Chapter II: Part 2

Well, that is that, and of course you are now sitting pretty. But presently we see you on a Fifth Avenue bus, returning from Fifty-ninth Street where, in a sumptuous Victorian apartment overlooking Central Park you have asked William Dean Howells for a story--and on this incident we will charitably draw the curtain.

Meanwhile _Bradley: His Book_ met with kind reception--advance orders for the second number being: Brentano’s New York, six hundred copies, Old Corner Bookstore, Boston, four hundred, etc.; the first issue being out of print except for the supply being held for new subscribers. Pratt, Sixth Avenue, New York, sent check to pay for one hundred subscriptions.

There being no joy in doing today what one did yesterday, or what another did yesterday; and creative design in which there is no joy or laughter being of little worth, a new lay-out and change of stock were provided for each issue of _Bradley: His Book_; the fifth number started a change of format.

But as a business tycoon Will Bradley was a lamentable failure despite this auspicious start--a story I have already told.

NEW FIELDS

At the turn of the century, after saying a sad farewell to fond hopes and feeling older at thirty-two than is now true at eighty-two, I finally gave up trying to be a publisher and printer. While covers for _Collier’s_ were bridging an awkward gap Edward Bok appeared on the scene and commissioned the laying-out of an editorial prospectus for the _Ladies’ Home Journal_, the printing to be done at the Curtis plant. For this I used a special casting of an old face not then on the market, Mr. Phinney of the Boston branch of ATF telling me it was to be called Wayside. When the prospectus was finished Mr. Bok invited me to his home just outside Philadelphia and there it was arranged that I design eight full pages for the _Journal_--eight full pages of house interiors. These were followed by a series of house designs. Finding it difficult to keep to merely four walls I added dozens of suggestions for individual pieces of furniture--this being the “Mission” period when such designing required no knowledge of periods, only imagination. Then Mr. Bok suggested that I move to Rose Valley, start a shop to make furniture and other forms of handicraft in line with designs shown in my _Journal_ drawings; and assume art editorship of _House Beautiful_, which he was considering buying. But having failed in one business venture, there was little excuse to embark on another.

The roman and italic face, used later for _Peter Poodle, Toy Maker to the King_, was now designed for American Type Founders; and while building a home in Concord, adjoining Hawthorne’s “Wayside,” and working every day in the open, regaining lost health, the story, _Castle Perilous_, was written--also outdoors. These activities were followed by a request from Mr. Nelson, president of American Type Founders, that I undertake a campaign of type display and publicity for the Foundry, with a promise to cut any decorative or type designs that I might supply, also to purchase as many Miehle presses as might be required for the printing--an invitation to which I replied with an enthusiastic “Yes!” [In this way Bradley’s famous set of _Chap Books_ was inaugurated--Ed.]

During this type-display and foundry-publicity period _Castle Perilous_, as a three-part serial, with illustrations made afternoons following mornings spent with American Type Founders at Communipaw, was published in _Collier’s_; and in 1907 I became that publication’s art editor. Sometime during the intervening years--I can’t remember where or when--time was found for designing several _Collier’s_ covers.

From 1910 to 1915, again with my own studios, I took care of the art editorship of a group of magazines: _Good Housekeeping_, _Century_, _Metropolitan_ and others, also an assignment from the Batten Advertising Agency and, as recreation, wrote eleven _Tales of Noodleburg_ for _St. Nicholas_.

THE MAGAZINE WORLD--AN INTERPOLATION

For easier understanding by you whose magazine memories do not go back to the turn of the century it should be told that we were then carrying a Gibson Girl hangover from the Gay Nineties and were but a few years removed from a time when there were only three standard monthlies: _Harper’s_, _Scribner’s_, and _Century_; and seven illustrated weeklies: _Harper’s_, _Frank Leslie’s_, _Harper’s Bazaar_, _Police Gazette_, _Puck_, _Judge_ and the old _Life_,--magazines and weeklies that were seldom given display other than in hotels and railroad depots, where they were shown in competition with the then-popular paper-covered novels.

In the mid-Eighties all monthlies, weeklies, books and booklets were hand-fed, folded, collated and bound; halftones were in an experimental stage; advertising agencies, if any existed, were not noticeable in Chicago, and advertising of a national character used only quarter-page cover space. But something in the air already quickened imagination, and the Nineties gave us more magazines and better display.

