KEEPING AMERIC A INFORMED THE U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE A LEGACY OF SERVICE TO THE NatiON 1861-2016 REVISED EDITION, 2016 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data United States. Government Publishing Office, author. Keeping America Informed, the U.S. Government Publishing Office : A Legacy of Service to the Nation, 1861-2016 Revised edition, 2016. | Washington, DC : United States Government Publishing Office, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index. LCCN 2016023754| ISBN 9780160933196 | ISBN 0160933196 LCSH: United States. Government Printing Office—History. | United States. Government Publishing Office—History. | Printing, Public—United States—History. | Electronic publishing— United States—History. | Federal government—United States—Information services—History. LCC Z232.U6 U65 2016 | DDC 027.50973—dc23 | SUDOC GP 1.2:IN 3/2/2016 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016023754 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing Office, 732 N. Capitol Street, NW, IDCC Mail Stop, Washington, DC 20401 http://bookstore.gpo.gov | toll free 888.512.1800 | DC area 202.512.1800 | fax 202.512.2250 ISBN 978-0-16-093319-6 JOINT COMMITTEE ON PRINTING 111th Congress 114th Congress CHARLES E. SCHUMER, Senator from New York, Chairman GREGG HARPER, Representative from Mississippi, Chairman Robert A. BRADY, Representative from Pennsylvania, Vice Chairman ROY BLUNT, Senator from Missouri, Vice Chairman Patty Murray, Senator from Washington Pat Roberts, Senator from Kansas TOM UDALL, Senator from New Mexico JOHN BOOZMAN, Senator from Arkansas Robert F. BENNETT, Senator from Utah CHARLES E. SCHUMER, Senator from New York SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Senator from Georgia TOM UDALL, Senator from New Mexico MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Representative from Massachusetts CANDICE S. MILLER, Representative from Michigan SUSAN A. Davis, Representative from California RODNEY Davis, Representative from Illinois DANIEL E. LUNGREN, Representative from California Robert A. BRADY, Representative from Pennsylvania KEVIN McCarthy, Representative from California JUAN VARGAS, Representative from California PUBLISHED UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF THE DIRECTOR OF THE GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE DAVITA VANCE-COOKS UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE GEORGE D. BARNUM, Agency Historian ANDREW M. SHERMAN, Chief of Staff iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword ....................................................................................................... vii Introduction ................................................................................................... xi CHAPTER 1 “Publick Printing” and the Founding of GPO ........................... 3 CHAPTER 2 Industrialization and the Gilded Age ...................................... 23 CHAPTER 3 The Progressive Era, the Depression, and World War ...... 53 CHAPTER 4 Expansion and Computerization .............................................. 103 CHAPTER 5 GPO in the Digital Era ....................................................................... 129 Afterword .................................................................................................... 153 Heads of Public Printing, 1861 – 2016 ....................................................... 155 Notes ............................................................................................................ 156 Sources ......................................................................................................... 158 Acknowledgements .................................................................................... 160 Index ............................................................................................................ 161 v The press that became known as “Press No. 1” was bought off the floor of the St. Louis Exposition in 1897. Much of its career was spent printing postal cards, and it remained in service until 1974. vi FOREWORD to the revised edition Rapid change is a commonplace in the digital era, as new technologies overtake the old at a dizzying speed. That pace of change is no less true at GPO, where we approach our 155th anniversary now as the Government Publishing Office, having been so designated by the President and Congress in 2014 to recognize our successful use of digital technologies in meeting the needs of our customers for modern information products and services. The publication of this revised edition of Keeping America Informed is appropriate to this occasion, incorporating as it does the work of a robust historical program that has shed new light on key stories from our past, notably GPO’s close connection with President Lincoln, the agency’s experience with segregation during the Jim Crow era, a long-forgotten proposal to develop a Government paper mill, an analysis of how big GPO truly was in terms of its equipment and machinery, and a close-up look at GPO’s production of the edited transcripts of the Presidential tapes during the Watergate crisis of the early 1970’s. These and other narratives are now documented here, along with additional images from GPO’s extensive photographic library. As Public Printer Boarman pointed out in his foreword to the 2011 edition, Keeping America Informed is first and foremost the story of the men and women who have worked here across the years, and of their remarkable ability to adapt to and master technological change. Gone today are the GPO’s former name, and gone, too, is the title of Public Printer as the agency’s head. While traditional printing continues as a primary function of the GPO, equally important to our mission today are the maintenance of one of the Government’s largest and most heavily used websites, the production of ePassports and eBooks, and the release of official information products in new forms and formats such as mobile apps and bulk data downloads. We continue to pioneer new forms of Government information dissemination with new and emerging technologies. Yet regardless of form or format, GPO’s essential task—carrying out the constitutional informing function that is so vital to the American system of self-government—remains unchanged. This revised edition of Keeping American Informed updates our continuing story. DAVITA VANCE-COOKS Director U.S. Government Publishing Office February 2016 vii FOREWORD The U.S. Government Printing Office published its last official history 50 years ago, marking its centennial anniversary. 100 GPO Years 1861–1961 has proven to be a remarkably valuable resource and deserves to stand alone as an enduring contribution to the historical record of this great agency. Instead of trying to improve on it, with the approach of our 150th anniversary we decided to recreate the telling of GPO’s story. Keeping America Informed: The U.S. Government Printing Office: 150 Years of Service to the Nation recasts our history in a fresh light, with new contributions and emphases, and provides the reader with a greater exposure to GPO’s rich photographic record, with many of the images in this book published for the first time. Most important of all, Keeping America Informed describes how the agency has transformed itself through the years by continually adapting to the most efficient technologies available to get its work done. In the ink-on-paper era, this meant moving from handset to machine-set type, from slower to high-speed presses, and from hand to automated bookbinding. These changes enabled GPO to keep up with the demands of a growing Nation and helped keep costs down, and they were significant for their time. Yet they pale by comparison with the transformation that accompanied GPO’s incorporation of electronic information technologies, the single most dominant trend at the agency of the past 50 years, and the generator of unprecedented improvements in productivity and hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer savings that continue into the present. Today, GPO is fundamentally different from what it was as recently as a generation ago: smaller, leaner, and equipped with digital production capabilities that are the bedrock of the information systems relied upon daily by Congress, Federal agencies, and the public to ensure open and transparent Government in the digital era. Keeping America Informed is a portrait of the generations of men and women who have worked here as compositors, proofreaders, platemakers, press operators, bookbinders, printing plant workers, librarians, engineering and maintenance staff, accountants, information technology technicians, personnel specialists, police officers, and all the other functions required by GPO. Few Federal agencies can count as their heritage the scope of the work GPO has performed, ranging from the first printing of the Emancipation Proclamation to providing digital access to the Government’s publications today. The men and women of GPO are responsible for that heritage. Keeping America Informed is a new telling of their story and their enduring achievements. William J. Boarman, Public Printer June 2011 viii Architect’s rendering, 1938. ix Beatrice L. Warde (center) visits GPO about 1950. To her right is Frank Mortimer, GPO’s Director of Typography and Design. x INTRODUCTION Crossroads, Refuge, Armory: This is a Printing Office The U.S. Government Publishing Office has occupied the same corner of Back in Washington, probably at the urging of GPO Director of North Capitol Street in Washington, DC, since its founding in 1861. In Typography Frank Mortimer, the 1940 Apprentice Class had her words 1940, after decades of appeals to Congress