Typography, with nothing to its credit following Colonial times, had reached a low ebb during the Victorian period; and by the mid-Nineties typefounders were casting and advertising only novelty faces void of basic design—apparently giving printers what they wanted; while, adding emphasis to bad taste in type faces, compositors were never content to use one series throughout any given piece of display but appeared to be finding joy in mixing as many as possible.

During the Colonial period printers were restricted to Caslon in roman and italic, and an Old English Text. What gave me my love for Caslon and the Old English Text called Caslon Black I do not know. It may have happened in the Ishpeming print shop where I worked as a boy, or it may have come as a result of some incident or series of incidents that occurred later and are not now remembered. At any rate, for many years I knew nothing about the history of types or the derivation of type design and probably thought of “Caslon” as merely a trade designation of the typefounder, and my early preference for the face may have been merely that of a compositor who found joy in its use—as I always have.

One day in 1895, while busy with the establishment of the Wayside Press in Springfield, Massachusetts, I was inspired by some quickening of interest to make a special trip to Boston and visit the Public Library. There I was graciously permitted access to the Barton collection of books printed in New England during the Colonial period; and, thrilled beyond words, I thus gained some knowledge of Caslon’s noble ancestry. The books were uncatalogued and stacked in fireproof rooms which were called the “Barton Safes.” I was allowed to carry volumes to a nearby gallery above the reference room, where, at conveniently arranged lecterns along an iron balustrade, I examined them at my leisure and was given the outstanding typographic experience of my life.

Such gorgeous title-pages! I gloated over dozens of them, making pencil memoranda of type arrangements and pencil sketches of wood-cut head and tail pieces and initials. Using Caslon roman with italic in a merry intermingling of caps and lower case, occasionally enlivened with a word or a line in Caslon Black, and sometimes embellished with a crude wood-cut decoration depicting a bunch or basket of flowers, and never afraid to use types of large size, the compositors of these masterly title-pages have given us refreshing examples of a typography that literally sparkles with spontaneity and joyousness. Apparently created stick-in-hand at the case, and unbiased by hampering trends and rules, here are honest, direct, attention-compelling examples of type arrangements reflecting the care-free approach of compositors merrily expressing personalities void of the self-consciousness and inhibitions that always tighten up and mar any mere striving for effect.

This Colonial typography, void of beauty-destroying mechanical precision, is the most direct, honest, vigorous and imaginative America has ever known—a sane and inspiring model that was to me a liberal education and undoubtedly the finest influence that could come to me at this time—1895.

I now become a member of the newly formed Arts and Crafts Society of Boston, possibly a charter member, and contribute two or three cases and a few frames of Wayside Press printing to the society’s first exhibition in Copley Hall. This showing wins flattering approval from reviewers—laughter from printers who comment: “Bradley must be crazy if he thinks buyers of printing are going to fall for that old-fashioned Caslon type.”

At this time the Caslon mats, imported from England, are in possession of one or two branches of the American Type Founders, probably those in New York and Boston, possibly the Dickenson Foundry in Boston. Less than a year after my original receipt of body sizes of Caslon in shelf-faded and fly-specked packages, these foundries cannot keep pace with orders and it is found necessary to take the casting off the slow “steamers” and transfer mats to the main plant in Communipaw, New Jersey, where they can be adapted to fast automatic type-casters. Here additional sizes are cut and a new series, Lining Caslon, is in the works—and, with novelty faces no longer in demand, foundries outside the combine, not possessing mats, are hurrying cutting.

“When the tide is at the lowest, ’tis but nearest to the turn.”

That quotation certainly applies to the year 1895 that had started with so little to its credit in the annals of commercial printing and in which we were now witnessing an encouraging Æsthetic awakening in the kindred field of publishing. Choice little volumes printed on deckle-edge papers were coming from those young book-making enthusiasts—Stone and Kimball in Chicago and Copeland and Day in Boston—and were attracting wide attention and winning well-earned acclaim. Also there were the Kelmscott Press hand-printed books of William Morris, especially his Chaucer, set in type of his own design and gorgeously illustrated by Burne-Jones; the Vale Press books, designed by Charles Ricketts and for which he also designed the type; the exotic illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley in John Lane’s Yellow Book, all coming to us from London. Then there was the excitement occasioned by our own “poster craze,” with its accompanying exhibitions giving advertisers and the general public an opportunity to see the gay designs of ChÉret and the astounding creations of Lautrec. All these were indicative of a thought-quickening trend due to have a stimulative influence in the then fallow field of commercial printing.

The Wayside Press which I opened in this year of transition was so named for a very real reason. I had worked in Ishpeming and Chicago so as to earn money to take me back to Boston where I hoped to study and become an artist, the profession of my father. I had always thought of printing as being along the wayside to the achieving of my ambition. And I chose a dandelion leaf as my device because the dandelion is a wayside growth.

