News Release

Before the days of computers and desktop publishing, printing lay solely in the hands of an eclectic group of skilled craftsmen who set type manually. These printers traveled the country plying their trade for newspapers and print shops across America. This year’s annual Book Arts & Special Collections Center Holiday Lecture presents noted printing historian and actor Alastair Johnston, who will deliver a lively lecture about these “tramp printers” on Dec.1 at the Main Library.

The lecture, entitled “The Return of the Semi-Peripatetic Tramping Printer of Yore” will examine the period during the late 19th and earlier 20th centuries when rotary power presses and automated typecasting were changing the craft of letterpress printing into an industry. Many people were displaced during this period of transformation, but the traditions, rituals, and lore were the last things to change.

Before this period, the skills of those who worked with handset metal type and the printing press were much in demand. For five centuries—until computerized new processes signaled the end of the “hot type” era—traveling printers were a tradition at newspapers and in print shops around the United States and Canada. Their skills were not easily learned, but once acquired, could be easily transferred from one newspaper or print shop to another. Some traveled from job to job, from town to town, adopting the life of “tramp” printers. This wanderlust came to represent a free and independent lifestyle envied by others.

Sponsored by the Book Arts & Special Collections Center, “The Return of the Semi-Peripatetic Tramping Printer of Yore” will be presented 6:30–7:45 p.m. on Dec. 1 in the Latino/Hispanic Room B at the Main Library, 100 Larkin St. (at Grove). The program is free and open to the public. For more information, please call 415.557.4277.