In 1907, magazines were shedding swaddling clothes and getting into rompers; the _Saturday Evening Post_ had cast off its pseudo-Benjamin Franklin dress and adopted a live editorial policy that was winning readers and advertising; Edward Bok had ventured a Harrison Fisher head on a _Ladies’ Home Journal_ cover and won a fifty-thousand gain in newsstand sales, and Robert Collier had built a subscription-book premium into a national weekly.

THE MAGAZINE WORLD--COLLIER’S AND OTHERS

On a Saturday afternoon in 1907, believing myself alone, for the offices and plant had closed at twelve, I was standing at a drafting table making up the Thanksgiving issue of _Collier’s_ when Mr. Collier entered. He became intrigued with proofs of decorative units being combined for initial-letter and page borders, as had earlier been done with similar material in designing a cover, and asked for some to take home and play with on the morrow. Robert Collier was that kind of a boss--a joy!

Of the Thanksgiving issue Royal Cortissoz wrote: “This week’s number has has just turned up and I cannot refrain from sending you my congratulations. The cover is bully; it’s good decoration, it’s appropriate, it’s everything that is first rate. The decorations all through are charming. More power to your elbow. It does my heart good to see _Collier’s_ turning up in such splendid shape.” There were other favorable comments--but no noticeable jump in newsstand sales.

My joining Collier’s staff has been under circumstances quite exceptional, even for that somewhat pioneer period in which the streamlined editorial and publishing efficiency of today was only a vague dream. I had been asked to give the weekly a new typographic lay-out. When this was ready Mr. Collier suggested that I take the art editorship. He said I would be given his office in the editorial department and he would occupy one in the book department, where he could devote more time to that branch of the business, an arrangement he knew would please his father. I was to carry the title of art editor but in reality would be responsible for make-up and other details that had been demanding too much of his own time.

At the age of twelve I had begun to learn that type display is primarily for the purpose of selling something. In 1889, as a free-lance artist in Chicago, I had discovered that to sell something was also the prime purpose of designs for book and magazine covers and for posters. Later I was to realize that salesmanship possessed the same importance in editorial headings and blurbs. These never-to-be-forgotten lessons, taught by experience and emphasized by the sales results of the publicity campaign I had lately conducted for the American Typefounders Company, would classify that Thanksgiving number as a newsstand disappointment. However, it pleased Robert Collier who, even to hold a guaranteed circulation--when a loss would mean rebates to advertisers--would not permit the use of stories by such popular writers as Robert Chambers and Zane Gray nor the popular illustrations of such artists as Howard Chandler Christy!

My tenure at _Collier’s_ gave me a new experience. There I always worked under conditions inviting and stimulating imagination, and there I probably unknowingly shattered many a precious editorial precedent.

_Collier’s_ had one of the early color presses akin to those used on newspapers. We decided to use this to print illustrations for a monthly “Household Number” carrying extra stories. The editorial back-list showed no fiction suitable for color; the awarding of one thousand dollars a month for the best story, judgment based upon literary merit, had resulted in the purchase of nothing but literary fog. Mr. Collier told Charles Belmont Davis, fiction editor, to order what was necessary. Charley asked me who could write the type of story needed. I said, “Gouverneur Morris.” Mr. Morris, then in California, sent a list of titles accompanied by the request: “Ask Will Bradley to take his pick.” We chose _The Wife’s Coffin_, a pirate tale. During an editorial dinner at his home Robert Collier read a letter from his father, then out of the city, in which P. F. (his father) wrote: “If you continue printing issues like this last our subscription-book salesmen report the weekly will sell itself.” Robert said: “Mr. Bradley can make this kind of a number because he knows the people from whom the salesmen obtain subscriptions. I don’t, and any similar undertaking by me would be false and a failure.”

