News and Events

  • 2024 Events & Exhibits at the Museum of Printing in Haverhill, Mass.

    Events

    Saturday, March 30
    Printing the “Boston Massacre”
    Saturday, April 13
    Spring Garage Sale & Book Sale
    Saturday, April 20
    Lecture:  The English/American Printed Bible
    Saturday, May 11
    The History of Phototypesetting and How It Changed the Face of Type
    Saturday, June 8
    Summer Garage Sale & Book Sale

    Read more >

  • Printing the “Boston Massacre”

    Saturday, March 30, 11:30 am lecture / 2:00 pm demonstration

    Print of Boston Massacre recreation by Andy Volpe

    Join Andy Volpe on Saturday, March 30, 2024 at the Museum of Printing for a slide lecture and live printing demonstration about Paul Revere’s most famous (infamous?) print from 1770, “The Bloody Massacre” — better known today as the “Boston Massacre.”

    Read more >

  • Read all about us in the Globe!

    The Boston Globe finds us “fit to print”

    What a visitor finds is a museum as marvelous as any in new England. Here is Ali Baba’s cave crossed with a print shop and pressroom. One of only three museums in the United states dedicated to printing and graphic arts, it has “the largest collection of typographic technology and ephemera in the world,” says MoP president Frank Romano. “We’re trying to save the past for the future,” he says.

    Read Mark Feeney’s article in the Boston Sunday Globe, October 22, 2023 [pdf] ↠

  • Museum of Printing Workshops in 2024

    $125 each
    Saturdays, 10am–4pm. Pizza lunch included.
    Email for registration information. Workshops sell out early.

    April 6
    Letterpress Intro+ Workshop

    May 4
    Letterpress Intro+ Workshop

    June 1
    Letterpress on Fabric Workshop

    Read more >

  • Haverhill Exchange Club Dedicates Freedom Shrine at Museum of Printing

    Bob Harb

    Members of the Haverhill Exchange Club, who sponsored a “Freedom Shrine” and, local leaders, dedicated it at the Museum of Printing in Haverhill, Massachusetts. This gallery of history includes reproductions of George Washington’s first inaugural address where the first president urged a new Congress to consider a “reverence for the characteristic rights of freemen and a regard for public harmony” in crafting a Bill of Rights. Past National President Haverhill member Bob Harb (pictured here) noted that the 20 original documents were on the Freedom Train that visited Haverhill on October 22, 1947 for a few days.

    Perhaps the most interesting part of the preserved documents are editing marks—many documents are preserved in some pre-finished form. In this presentation, it’s clear the authors of some of the most important documents in U.S. history themselves had to revise.

    The Museum owes a debt to the Exchange Club, for which the installation of “Freedom Shrines” in public places is a national project.

    For more on the Haverhill Exchange Club, see http://www.haverhillexchangeclub.com.

  • History of Desktop Publishing Selected as Honorable Mention

    History of Desktop Publishing

    History of Desktop Publishing by Frank Romano (with Miranda Mitrano) has been awarded Honorable Mention by the jury of the 18th International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB) Breslauer Prize for Bibliography.

    The ILAB Breslauer Prize for Bibliography is the world’s leading prize honoring outstanding work in the field of bibliography and book history. The award is sponsored by the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers. The 18th edition of the prize was awarded in September, 2022 at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, England.

    The 2022 winners are:

    • 1st Prize: Jack Baldwin, A Catalogue of Fifteenth-Century Printed Books in Glasgow Libraries and Museums, 2 volumes (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2020).
    • 2nd Prize: Ernst Fischer; Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels – Historische Kommission. (Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2020–21).
    • 3rd Prize: Renaud Adam, Vivre et imprimer dans les Pays-Bas Méridionaux (Des Origines à la réforme), 2 vols (Turnhout: Brepols, 2018).
    • Honorable Mention: Frank Romano (with Miranda Mitrano), History of Desktop Publishing (New Castle, Delaware: Oak Knoll Press, 2019).

