Type Specimens and Commercial Type Directories, 1900s

Card file, design portfolio, notes, specimen sheets, catalogs, binders, photocopied material, catalogs, brochures, and pamphlets

This series includes a wide range of material related to type design, history, and use. It also contains information on specific typefaces, typography firms, and general reference, as well as a large amount of photocopied material from various books relating to typography. Many of the typography firms represented are distributors of type rather than individual design firms. While items are not listed individually, both subseries VII.1 and VII.2 contain an important collection of type specimens sheets, with some overlap. Originally, the reference material in subseries VII.4 was interfiled with the typography firms represented in VII.3; however, it has been organized as a separate subseries. The information in the reference subseries may have been compiled by Lieberman for his book Types and Typefaces. This collection of resources is valuable to researchers studying the proliferation of typography and design firms in the mid-twentieth century. In addition to promotional material, the series includes catalogs that may be useful in identifying borders, typefaces, or elements in common use for printers of the period. Also, in F78 is an oversize commercial graphic design portfolio created by an unidentified (W.H. Millstein?) containing original art and examples from letterheads, logos, packaging labels, monograms, awards and certificates.