On the main business street in Springfield there was a new office building called the Phoenix. In two offices on the top floor of the Phoenix Building I had my studio. Back of the office building there was a new loft building on the top floor of which I was establishing my Wayside Press, a corridor connecting it with the top floor of the Phoenix Building and thus making it easily accessible from my studio. It was an ideal location, and with windows on two sides and at the south end insuring an abundance of sunshine, fresh air and light, the workshop was a cheerful spot and one destined to woo me (probably far too often) from my studio and my only definitely established source of income, my designing.My first Wayside Press printing, before the publication of my magazine, was a Strathmore deckle-edge sample book. Heretofore all Connecticut Valley paper-mill samples, regardless of color, texture or quality of paper, had carried in black ink, usually in the upper corner of each sheet, information as to size and weight. No attempt had been made to stimulate sales by showing the printer how different papers might be used. But one day just after the Press opened, I had a visitor who changed all that.

I had a bed-ticking apron that had been made for me by my wife, copying the apron I had worn when at the ages of fifteen to seventeen I had served as job printer and foreman of that little print shop in Ishpeming, where I used to proudly stand, type-stick-in-hand, in the street doorway to enjoy a brief chat with my wife-to-be, then a school-teacher and my sweetheart, as she was on her way to school. Wearing that apron, and at the stone, is how and where Mr. Moses of the Mittineague Paper Company, first of the Strathmore Paper Company units, found me on the occasion of our first meeting.

In my mind’s eye I can see Mr. Moses now as he entered from the corridor. He was wearing a navy blue serge suit that emphasized his slight build and made him appear younger than I had expected. I was then twenty-seven and undoubtedly thought of myself as quite grown up, and I marveled that a man seemingly so young should possess the business knowledge necessary to have put him at the head of an even then well-known mill. The contrast of that natty blue-serge with my striped bed-ticking apron should have made me self-conscious. Perhaps it did; but, filled with the youthful enthusiasm and glorious hopes of a dreamer, I probably had thoughts for nothing but my new print shop and publishing. Seeing me unpacking type, my visitor may have thought my time could have been employed more profitably at my drawing-board, as of course it could—though in my then frame of mind it could not have been employed more enjoyably. Displaying samples of his new line, Mr. Moses asked if I would lay out and print a showing for distribution to commercial printers and advertisers.

I explained that the Wayside Press was being established for the printing of Bradley: His Book, an art and literary magazine, and for a few booklets and brochures—publications to which I planned to give my personal attention throughout all details of production, and that I had not contemplated undertaking any outside work.

However, after a moment’s brief consideration, I became so intrigued with the printing possibilities of these new Strathmore papers, their pleasing colors and tints, together with their being such a perfect, a literally made-to-order, vehicle for Caslon roman and Caslon Black, that I enthusiastically agreed to undertake the commission—a decision for which I shall always feel thankful.

The favorable publicity won by the use of these “old-fashioned” types on Strathmore papers, convinces me that to attain distinction a print shop must possess personality and individuality. At any rate, my continued use of Strathmore papers with appropriate typography and designs aroused such widespread interest among merchants and advertisers and brought so many orders for printing that it soon produced the need for more space. My plant was then moved to a top loft in a new wing that had been added to the Strathmore mill at Mittineague, across the river from Springfield.

Caslon types on Strathmore papers having proved so popular, business was humming. A “Victor” bicycle catalog for the Overman Wheel Company, involving a long run in two colors on Strathmore book and cover papers, and an historically-illustrated catalog for the new “Colonial” flatware pattern of the Towle Silversmiths of Newburyport, for which Strathmore’s deckle edge papers and Caslon types were strikingly appropriate, together with the increased circulation of Bradley: His Book, now a much larger format than the original issues, necessitated the addition of another cylinder press, the largest “Century” then being made by the Campbell Press Company; and also the employment of an additional pressman and two additional feeders, and keeping the presses running nights as well as days, often necessitating my remaining at the plant throughout the full twenty-four hours—quite a change from the humble beginnings of the Wayside Press when one “Universal” and two “Gordon” job presses were believed sufficient for the magazine and booklet printing then planned.In this growth of the commercial printing involving lay-outs and supervision, together with trying to edit and publish an art magazine, I had waded far beyond my depth. When I was starting my Wayside Press in Springfield a business man had advised: “Learn to creep before you try to walk, and learn to walk before you try to run.” I had tried to run before even learning to creep. Mr. Moses gave me what I am now sure was much good business advice—but, alas, I was temperamentally unfitted to listen and learn and, knowing nothing about finances, was eventually overwhelmed and broke under the strain and had to go away for a complete rest. With no one trained to carry on in my absence it was necessary to cease publication of Bradley: His Book and in order to insure delivery on time of the catalogs and other commercial printing, forms were lifted from the presses and transferred to the University Press at Cambridge; and the Wayside Press as a unit, including name and goodwill and my own services, soon followed—a hurried and ill-conceived arrangement that eventually proved so mutually unsatisfactory that I faded out of the picture.

This was a heart-breaking decision for me, and one that but for the wisdom of my wife and her rare understanding and nursing could have resulted in a long and serious illness. No printing and publishing business ever started with finer promise and more youthful enthusiasm than did the Wayside Press and the publication of Bradley: His Book, that are now just memories.

Among other magazine covers designed during this period there is one for a Christmas number of Century. It brings a request for a back-cover design. Both designs are in wood-cut style and require four printings—black and three flat colors. The DeVinne Press, familiar only with process colors, hesitates to do the printing. That issue carries a Will Bradley credit. When John Lane imports sheets of the Studio, edits an American supplement and publishes an American edition, I design the covers.