    For the full ILAB press release, see: https://ilab.org/article/celebrating-outstanding-works-of-bibliography-and-book-history-impressions-of-the-ilab-breslauer-prize-ceremony-2022

    The book is available through the Museum of Printing gift shop in soft or hard cover as well as through the publisher, Oak Knoll Books: https://www.oakknoll.com/pages/books/133734/frank-romano-with-miranda-mitrano/history-of-desktop-publishing

  • History of the Ludlow Typograph

    History of the Ludlow Typograph

    Frank Romano’s latest book is now available! It is called History of the Ludlow Typograph and covers the remarkable tale of a device that is still in use by letterpress printers around the world today. Romano writes about the people, the company, the machine, and the type library that established typographic tastes.

    Born at the beginning of the 20th century, the active production lifespan of the Ludlow Typograph lasted just over 80 years, but its impact has continued. In the last decade of the 20th century as typography evolved from metal to film to digital, many of the fonts in use were based on hot metal libraries. One of the major trendsetters for typographers was the Ludlow Typograph.

    At 535 pages and with over 400 illustrations, this book digs deeper into the history of the Ludlow Typograph than any previous book. Interested in reading it? You can find it in our gift shop, or just click the red DONATE button at the top right of the page and make a donation to the Museum of Printing. You will then receive this landmark book as a gift ($75 for the hardcover version and $45 for the softcover version).

  • The Museum of Printing Unveils Plans for a Linotype Service & Repair Directory

    Linotype Repair Professionals!

    As part of its Linotype Legacy initiative, the Museum of Printing is creating an international directory of people who repair Linotype and other hot-metal typesetting machines. If you offer such services, or if you know of someone who does, please submit contact information via this web form: linotype-professionals-signup-form.

    We also ask that you share this information broadly through social media, using the hashtag #LinotypeRepair.

    We believe that by gathering this information we will be able to achieve one of the key goals of the Linotype Legacy initiative, which is to make it easier to find those who can service and repair Linotype machines.

    The Museum of Printing’s Linotype Legacy fundraising initiative was begun in December of 2019. The latest development in the Museum of Printing’s Linotype Legacy work is a series of 10 videos with master mechanic Dave Seat. These can be viewed on our YouTube page.

    Read more >

  • White House Chronicle Visits the Museum of Printing

    Frank Romano, President, Museum of Printing

    Haverhill, MA (July 5, 2021) – Nationally syndicated columnist Llewellyn King, the executive producer and host of the weekly PBS news and public affairs program White House Chronicle, visited the Museum of Printing recently and interviewed Museum of Printing President Frank Romano about printing technology and the history of the newspaper. Also on hand was the producer and co-host, journalist Linda Gasparello.

    The episode, entitled “American Newspaper Printing from Hot Type to Computers,” began airing on July 2, 2021 and will be seen on many PBS stations. It can also be viewed on demand at https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/569972704.

    Read more >

  • Museum of Printing acquires major vintage type collection

    Lyons Collection

    T. J. Lyons collected Victorian wood and metal type from the 1820s to the 1880s. He amassed over 2,500 unique typefaces for his small print shop in Allston, Mass. Eventually the collection was housed at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston, and will now reside at the Museum of Printing in Haverhill, Massachusetts.

    The Lyons Collection joins the vast typographic and printing resources of the Museum of Printing.

    “Tom Lyons spent two years in the AEF Airforce during World War I,” said his grandson Steve Lyons, “and he returned from France for a stint in an advertising agency, where he was inspired by a freelance designer, George Trenholm, who used Old Fashioned Ornamented Typography. T.J. moved to his own print shop in 1924. When the Great Depression struck, printers began dumping the old ornamented type, and TJ went all in to build his collection.”

    This type was then in demand by ad agencies anxious for type that would stand out. What is old becomes new again.

    Some of his type was made into film and digital fonts by VGC and Compugraphic in the 1960s and 1970s, but it all exists as individual pieces of wood and metal, to be set by hand, one letter at a time.

    “This collection cries to be used,” said Museum of Printing president Frank Romano, “and the Museum will have workshops and student projects that use this type for design and print projects.”

    A permanent wood type exhibit will show the beauty and uniqueness of these fonts, but, more importantly, we will see the harmony of type and ink and paper, as they come together to produce typographic art.

