Will Bradley, His Chap Book: An account, in the words of the dean of American typographers, of his graphic arts adventures ...Bradley, Will
History
Will Bradley, His Chap Book: An account, in the words of the dean of American typographers, of his graphic arts adventures ...
Bradley, Will
Bradley, Will, 1868-1962; Printers -- United States -- Biography; Printing -- United States -- History
On the main business street in Springfield there was a new office
building called the Phoenix. In two offices on the top floor of the
Phoenix Building I had my studio. Back of the office building there
was a new loft building on the top floor of which I was establishing
my Wayside Press, a corridor connecting it with the top floor of the
Phoenix Building and thus making it easily accessible from my studio.
It was an ideal location, and with windows on two sides and at the
south end insuring an abundance of sunshine, fresh air and light, the
workshop was a cheerful spot and one destined to woo me (probably far
too often) from my studio and my only definitely established source of
income, my designing.
My first Wayside Press printing, before the publication of my magazine,
was a Strathmore deckle-edge sample book. Heretofore all Connecticut
Valley paper-mill samples, regardless of color, texture or quality of
paper, had carried in black ink, usually in the upper corner of each
sheet, information as to size and weight. No attempt had been made to
stimulate sales by showing the printer how different papers might be
used. But one day just after the Press opened, I had a visitor who
changed all that.
I had a bed-ticking apron that had been made for me by my wife,
copying the apron I had worn when at the ages of fifteen to seventeen
I had served as job printer and foreman of that little print shop
in Ishpeming, where I used to proudly stand, type-stick-in-hand, in
the street doorway to enjoy a brief chat with my wife-to-be, then a
school-teacher and my sweetheart, as she was on her way to school.
Wearing that apron, and at the stone, is how and where Mr. Moses of
the Mittineague Paper Company, first of the Strathmore Paper Company
units, found me on the occasion of our first meeting.
In my mind’s eye I can see Mr. Moses now as he entered from the
corridor. He was wearing a navy blue serge suit that emphasized his
slight build and made him appear younger than I had expected. I was
then twenty-seven and undoubtedly thought of myself as quite grown
up, and I marveled that a man seemingly so young should possess the
business knowledge necessary to have put him at the head of an even
then well-known mill. The contrast of that natty blue-serge with my
striped bed-ticking apron should have made me self-conscious. Perhaps
it did; but, filled with the youthful enthusiasm and glorious hopes of
a dreamer, I probably had thoughts for nothing but my new print shop
and publishing. Seeing me unpacking type, my visitor may have thought
my time could have been employed more profitably at my drawing-board,
as of course it could--though in my then frame of mind it could not
have been employed more enjoyably. Displaying samples of his new line,
Mr. Moses asked if I would lay out and print a showing for distribution
to commercial printers and advertisers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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