TYPE DESIGN INFORMATION PAGE last updated on Fri Dec 13 00:47:29 EST 2024
FONT RECOGNITION VIA FONT MOOSE
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Isaiah Thomas
Typefounder, 1749-1831. Author of A Specimen of Isaiah Thomas's Printing Types. Being as Large and Complete an Assortment As Is to Be Met With in Any One Printing Office in America. Chiefly Manufactured by That Great Artist, William Caslon, Esq.; of London (Worcester, Massachusetts: Printed by Isaiah Thomas, 1785). Local download. I cite a blurb from an exhibit at Columbia University: The experiences of Adam Mappa and John Baine show that American printers wanted a domestic typefounding industry, but only if it could produce type of the quality of the English and Scottish foundries. The year after Mappa's foundry was advertised for sale, Isaiah Thomas issued this printer's specimen of type, not for sale but available for use in his printing office. The title page makes the truthful boast that this was as large and complete an assortment "as is to be met with in any one Printing-Office in America," adding that the type was "Chiefly manufactured by that great Artist, William Caslon, Esq; of London." Writing to Thomas in 1793, Ebenezer T. Andrews, in Boston, thought that Baine's type was "by no means handsome." But Thomas had not only to pay dearly for the imported type, he also had to pay import duties. By 1792, when he tried, unsuccessfully, to have the tax on type waived, the duties stood at 7-1/2% of the value of imported goods of all kinds. Instead, Congress raised the import duties on all goods to 10% in 1794, and, in order to protect the foundling American typefounding industry, specified the following year that this included all imported printing types. |
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Luc Devroye ⦿ School of Computer Science ⦿ McGill University Montreal, Canada H3A 2K6 ⦿ lucdevroye@gmail.com ⦿ https://luc.devroye.org ⦿ https://luc.devroye.org/fonts.html |