    Read more >

  • MoP commemorates Haverhill ties to Bible translation and 19th century missionary movement

    Bible room

    The American missionary movement of the 19th century began in Haverhill, Mass. Haverhill was also a center for Bible translations. Adoniram Judson, (1788–1850) American linguist and Baptist missionary in Myanmar (Burma) translated the Bible into Burmese with his wife Ann Hazeltine Judson.

    To commemorate the Haverhill Bible connection, the Museum of Printing has consolidated its extensive Bible collection and reference material in one exhibit and resource room.

    A replica of the Gutenberg Bible lets you leaf through the book that started it all. There are over thirty historic Bibles plus many other printed religious publications and artifacts. Leaves from Luther’s German translation are on display. It changed the world of religion forever.

    The Museum has one leaf from every Bible printed in Colonial America, including the first Bible printed in America, the Eliot Bible of 1663 in the Algonquin Indian language.

    Read more >

  • MoP Celebrates Print during Haverhill Cultural Treasures Virtual Camp

    Haverhill Cultural Treasures Virtual Camp

    • Event: Haverhill Cultural Organizations Plan Virtual Activities April 20 –23
    • Where: Zoom (Materials pickup at Buttonwoods or Dustin-Duston Garrison House)
    • When: April 20 – 23, 2021 (Registration closes April 11, 2021)
    • Contact: Melissa Drake
    • Website: http://www.buttonwoods.org/HCT-Virtual-Camp.html

    Read more >

  • Museum of Printing Exhibition on Vintage American Newspapers

    1870 newspaper

    From May 8 to June 26, the Museum of Printing in Haverhill, Massachusetts will display a sampling of its extensive collection of vintage newspapers.

    The exhibition is called “From Rags to News” because printers would ask for old rags to make the paper needed for printing. The exhibition features issues from 1781 to 1981.

    It is said that newspapers are the first draft of history and many of those selected for this exhibition report the first news of historic events. See how the deaths of Washington and Franklin were first reported. See the ads in the early versions of the Lawrence Eagle Tribune. See “The Transcontinental,” the first daily newspaper printed on the first train that went from Boston to San Francisco.

    Every newspaper not only reports the news of the day, but tells us something about their times and the people who lived in them. The exhibition is curated by Christine Elizabeth Mistretta, whose “Below the Masthead” blog appears on Facebook.

    The Museum of Printing is located at 15 Thornton Avenue, Haverhill, Massachusetts. It is open to the public every Saturday from 10am to 4pm or other days by appointment. Covid precautions in place and masks required.

  • Dr. Arthur Klein collection of rare book pages gifted to MoP

    Dr. Arthur Klein rare book pages

    The Museum of Printing has received a donation of a major collection of rare book pages. This generous gift comes from the descendants of Dr. Arthur Klein, an accomplished collector.

    Arthur Klein, of Belmont, Mass., died in 2016. Born in New York City, he attended Bronx Science High School, received his BA from Columbia University and his PhD from Boston University. He was a gifted psychotherapist who worked at McLean Hospital, maintained a private practice in Cambridge, MA, taught at Harvard Medical School and mentored many students. Arthur was a man of many talents and interests. Creative and possessing a keen intellect, he loved to read and was a passionate photographer, cook, and art collector.

    Over 30 years he amassed a collection of 1,500 pages from art and science books published during the 1700s, the Age of Enlightenment. The illustrations in these books advanced the art of engraving and documented the advancement of science and technology.

    The Museum is cataloging these artifacts and will mount an exhibit in the summer of 2021 with lectures that explain the importance of these historic pages.

  • The Colorful World of Chromolithography

    Exhibit opens Saturday, November 21

    The Colorful World of Chromolithography exhibit

    Our newest exhibit, “The Colorful World of Chromolithography,” opens Saturday, November 21st and showcases many beautiful examples of this color printing technique. One of the items that we will showcase is the “Album des célébrités contemporaines, publié par Lefevrè-Utile,” Nantes, circa 1909. It is a masterpiece of chromolithography and a stunning example of turn-of-the-century art nouveau illustration. There are only five of these 24-page albums in America and the Museum has one of those originals. If you come to the exhibit on opening day you will receive a free copy of this unique work. You will also see original examples of the work of Louis Prang, the father of the American Christmas card.