During this period of art editorship, and following the lay-out of a booklet, _Seven Steps and a Landing_, for Condé Nast, advertising manager of _Collier’s_, a color-spread for Cluett-Peabody, lay-outs for the subscription-book department, and pieces of printing for Mr. Collier’s social activities (also a request from Medill McCormick that I go to Chicago and supply a new typographic make-up for the _Tribune_; a suggestion from Mr. Chichester, president of the Century Company, that if I were ever free he would like to talk with me about taking the art editorship of _Century_; and from Mr. Schweindler, printer of _Cosmopolitan_ and other magazines, an expression of the hope that I could be obtained for laying-out a new publication), Robert Collier proposed the building of a pent-house studio on the roof near his father’s office where, relieved of much detail, I could give additional thought to all branches of the business. This promised too little excitement, and instead I rented a studio-office on the forty-fifth floor of the then nearly-finished Metropolitan Tower. At this time Condé Nast had just purchased _Vogue_, then a small publication showing few changes from when I had contributed to it in the early Nineties.

In this new environment I handled the art editorship and make-up of _Metropolitan_, _Century_, _Success_, _Pearson’s_ and the new _National Weekly_, which was given a format like that of present-day weeklies and a make-up that included rules. Caslon was used for all headings except for _Pearson’s_ which, using a specially-drawn character, were lettered by hand.

Among some discarded _Metropolitan_ covers I found one by Stanislaus--the head of a girl wearing a white-and-red-striped toboggan cap against a pea-green background. By substituting the toboggan-cap red for the pea-green background, with the artist’s approval, we obtained a poster effect that dominated the newsstands and achieved an immediate sellout.

ENTER MR. HEARST

In the Nineties I had been asked to provide a lay-out for the Sunday magazine section of Mr. Hearst’s New York paper. I could not do this properly except at my Wayside Press. This the typographic union would not permit, but in the years that followed, I enjoyed an intermittent part-time association with Mr. Hearst--working on magazines, papers and motion pictures.

One of these assignments was _Good Housekeeping_. This magazine had been published by the Phelps Company, and had achieved a circulation of 250,000 copies. Additional sales would tax the plant and necessitate more equipment and the magazine was sold to William Randolph Hearst. I was asked to design a new lay-out and to take over the art editorship during its formative period. For the new venture Mr. Hearst ordered a Winston Churchill serial--_Inside the Cup_ if my memory is not at fault. Mr. Tower, the editor brought from Springfield, said this would mean taking out departments and a loss of half the circulation--but the departments came out, the serial went in, Mr. Tower resigned, Mr. Bigelow became editor, and circulation mounted into the millions!

In 1915 Mr. Hearst asked me if I could arrange to give him all of my time and art-supervise production of the motion picture serial, _Patria_, starring Irene Castle. I agreed.

In 1920, after writing, staging and directing _Moongold_, a Pierrot fantasy photographed against black velvet, using properties but no pictorial backgrounds--an independent production launched with a special showing at the Criterion Theater in Times Square, I returned to Mr. Hearst in an art and typographic assignment including magazines, newspapers, motion pictures and a trip to Europe where commissions were placed with Edmund Dulac, Arthur Rackham and Frank Brangwyn. Somewhere along the trail _Spoils_, a drama in verse, and _Launcelot and the Ladies_, a novel, were written--the former printed in _Hearst’s International_ and the latter destined to carry a Harper & Brothers imprint--but not to become a best seller.

Another Hearst project in the early Twenties was a new format and the creation of a typographic lay-out for _Hearst’s International_. For the lay-out, the headings of which would have to be different from those provided earlier for _Cosmopolitan_, I designed a set of initial letters, later catalogued by the foundry and called “Vanity.” Knowing that Mr. Hearst would want to use portrait heads for covers and that they would all have to be made by a single artist whose style did not permit of confusion with the Harrison Fisher heads used on _Cosmopolitan_, I approached Benda with the suggestion that if he would use one color scheme for both head and background he could probably get the contract. On seeing the first Benda cover Mr. Hearst asked how it happened that this was the only Benda head he ever liked! He was told, and authorized a contract.

These _Hearst International_ changes led to my being asked to give thought to strengthening _Cosmopolitan_ headings in 1923. The request came on a Monday morning. The issue then in hand closed at Cuneo’s in Chicago on the following Friday. Mr. Hearst never urged hurry, but early results were appreciated. Obtaining a current dummy with page proofs, I headed for the ATF composing room at Communipaw, N. J. About half-past four I had personally set, without justification, every heading in the issue--using Caslon in roman and italic in the manner it had been assembled by uninhibited compositors of the Colonial period. That night, at home, I trimmed and mounted proofs in a new dummy. The mixing of roman and italic in radically different sizes and with consideration for desired emphasis, with possibly a 96- or 120-point roman cap starting a 48- or 60-point italic word, resulted just as I had visualized while the type was being set in fragmentary form. No changes were necessary, and every minute of the afternoon had been good fun. Tuesday I left for Chicago; Wednesday was spent at Cuneo’s where, using this reprint copy, all headings were set, made-up with text pages, and proved; Thursday the new lay-outs were enthusiastically approved in New York; Friday, at Cuneo’s, _Cosmopolitan’s_ managing editor closed the forms according to schedule. It had been a grand lark--and within a few weeks that free style of typography began to appear in national advertising.

