TYPE DESIGN INFORMATION PAGE last updated on Mon Mar 25 15:31:36 EDT 2024

SEARCH THIS SITE:

IMAGE SEARCH:

FONT RECOGNITION VIA FONT MOOSE

LUC DEVROYE


ABOUT







Baker and Greele Type Foundry

Boston-based foundry dating from the 19th century. Nick Curtis made the Western billboard typeface New Boston WBW (2004) based on a 1826 Baker and Greele face. Baker and Greele were the first to cast some native Indian type. For example, in 1827-1829, they cast type for the Cherokee script, a syllabary composed of 85 unique glyphs, each representing a distinct phonetic component. This syllabary was invented by Sequoyah [or George Guess, or Gist, 1760-1843] in 1809. Of the characters finally used, only a few actually retain the original shape, or derivatives thereof. Those sharing Latinate forms may or may not have been suggested by the Rev. Samuel Worcester, who helped Sequoyah to improve and finally adapt the script for use as foundry type. Wm. Joseph Thomas from the Joyner Library of East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, writes; "I know that the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, which was also headquartered in Boston, arranged for the types to be cast, and they ordered a press to be sent to the Cherokee Nation. The first known printing in the syllabary was December 1827 in the Missionary Herald; the types and press were shipped to the Cherokee Nation in November 1827, according to letters between the ABCFM and the missionary in C.N. The Cherokees began printing their newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix in February 1828." Harvard has an old type specimen book: "Specimen of printing types and metal ornaments, cast at the New England Type Foundry by Greele & Willis, Congress Street, Boston" (New England Type and Stereotype Foundry, Boston: Beals, Homer & Co., Printers, 1828). In this book, most specimens have imprint: Baker & Greele, Boston, some dated.

EXTERNAL LINKS
Baker and Greele Type Foundry
 [Buy fonts]
MyFonts search
Monotype search
Fontspring search
Google search

INTERNAL LINKS
Native-American fonts ⦿ Foundries of the 19th century ⦿ Western fonts ⦿ Type scene in Massachusetts ⦿ Nick Curtis ⦿








file name: Nick Curtis New Boston W B W 2004 after Baker Greele 1826







Luc Devroye ⦿ School of Computer Science ⦿ McGill University Montreal, Canada H3A 2K6 ⦿ lucdevroye@gmail.com ⦿ http://luc.devroye.org ⦿ http://luc.devroye.org/fonts.html