THE HAMILTON TYPE MUSEUM

THE HAMILTON WOOD Type & Printing Museum is not of our time. The space itself—a former steel factory in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, that overlooks Lake Michigan—evokes an era when industrial manufacturing reigned supreme. But it’s what’s inside the museum that transports you to a time of pounding machines, toxic inks and shellac, sawdust and wood chips, with workers bent over cases of typefaces.

The museum covers 80,000 square feet and houses 1.5 million pieces of type, 6,000 wooden printing plates, and 300 vintage wood type fonts, but it is as much about today as yesterday. The Hamilton is a working museum, where first-time visitors and longtime patrons alike can get their hands dirty. Ten of the museum’s 62 printing presses work, and visitors can learn entry level typesetting or basic letterpress printing. The artists in residence proof and sort incoming type collections and catalog hand-carved blocks, some of them centuries old. It is, in short, heaven on Earth for today’s artisanal printers, typographers, and graphic designers, most of whom were weaned on clean and quiet digital tools.

The Hamilton isn’t the world’s only hands-on printing museum. In Europe, Italy’s Tipoteca Italiana, Germany’s Gutenberg Museum, and Belgium’s Plantin Moretus Museum offer a direct link to the larger history of European culture and politics. Here in the states, the International Printing Museum near Los Angeles, the Andover Museum of Printing in not far from Boston, the Printing Museum of Houston, and other smaller venues curate tantalizing collections of printed matter and equipment.

The Hamilton is, however, the world’s largest repository of vintage wood type and the country’s biggest typographical museum. It opened in 1999 with the mission of conserving and commemorating the work of the J.E. Hamilton Holly Wood Type Co. The factory, founded by J. Edward Hamilton in 1880, was at one time the largest manufacturer of wood type in the US. It has since become a popular destination for font fanatics. The museum, which holds fast to its conservationist roots, is the heart a growing movement devoted to preserving the practice of hand-hewn typography.

The annual Wayzgoose conference is among the Hamilton’s most popular gatherings. The affair’s unusual name refers to an annual outing, once organized by master printers for their workers, that marked the end of summer and the start of the season during which work was performed by candlelight. Today, says Bill Moran, the Hamilton’s Wayzgoose conferences are for people “who want to geek out on all things wood type.” It’s an exuberant mash-up of typeface and graphic designers, printers and history buffs. Since 2009, it has attracted hundreds of true believers every year, from the U.S. and beyond, to share new techniques and discoveries.

Bridging the digital and analog gap “has gone a long way,” says Bill Moran, “to building awareness and sharing the museum’s treasure trove.”

To read the complete article, see:
Inside the Hamilton Type Museum, Where You’re the Printer (www.wired.com/2015/12/inside-the-hamilton-type-museum-where-youre-the-printer/?mbid=nl_121515)

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