    CDC and State guidance advisories for Covid will be in effect. Mark your calendars and wear your masks!

    The Museum of Printing is located at 15 Thornton Avenue in Haverhill, Massachusetts. The Museum is open Saturdays from 10 am to 4 pm and by appointment. Any questions? Reach out to us at .

  • Caption Contest Winner 2020

    We have a winner in our caption contest!

    Our panel of judges was faced with a difficult task, but they managed to agree that the entry “The Gutenbird Press” deserves the top spot in our recent caption contest. The winner was submitted by Sara Odom (Sara Historia / @atruestorycomic on Twitter). Congratulations, Sara! You have won a membership to the Museum of Printing. We’ll be sending you our 2021 calendar plus the latest edition of our newsletter.

    Our thanks everyone who submitted an entry. The full list of entries is shown below. Thanks also to C.B. at the Green Turtle Press who took the picture!

    Read more >

  • Dori Boone and the Museum of Printing Partner on the Learning Letterpress Series of Instructional Videos

    In this time of social distancing, education is more important than ever. As part of our mission to preserve the rich history of the graphic arts, the Museum of Printing is dedicated to supporting the production of free content to advance letterpress education. We are proud to announce that we have teamed up with Dori Boone to curate an ongoing series of instructional videos featuring print aficionados from around the world explaining and demonstrating the basics of letterpress printing and maintenance. It is called Learning Letterpress.

    A great way to stay up to date on Learning Letterpress content is to like the Learning Letterpress Facebook page. See https://facebook.com/learningletterpress. If you are interested in hosting a Learning Letterpress workshop, please email Dori at .

    Read more >

  • Museum of Printing Typographic Archive at More than One Million Artifacts

    Since 1455 when Gutenberg created his first moveable typeface, type design has expanded dramatically. Today, an untold number of typefaces exist. The Museum of Printing in Haverhill, Massachusetts is dedicated to preserving that history. To that end, we maintain a collection of more than one million artifacts related to typography (and many more when you add in printing).

    type drawingEvery time you use Helvetica or Times New Roman or any other typeface, you are a part of typographic history. Type, which started with scribes and was advanced by Gutenberg, is now reflected in every e-mail and every printed document.

    The Museum of Printing maintains one of the largest collections of typographic artifacts in the world. The centerpiece of this collection is the archive of more than 860,000 original drawings for every character in the Linotype typeface library.

    Read more >

  • The Museum of Printing receives Essex County Creative Nonprofit Resiliency Grant

    Haverhill, MA (May 5, 2020) – The Museum of Printing is delighted to announced that it is the recipient of a grant from the Essex County Community Foundation (ECCF). The award is part of the Essex County Creative Nonprofit Resiliency Grant program.

    Museums, like other parts of our society, have suffered during the pandemic. We are unable to open our doors to visitors and therefore have no revenues from entrance fees or gift shop purchases. The Museum of Printing greatly appreciates the support of the ECCF during these challenging times as well as their foresight in creating a grant program that helps institutions like ours.

    Read more >

  • #ArtWeekAtHome Launches May 1

    The reimagined 2020 ArtWeek Festival will include The Museum of Printing / Haverhill

    Haverhill, MA (May 1, 2020) – The Boch Center, the producer of the annual ArtWeek festival which is presented by the Highland Street Foundation, announced that it is launching #ArtWeekAtHome on May 1st and The Museum of Printing is excited to feature The Alphabet Factory At Home. The reimagined format replaces the original statewide ArtWeek that would have featured almost 800 creative events in over 170 communities across Massachusetts, including many free events for families, children, residents, and visitors.

    The Museum of Printing presents The Alphabet Factory At Home: “Print” your name with anything but paper and create your own typeface! From thumbtacks to daffodils, use what you have at home and shape it into your name. Take a pic and share it with Artweek and The Museum of Printing. May 1st – 10th, 2020 #ArtWeekAtHome @ArtWeekMa

    Read more >

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