James Conner, a printer of New York, began business as a stereotyper in that city in the year 1827. His was the first stereotype edition of the New Testament. He also earned a good reputation as the publisher in the United States of the Bible in folio form. To the business of stereotyping he soon after added that of type founding, in which he was remarkably successful. With the aid of Edwin Starr, then in his employ, he made the electrotype matrices which enabled him largely to increase the stock of his foundry. After the death of James Conner, in 1861, the foundry was managed by his sons and grandsons, who finally merged the business in that of the American Type Founders Company. Meantime the business of type founding spread from its original centers and new fields were occupied. By 1818 the Boston Type Foundry had been founded by Beddington & Ewer, and undertook to cast types, set types, and make stereotype plates. Samuel N. Dickinson was taught the trade of a printer in the State of New York, but afterward was employed as a compositor in the Boston Type and Stereotype Foundry. In 1829 he began business as a master printer and in 1839 he began type founding after having designed for an Edinburgh foundry a series of Scotch-cut letters. The success of this face determined him to cast type for himself. In 1845 he had a full assortment of types and issued a specimen book. Dickinson was not a strong man, however, and died of consumption in 1848, at the age of forty-seven. The business was continued by Sewall Phelps and Michael Dalton. Both the Boston Type Foundry and the Dickinson Type Foundry had unusually successful careers and were later absorbed in the American Type Founders Company. Type foundries were started in Albany, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Louisville, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and in New York, where there were at least seven foundries. This led to over-production, competition, and the failure of many weak concerns, a condition of things which was not entirely remedied until the organization of the American Type Founders Company in 1892. In 1840 Augustus Ladew and George Charles opened at St. Louis the first foundry west of Cincinnati. This firm continued in successful operation until it was merged into the American Type Founders Company at its organization.