for the Machines: A Lay- Book, d ed. (New York: R. R. Bowker, ), –. man’s Account,” in The Dolphin (): . . Theodore Low DeVinne, The Practice of Typography (New . Updike, –. York: The Century Co., ), p. . . Benton, . . American Type Founders Co., “Benton’s Punch Engraving Ma- . Ibid., . chine.” [Advertising brochure, n.d.], p. . . Personal letter from Richard C. Marder to the author, May . Personal letter from James Eckman to the author, July , . .