Frederic W. Goudy Correspondence 1935-1946 Anne Thomen
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Rochester Institute of Technology RIT Scholar Works Theses Thesis/Dissertation Collections 5-1-1977 Frederic W. Goudy Correspondence 1935-1946 Anne Thomen Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.rit.edu/theses Recommended Citation Thomen, Anne, "Frederic W. Goudy Correspondence 1935-1946" (1977). Thesis. Rochester Institute of Technology. Accessed from This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Thesis/Dissertation Collections at RIT Scholar Works. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses by an authorized administrator of RIT Scholar Works. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Frederic W. Goudy Correspondence 1935-19^6 by Anne D. Thomen A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in the School of Printing in the College of Graphic Arts and Photography of the Rochester Institute of Technology May, 1977 Thesis advisor* John Bidwell Certificate of Approval--Master's Thesis School of Printing Rochester Institute of Technology Rochester, New York CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL MASTER'S THESIS This is to certify that the Master's Thesis of Anne D. Thomen with a major in Printing Technology has been approved by the Thesis Committee as satisfactory for the thesis requirement for the Master of Science degree at the convocation of June, 197.7 Thes is Committee I John Bidwell Thesis adviser Name Illegible Graduate adviser Name Illegible Director J Abstract approved, John Bidwell • thesis adviser Reference-Acquisitions Librarian William Andrews Clark • title and department Memorial Library 19 Nov. 1979 • date TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT , PREFACE 1 Footnotes for Preface 8 CALENDAR INTRODUCTION -9 Footnotes for Calendar Introduction 22 CONCLUSIONS 26 Footnotes for Conclusions 30 CALENDAR , 31 LIST OF REFERENCES 657 INDEX 665 TYPE INDEX 696 ill ABSTRACT American printing of the late nineteenth century was crude and commercial in the worst sense. The ideals and vitality that William Morris, Emery Walker, C. H. St. John Hornby, Charles Ricketts, T.J. Cobden-Sajmderson and others injected into English printing during the last decades of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth were known to relatively few Americans. One of those few Americans was Frederic W. Goudy, March 8, 1865May 11, 19-J-7. Paul Johnston in an article for the Fleuron (No. VII, 1930, p. 191A) wrote, "It was the part of Frederic W. Goudy to help the general printer in America to understand and to learn from the movement which began with Morris. And it is to Mr Goudy that American printing owes much of the strength and charm which may be to-day." claimed for the common, as well as the fine, work Goudy' s activities in printing-related fields included type design and manufacture, writing and speaking to the public about the principles of letter forms, type design and typography, and operation with his family of a private Goudy' press for thirty-odd years. Through these activities s influence on printing was amazingly great, yet no analytical and thorough studies of him exist. Rochester Institute of Technology received in 1975 several boxes of Goudy 's private correspondence. Most of the approximately 1600 letters were addressed to Goudy during the years 1936-19-+6. The correspondents were print ers, educators, type foundry personnel, book collectors, equipment manufacturers, family and friends, and their letters deal with business as well as personal activities. This thesis has involved editing the letters into a calendar. The contents of each letter has been abstracted, with important information being quoted. Background mater ial has been added to clarify an entry or to refer to relat ed correspondence. Indexes of personal and company names and Goudy type faces have been prepared as reference aids to the calendar. The entries have been arranged chrono logically to follow Goudy s daily life in the ten year period. It was expected that a calendar form of the correspon dence would allow the material therein to be fully utilized. Further, it was hoped that the information in the letters would contribute measurably to a serious study of Frederic Goudy. It will be for future Goudy researchers to test those expectations, but confirmation seems probable. Abstract approved. f thesis adviser , title and department , date PREFACE To be an American type designer listed in Who's Who in Hemisphere1 the Western is rare. To be the designer of 116 type faces, after entering the profession at thirty-five years of age is rarer. But additionally^ to be influential, popular, and accessible to the public is unique. Frederic William Goudy, March 8, 1865May 11, 19*J7 was all of these. He entered printing after several false starts, by establishing the Village Press in 1903* The press was maintained with only sporadic gaps for an aston ishing thirty-six years. Its