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

3 The North-Western Type Foundry

35 chapter 3 The North-Western Type Foundry Like his father, Linn Boyd Benton welcomed new opportunities. At 22, he was hired as a bookkeeper for the Milwaukee type and electrotype foundry owned by his father’s friend Josiah Noonan. When Noonan went bankrupt seven years later in the Panic of 1873 (a nationwide economic depression that lasted until 1877), Benton saw it as an opening for himself, and with a partner named Edward Cramer he purchased Noonan’s Northwestern Type Foundry in 1873.1 Although he had no actual training in typefounding, Benton handled the manufacturing side of the business.2 Years later he said that if he had known anything about typefounding at the time, he “would have thrown the entire plant into the lake as a measure of economy,”3 because it was probably the worst equipped foundry in the country. Instead, he went on to master that difficult art and change it dramatically with a series of important inventions. In the late 1870s, the American typefounding industry was congested with about 40 highly competitive foundries. Fifty years earlier, only 14 plants or so were in the business of casting type in the U.S., most of them on the East Coast.4 According to Maurice Annenberg, author of the definitive reference Type Foundries of America and Their Catalogs, the following U.S. type foundries issued casebound type specimen books during Benton’s typefounding years in Milwaukee (1873–1892): Baltimore Type Foundry, 1799–1892 Barnhart Brothers & Spindler, 1868–1929 (New York, then Chicago) Benton, Waldo & Co., 1873–1892 (Milwaukee) Boston Type Foundry, 1817–1892 Bresnan Type Foundry, 1856–1896 (New York) Bruce’s New York Type Foundry, 1813–1901 Buffalo Type Foundry, 1835–1892 36 the bentons California Type Foundry, 1867–1898 (San Francisco) Central Type Foundry, 1872–1892 (St. Louis) Cincinnati Type Foundry, 1817–1892 Cleveland Type Foundry, 1875–1892 Collins & M’Leester, 1853–1892 (Philadelphia) Conner Type Foundry, 1827–1892 (New York) Cortelyou’s Type Foundry, 1850–1875 (New York) Curtis & Mitchell, 1864–1892 (Boston) Dickinson Type Foundry, 1839–1892 (Boston) Empire State Type Foundry, 1888–ca.1892 Farmer, Little & Co., 1862–1892 (New York) Franklin Type & Stereotype Foundry, 1856–1892 (Cincinnati) Hagar Type Foundry, 1826–1887 (New York) H. C. Hansen Type Foundry, 1872–ca.1922 (Boston) Ph. Heinrich, 1855–1892 (New York) Curtis & Mitchell, 1864–1892 (Boston) Illinois Type Founding Co., 1872–1892 (Chicago) Kansas City Type Foundry, 1872–1892 Keystone Type Foundry, 1888–1919 (Philadelphia) Lindsay Type Foundry, 1852–1903 (New York) MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan, 1867–1892 (Philadelphia) Manhattan Type Foundry, ca.1886–1890 (New York) Marder, Luse & Co., 1855–1892 (Chicago) Mechanics Type Foundry, 1872–1883 (Chicago) John G. Mengel & Co., 1881–1892 (Baltimore) Minnesota Type Foundry, ca.1870–ca.1900 (St. Paul) New England Type Foundry, 1824–1886 (Boston) Pacific States Type Foundry, ca.1888–1906 (San Francisco) Palmer & Rey, 1882–1892 (San Francisco) Philadelphia Type Foundry (Pelouze & Co.), 1841–1892 Richmond Type Foundry, 1858–1901 (Richmond, Va.) John Ryan Type Foundry, 1854–1892 (Baltimore) St. Louis Type Foundry, 1840–1892 Union Type Foundry, 1883–1892 (Chicago) Washington Type Foundry, 1869–1892 (District of Columbia) These were by no means the only type establishments in the country at that time. Others sold wood type instead of metal type, advertised with pamphlets or broadsides , or had outside help with their type specimen books. Also, the popularity of the electro-deposition process for making type matrices had enabled entrepreneurs only marginally familiar with the typefounding business to enter it. Roy Rice, a metal type enthusiast, wrote that by the mid-1800s, “anyone wishing to could duplicate 37 the north-western type foundry a founder’s matrices, and numerous foundries sprung up whose only stock in trade were other founders’ designs.”5 Benton, Gove & Co. In 1874, just a year after going into business with Benton, Cramer sold his halfinterest in Northwestern to Lieutenant-Commander Frank M. Gove, a Naval officer who knew nothing about the type business but who would prove to be a successful and popular salesman for the firm. Gove had been born in New Hampshire in 1843 and graduated from the Naval Academy in 1865. After marrying Emma Beck of Milwaukee , he resigned his commission in the Navy to move to her home town. An 1882 issue of the Typographic Adviser referred to him as “a genial, noble-hearted, generous companion, possessed of a highly cultured mind and fascinating social qualities, which endeared him to...