American Type Founders Company Collection, 1899-1950

The American Type Founders Company Collection are open for research in the Special Collections Reading Room; 1 box at a time (Priority III).

The American Type Founders Company Collection are the physical property of the Newberry Library. Copyright may belong to the authors or their legal heirs or assigns. For permission to publish or reproduce any materials from this collection, contact the Roger and Julie Baskes Department of Special Collections.

American Type Founders Company Collection, The Newberry Library, Chicago.

Amanda Schriver, 2015.

This inventory was created with the generous support of the Council on Library and Information Services, which is supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

American Type Founders Company was founded in 1892 as the merger of 23 independent type foundries. In 1903 a headquarters was established in Jersey City, New Jersey with a foundry later established in Elizabeth, New Jersey.

The original group of foundries consolidated in 1892 includes MacKeller, Smiths, & Jordan, Co., Collins & M’Leester, James Conner’s Sons, P. A. Heinrich, A. W. Lindsay, Charles J. Carey & Co., The John Ryan Co., J. G. Mengel & Co., Hooper, Wilson & Co., Lyman & Son, Cincinnati Type Foundry, Cleveland Type Foundry, Marder, Luse, & Co., Union Type Foundry, Benton, Waldo & Co., Kansas City Type Foundry, Palmer & Rey, Binny & Ronaldson, and Dickinson Type Foundry.

Later additions include Farmer, Little, & Co., Central Type Foundry, Boston Type Foundry, Bruce Type Foundry, H. L. Pelouze & Son Type Founders, Barnhart Brothers & Spindler, Inland Type Foundry, Golding & Company, Keystone Type Foundry, H.C. Hanson Type Foundry, Webendorfer-Wills Company, Dystrom Corporation, Davidson Corporation, and Lanston Monotype Machine Company.

American Type Founders Company was one of the foremost companies in its industry but was hit hard by the Great Depression and filed for bankruptcy in 1933. While it tried to rebuild the company never reached its former status and finally closed in the 1990s.

Photographs, internal publications, type specimens, proofs, and correspondence dating from approximately 1899 through 1950.

Type specimens are from Dickinson Type Foundry, which was one of the original foundries merged to form American Type Founders Company in 1892.

Correspondence in the collection is from Robert J. Bucholz, type designer, to Henry Lewis Bullen, a longtime employee of the American Type Founders Company and founder of the ATF Library.

Arranged alphabetically by folder title.

• Names
  • American Type Founders Company.
  • Bucholz, Robert J. -- Correspondence
  • Bullen, Henry Lewis, 1857-1938 -- Correspondence
  • Dickinson Type Foundry.
• Subject
  • Chicago
  • Ephemera
  • Printing
  • Printing History and Book Arts
  • Printing industry
  • Proofs (Printing) -- Specimens
  • Type and type founding -- Specimens
  • Type ornaments -- Specimens