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ix Acknowledgments This story of the Bentons could never have been written without access to the complete set of Inland Printer magazines, beginning with the first issue of October 1883, and the myriad other resources held by the Melbert B. Cary Jr. Graphic Arts Collection at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). Because these materials are not readily available to the average reader, they are quoted directly and often at length. RIT Professor David Pankow, who is also curator of the collection, shared its treasures with me and was unfailingly supportive. Thank you, David. The earliest version of this book was a master’s thesis for a degree from the School of Printing at RIT. I remain indebted to my original advisors, RIT Cary Professor Herbert H. Johnson and Professor Archibald Provan, for their encouragement and long hours of consultation in the early 1980s; and to the graduate program’s coordinator at the time, Professor Joseph Noga. In 1984, Morris Benton’s daughter Caroline Benton Gregg graciously invited me to Milwaukee to talk about her father and grandfather; much of the personal information about the Bentons in this book comes from the long conversations we had in her home, which I remember with fondness and gratitude. Her older sister, Elizabeth Benton Swain of Hingham, Massachusetts, also spoke with me at length over the phone. Rudolph Ellenbogen, curator of rare books at Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library, helped me navigate what was then Columbia University’s ATF Collection. I am grateful to many others who also helped with the initial research: fellow RIT students Joann Berg, Nancy Bittner, Malcolm (Tim) Coe, and Beth Lewis; RIT Professors Michael Peres and Frank Cost; RIT biomedical photography student Sheila Donnelley; RIT photographer James Castelein; Matthew Carter, then senior vice x the bentons president at Bitstream, Inc.; printing historian Dr. James Eckman; George Gasparik, ATF’s plant manager when I visited in 1984; type historian and retired RIT Professor Alexander Lawson; Richard C. Marder, proprietor of his phototypography business, Graftek, and grandson of John Marder, one of the founding members of the American Type Founders Company (ATF); type historian M. F. (Mac) McGrew; David Pankow, at that time curator of the Melbert B. Cary Jr. Graphic Arts Collection; Ralph Van Horn of the Little Falls (New York) Historical Society; Henry Weiland of Milwaukee, a type historian and collector of typographic artifacts; and type designer and RIT Professor Hermann Zapf. Many individuals paved the way for this book by reading and commenting on the original thesis, and therefore deserve credit and certainly have my sincere thanks: Matthew Carter; private typefounder Paul H. Duensing; Dr. James Eckman; Professor Emeritus Clifford L. Helbert, former dean of the College of Journalism at Marquette University and a business partner of Henry Weiland; Richard L. Hopkins, president of the Pioneer Press of W. Va., Inc.; printing historian and author Richard E. Huss; my father, Roger F. Knittel; Richard C. Marder; M. F. McGrew; George Taenzer of Eastman Kodak Co.; and book publisher W. Thomas Taylor. In the mid-1990s I was fortunate to have had the help of several people in preparing an article about the Bentons for Printing History: Dan Carr, owner of Four Zoas Press; David Pankow; Theo Rehak, owner of the Dale Type Foundry; and my friend Karen Reimringer. More recently, Caroline Benton Gregg’s son Laurence Gregg generously shared personal remembrances, photographs, treasured artifacts and ideas for this project, sending me countless emails and small packages in the process. He also introduced me to his cousin Caroline (Kit) Clayton, who sent her personal remembrances. Theo Rehak’s enthusiasm for the project continued unabated for years; he gave my son Roger and me a tour of his Dale Guild Type Foundry in New Jersey and donated many Benton artifacts to RIT’s Cary Graphic Arts Collection, including original patents , a complete set of ATF cutting slips for Morris Benton’s Freehand, and the ATF “Day Book.” In addition to these friends, I am indebted to many others for their help over the past three years: Matthew Carter, who so kindly wrote the foreword to this book; software engineer Raph Levien, who helped to bring the Benton legacy into focus with his perspective on the importance of optical scaling to digital typography (Appendix A); RIT Professor Charles Bigelow, who helped me broaden the scope of my research; Rare Book Librarian Jane Siegel, and Librarian for Public Services and Programs Jennifer Lee at Columbia University’s Rare...

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