Digitizing the Past

Walter B. Gress was associated with the American printing trade during the era when letterpress printing, hot-metal composition, and mechanized presses dominated commercial printing. Rather than introducing new typefaces or typographic theories, Gress focused on practical craftsmanship, emphasizing accuracy, efficiency, and standardized production methods. Gress’s lasting contribution lies in documenting the craft knowledge of the traditional printing office. His work bridges the nineteenth-century tradition of manual typography and the increasingly mechanized printing industry of the twentieth century, preserving techniques and standards that shaped generations of American printers. His most famous work was The American Handbook of Printing (1913). This book covered nearly every aspect of an early American commercial printing office. It addressed such topics as typography and composition hand typesetting, proof correction, imposition, lock-up and presswork, paper selection, inks, estimating jobs, printing-office management and printing terminology. Gress was most interested in the professional ideals of American commercial printing in the early twentieth century, consisting of legibility over ornament, consistency in composition, careful spacing and alignment, correct use of type families, high standards of proofreading, and the efficient workflow in the composing room. His work and teaching occurred during a transitional period in printing history, where hand composition still existed alongside mechanical typesetting. Linotype and Monotype systems were becoming standard. Commercial printing was expanding rapidly. Trade schools increasingly required instructional texts.