reputation of excellence rested partially on the expert type composition of his wife, Bertha Goudy, and partially on the fine Goudy types used so Goudy' advantageously. As s name and work became better known, the dire financial struggle of the early years slowly disappeared, but the tireless energy of husband and wife kept them busy with Village Press projects. The Village Letter Foundry was then created in 1911 so that Goudy might sell his types which were then being manu factured by others. Such a retail business may have been unusual for a type designer, but when Goudy then began to make his own types his activity was noteworthy. In the complex work of type manufacture he was entirely self taught and his progress was slow. Ignoring protests from pro fessionals that his methods were too strange to work successfully, he continued, and sometime after 1925 he was successful in the operation. The foundry supplied many printers with Goudy type, maintaining regular business operations until the disastrous fire of 1939. By making the patterns, cutting the matrices, and cast ing the type himself, Frederic Goudy could then retain com plete artistic control over a type face. He had considered this control important enough to learn a new field when he was over sixty and his eyesight was failing. In fact, he had always considered this control crucial to the success of the face, and his faces were indeed successful. In the years between 1920-19-)-5 seventy-seven different type faces were designed. Of those cast and sold, many Goudy types found their way into magazine advertising and "heads," text, newspaper publisher's trade editions, and the work of private presses. Unlike many other type designers or printers whose work was confined to one sector of the Goudy' printing industry, Frederic s types were used by the entire field. This printer-type designer stood apart from many individuals of the printing industry in another respect. Although a worker and craftsman, Goudy shared with the public his knowledge of letter forms, of type design, and of the principles guiding his work. An accomplished writer and popular speaker, Goudy thus brought his ideas to a huge audience. The following remarks were part of an address given by him to the Advertising Typographers Association of America, Virginia Beach, October k, 1938. The speech, "Why Modern," Go was then printed by the Diamant Typographic Service of New York City in 19*l4 as a kind of public service: A man's work betrays always something of the man himself. The cloak it wears does not disguise the individual, and what lies under it is what determines the degree of his cultivation, his knowledge, his exper ience; the things he doesn't consciously put into his work, but which he cannot leave out, are the things that constitute the quality in his work which we distinguish as the measure of his taste. These thoughts concerning the nature of work were Goudy' fundamental to s thinking. They may be applied to his Village Press and Village Letter Foundry work, his 116 Goudy' type designs, and his writings and addresses. s body of work, thus examined, establishes his cultivation, know ledge, experience, and importance. Frederic Goudy participated and contributed to the printing world for half a century. In any study of such an important figure many research sources may be necessary. One recently available information source is a collection of correspondence addressed to Fred Goudy during the years 1935-1 946. This record of the last decade in the type de signer's life reveals his mature relationships and personal and professional beliefs decided after a lifetime. This kind of information is especially important in Goudy 's case since the existing biographies do not provide the scholarly analysis that is needed. It happened that Goudy s biogra phers were his friends, or in one case, an admiring printing student . Of five biographical works, the most scholarly is that 2 by Peter Beilenson. A friend and fellow printer of Goudy, Beilenson has provided accurate and lengthy data concerning Goudy' s type and general employment. Many other profession al activities and any post-1939 information is lacking, however. In the case of two other biographies, the analysis is even less encouraging. Bernard Lewis, a Carnegie Insti tute of Technology student, wrote a primarily anecdotal k account, while Vrest Orton states in his preface, "This book is openly intended for popular consumption. I make no apologies to my friends in the printing world for dwelling here upon the things about Goudy and his life that seem to interest..." be of popular If from these books a full account of Goudy s life can not be obtained, one will scarcely succeed with the unpublished manuscripts of Howard Coggeshall and Earl Emmons. Both men were professional printers and close friends of Goudy. Their manuscripts provide little-known Goudy' and well-known stories of s personality and eccentri cities, but do not constitute a thorough study.