One morning a request came from Mr. Hearst to use color at every editorial opening in _Hearst’s International_--a startling innovation at a time when illustrators were accustomed to drawing or painting only for reproduction in black and white or for an occasional insert in process colors. Closing day on the current dummy was only two weeks away. With the aid of editorial substitutions it was thought we could make the date. Taking a dummy showing possible signature distribution of colors, I made the round of studios to find artists agreeable to the use of one extra color.

After ten days’ work I arrived at the Blackstone Hotel in Chicago, where Mr. Hearst was holding conferences. I had an appointment for noon of the next day. Spending the intervening time at Cuneo’s, I finished the dummy and appeared for my appointment, asking at the hotel that Mr. Hearst’s secretary be informed. The clerk shook his head; orders had been given that no phone calls were to be put through to that floor. The manager was called, I pointed to my brief-case lying on the counter, and said that Mr. Hearst was waiting for its contents. The manager took a chance, made the call, and I was told to go right up.

The conference was in a large room with window seats overlooking the lake. We sat on one of these seats while the dummy was viewed--page by page--twice. Mr. Hearst was pleased and asked if he might keep the dummy so he could enjoy it at his leisure. I told him the closing date would not permit this. He understood, and saying so in an appreciative manner suggesting a pat on the back, he sent me off to catch the afternoon limited so I could reach New York in the morning. There I was shown a wire evidently written and sent as soon as I had left. It was to Ray Long, editor-in-chief, saying: “Shall be pleased if future numbers are as attractive as the dummy I have just seen.” That is the “Chief”--always stimulating and appreciative!

TOWARDS A NEW STYLE

After retiring from the Hearst organization I was recalled and asked to go to Chicago and see if something could not be done to improve the printing of illustrations. A trip to Chicago was not necessary, there being an obvious change long overdue in the New York art departments, and not in the Cuneo printing plant. This fact was reported to Mr. Hathaway, who had relayed the request from Mr. Hearst in California; but Chicago was in the cards and I went. Upon my return a written report, the substance of which had received Mr. Cuneo’s approval, was given to Mr. Long. In lay language, briefly expressed, it said: “Illustrators should be cautioned about an over-use of fussy and valueless detail and asked to restrict their compositions to only so much of the figure or figures, backgrounds and accessories as are required for dramatic story-telling and effective picture-making; requested to forego a full palette when subjects are to be presented in only one or two colors, and to simplify renderings and avoid so many broken tones. Full-page and spread reproductions will then not only solve your press-room worries but create a new and finer type of magazine.”

Mr. Long read the report--thoughtfully, I believe--talked with his art editors, and finally decided the suggestions were too radical. But had Mr. Hearst been in New York, and had the report gone to him, his _Cosmopolitan_ and _Good Housekeeping_ would have led the field in adopting principles of illustration that are now universal.

When asked to provide a new lay-out for _McClure’s_ magazine, then a recent purchase by Mr. Hearst, I reveled in an opportunity to apply the suggestions presented in the report. Making photographic enlargements of available illustrations and eliminating all non-essentials I used full pages and spreads and prepared the dummy with a new note in typographic headings. Ray Long looked at it and gasped. “Will,” he said, “a magazine like that would outshine and humble _Cosmo_.” Mr. Hearst was still in California. Too bad! I had made suggestions of worth and Mr. Hearst, running true to form, would have weighed their values--not for a revived _McClure’s_, perhaps, but for his other magazines.

* * * * *

And now there is little more to tell, unless you want to listen to the way I enthuse about our present-day illustrators, their delightfully imaginative composition and masterly use of color. They are grand campaigners! God love them and the editorial lads who give them opportunity and encouragement. They are making an old man mighty happy--yes, making him envy their fun while he is relegated to sheer laziness in the siesta sun of California.

