Early American Printing in Schools: 1870–1930
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As craft evolved to industry and mechanization led to immense industrial growth, printing became entwined in early twentieth-century American education. The manual training movement encouraged students to work with both their mind and their hands.
At the elementary through high school levels, printing emerged prominently in industrial education and as a unique feature in the United States. Schools across the country installed print shops to teach their students social and intellectual skills. Although segregated, printing had a breadth of impact on public school, immigrant, deaf, disabled, Black and Native American students. Early models included the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, Carlisle Indian Industrial School, University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, and vocational institutions.
Type foundries including American Type Founders established Education Departments that published materials supporting printing education. Textbooks, manuals and journal articles developed by printing instructors are collective documentation of the pedagogy of letterpress printing.
The newspapers, booklets, and school materials produced by the students document the significant role the school print shops played in the learning and development of American boys and girls at the turn-of-the-twentieth century.
Erin Beckloff is a letterpress printer, designer, educator, and filmmaker (Pressing On 2017) who preserves anecdotal and technical knowledge of printing history and culture with a focus on education and community. For over a decade she served as a professor of Communication Design at Miami University and has an MFA in Graphic Design from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Beckloff has given presentations at ATypI Antwerp, Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum Wayzgoose conferences, UCDA Design Education Summit, Type@Cooper New York, College Book Art Association Conferences, as well as taught workshops and lectured at universities across the US and UK.
