The Bentons: How an American Father and Son Changed the Printing Industry

Contents

vii Contents Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix Foreword by Matthew Carter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii A Note on Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii Chapter 1. Metal Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Chapter 2. Three Generations of Bentons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Part One Type Founding in Milwaukee, 1873 to 1892 Chapter 3. The North-Western Type Foundry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35 Chapter 4. Challenges and Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43 Chapter 5. The Development of Benton’s Punch-Cutting Machine, and How It Made the Linotype a Success . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Part Two The Bentons and the American Type Founders Company, 1892 to 1948 Chapter 6. The Formation of the American Type Founders Company . . . . . .79 Chapter 7. Linn Boyd Benton and the Century Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Chapter 8. An Overview of Linn Boyd Benton’s Patented Inventions . . . . . . 93 Chapter 9. Morris Benton at ATF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Chapter 10. How Type Was Made at ATF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 Chapter 11. The Benton Family’s Early Years in Plainfield, New Jersey . . . . . 147 Chapter 12. Prosperity and Hard Times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Chapter 13. The Typographic Climate in the Early Twentieth Century . . . . . 169 Chapter 14. Morris Benton’s Type Designs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 viii the bentons Chapter 15. The Later Plainfield Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257 Chapter 16. The Benton Legacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267 Appendix A. A Software Engineer Admires Benton’s Optical Scaling System . . 277 Appendix B. Morris Benton’s Typefaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289 Credits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329 Selected Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361 ...