Before final retirement I managed to lay out a new _Delineator_, a new Sunday magazine for the _Herald Tribune_ (about 1925), and a lay-out suggested by early New England news-sheets for the _Yale Daily_, and ... well, I guess that’s about all. No! Listen. In these last three lay-outs I continued to use my beloved Caslon!

TODAY IN 1954

Do conditions today give the ambitious young designer and printer the same opportunities I enjoyed back in the late Victorian period? Not the same, of course, but even greater.

While it is true that the Nineties were literally made to order for a boy who had acquired only such training as was to be had in the sparsely equipped print-ship of a weekly newspaper in a pioneer iron-mining town, today is made to order for the ambitious young designer and printer who is availing himself of the training to be had by even the small-town beginner.

Back in my boyhood days a study of such examples of design and printing as now reach even the most remote out-posts of the printing industry, would have taught me more than I learned during a year in the art department, so-called, of the publishing house of Rand McNally in Chicago.

The inspiration to be derived from the text and advertising pages of our standard magazines, together with the creative art of school children and the art magazines, quite unknown at the turn of the century, supplies a liberal education teaching the beginner how to appreciate and use the printing and designing advantages of today.

What are these advantages, and why do they open a door to exceptional opportunities not known in the Nineties? First, and perhaps of greatest importance, is the typographic consciousness now prevalent, especially in the advertising and business world, where it is universally recognized that effective typography and design increase sales.

Another advantage is to be found in the significant mechanical advances of the last few years, the significance of the growing importance of offset printing, presenting so many opportunities yet to be grasped by the designer. And, an infant industry now, but one of vast possibilities, is commercial silk-screen printing.

But upon my return to New York after many years in California I think my greatest thrill came when I witnessed the mechanical setting of type by photography. Always I have liked the feel of putting type into the stick, and I liked to see the composition growing on the galley. In all my years of working with type I have never made a preparatory lay-out, except when the composition had to be done by another, which happened only on magazine headings after a style had been determined in advance.

But this is an age of lay-outs, and in this new photographic process with the use of photographic enlargements, there are possibilities for display composition of any required size, and great variety, presenting intriguing possibilities for the creative designer and typographer.

All such steadily growing advances present opportunities which were nonexistent back in my own youthful days. Together with the superior training enjoyed by the youth of today, they have changed conditions into a new world fraught with wonderful opportunities far beyond any I knew in the Nineties.

w b

Short Hills, New Jersey
May, 1954

A CHRONOLOGY

This brief biography of the man called Dean of American Designers by _The Saturday Evening Post_ and Dean of American Art Editors by _Publishers’ Weekly_, is amplified from its earlier compilation and printing as a Typophile keepsake in 1948. It was first distributed at a birthday luncheon held in New York, for Mr. Bradley’s eightieth.

1868 Born in Boston, July 10, son of a cartoonist
on a Lynn daily newspaper.

1874 First finger in the “pi”--on being presented
a box of characters brought
home by his father for a small printing
press Will bought with his own savings
as a delivery boy.

1877 Moves to Ishpeming, a mining town in
northern Michigan.

1880 A job (with a salary of $3 a week) as a
printer’s devil, with the _Iron Agitator_
(later _Iron Ore_).

1885 Foreman with _Iron Ore_ at a man’s
wages, $15 a week.

1886 To Chicago--and an art department
apprenticeship with Rand McNally--sweeping,
dusting, running errands,
grinding tempera ... at $3 a week.

1887 With Knight & Leonard, Chicago’s
leading fine printers, as a full-fledged
designer at a salary of $21, and then
$24 a week.

1889 Free-lancing in Chicago; studio in the
Caxton Building.

1890 To Geneva, Ill., and first recognition
through covers for _Harper’s Weekly_;
posters for Stone & Kimball’s _Chap
Book_; cover designs for the _Inland
Printer_ (perhaps the first magazine
covers ever to be changed monthly).

1890 The creation of a widely copied type
face named “Bradley” by ATF.

1893 An exhibition at the Chicago World’s
Fair.

1895 To Springfield, Mass., the launching of
his Wayside Press, “At the Sign of the
Dandelion,” and plans for publication
of _Bradley: His Book_ ... his love for
Caslon and the beginning of a new Caslon
era as a result.

