|
Operated by volunteers of the Two Rivers
Historical Society, the Hamilton Wood Type
and Printing Museum is the only museum dedicated
to the preservation, study, production and
printing of wood type. With 1.5 million
pieces of wood type and more than 1,000
styles and sizes of patterns, Hamilton's
collection is one of the premier wood type
collections in the world.
On one end of the museum, an 145-foot wall
displays the world's largest wall of wood
type. More than 1,000 different styles and
patterns, ranging in sizes from 1/4-inch
to 48-inches, all are housed in cabinet
after cabinet, in drawers and on shelves.
Hamilton began producing type in 1880 and
within 20 years became the largest provider
in the United States. During that time,
as waves of immigrants helped build the
republic, news and public information was
printed in many styles of wood type.
"When people see wood type they often remember
the classic 'Wanted' poster," says Historical
Society board member Jim Van Lanen. "If
you discover the other printed items of
our nation's graphic history, you will find
wood type in almost every historical society
collection. You will find printed documents
and posters that help illustrate how people
communicated with each other. Whether it
was the sale of horses or land, political
rallies, booklets, packaging or circus posters
- wood type expressed the message of that
day."
The museum is arranged as a fully functional
workshop and educational venue. In addition
to its massive collection of 19th, 20th
and soon-to-be-added 21st Century wood type,
the museum also illustrates antique printing
technologies including the production of
hot metal type, hand operated printing presses,
tools of the craft and rare type specimen
catalogs.
Hamilton volunteers host educational demonstrations,
field trips, workshops and offer opportunities
for artists, printers, historians and other
scholars to experiment with this vast wood
type collection. "We have benefited from
the life experiences of the many people
who actually made the exquisitely detailed
wood type and who still reside in Two Rivers,"
says Van Lanen. "These people are in their
70s and 80s. They showed us, from memory,
how the type workshop really operated -
the old secrets that make these extraordinarily
beautiful and distinctively American alphabets."
|