1895 The initial Bradley-designed paper
sample book for Strathmore.

1896 Exhibits at Boston Arts and Crafts;
Colonial typography attracts national
attention.

1897 Caslon types on Strathmore Deckle
Edge Papers prove successful; Bradley’s
plant is expanded and moved to a loft
in the Strathmore mill at Mittineague.

1898 Merges business with University Press,
Boston. Opens design and art service in
New York; specialty, bicycle catalogs.

1900 Mr. Bok, editor of _Ladies’ Home Journal_,
commissions a series of eight full
pages of house interiors for the _Journal_.
A roman and italic face, used later for
_Peter Poodle, Toy Maker to the King_,
is designed for American Type Founders.
While recovering from illness,
_Castle Perilous_ is written, later serialized
in _Collier’s_ with Bradley illustrations.

1902 _Collier’s Weekly_ appears with Bradley
cover (July 4).

1903 Heads campaign of type display and
publicity for American Type Founders.

1904 Writing and designing _Chap Books_ for
American Type Founders; setting typographic
style for decades.

1906 Writes and illustrates _Peter Poodle,
Toymaker to the King_ for Dodd Mead.

1907 Art Editor of _Collier’s_. Introduces new
technique in coordinating make-up, art
direction and typography. Holiday
number becomes collectors’ item.

1910-15 Simultaneous art editorship of _Good
Housekeeping_, _Metropolitan_, _Success_,
_Pearson’s_, _National Post_. Revises typographic
make-up of _Christian Science
Monitor_ ... beginning of a series of
stories later published as _Wonderbox
Stories_.

1915-17 Art supervision of motion picture
serials for William Randolph Hearst,
including _Patria_, starring Irene Castle.

1918-20 Writing and directing motion pictures
independently. Production of
_Moongold_, a Pierrot pantomime shot
against black velvet, using properties
but no sets, shown at the Criterion
Theater in Times Square, New York.

1920 Back to Mr. Hearst as art and typography
supervisor for Hearst magazines,
newspapers, motion pictures, and the
introduction, in _Cosmopolitan_, of many
typographic innovations.

1923 Writes _Spoils_, a play in free verse for
_Hearst’s International_.

1926 Restyles _Delineator_ and Sunday magazine
section of New York _Herald Tribune_
(not _This Week_).

1927 Harper & Bros. publish _Launcelot and
the Ladies_.

1930 Final, but far from inactive, retirement.

1931 Serves on AIGA “Fifty Books of the
Year” jury; delivers address at exhibition
opening, New York Public Library.

1950 Rounce and Coffin Club of Los Angeles
award, October 28, for “Distinguished
Contributions to Fine Printing,” at preview
of Huntington Library exhibition,
“Will Bradley: His Work.”

1953 New type ornaments (used at chapter-openings
in the present book) designed
for American Type Founders.

1954 Completion of a new paper specimen in
Strathmore’s Distinguished Designers
Series, almost sixty years after his first
sample book for Strathmore. Introduced
at University Club luncheon in
New York, March 25.

1954 Award of gold medal by the American
Institute of Graphic Arts at Annual
meeting, May 19.

“I have never known any guide other than what to me happened to look right.”--w. b.

AN AFTERWORD

Few names in the annals of American typography gleam as brightly as Will Bradley’s. Even fewer have made so varied a graphic contribution as this gentle man, now eighty-six and revered as dean of American typographers.

In May, 1954, he was awarded the coveted gold medal of the American Institute of Graphic Arts. The citation, necessarily brief around the rim, recalled one phase of his accomplishments: “To Will Bradley for a half-century of typographic achievement.”

A more revealing summary would be found in the commendation of the Rounce and Coffin Club award, presented at the Huntington Library in October, 1950. The Club held its special meeting to honor Mr. Bradley (then living in nearby Pasadena), and preview the Huntington retrospective Bradley exhibition, which included examples of his book design and illustration; articles and stories written; cover and poster design; type and type ornament for American Type Founders; and printing. Some seventy items were displayed, ranging from the Ishpeming (Michigan) _Iron Ore_ masthead, designed in 1886, to a Christmas greeting drawn in 1948.

The award, for distinguished contributions to fine printing, read: “_Because_ he has for seventy years been a source of creative inspiration in all the varied arts to which he has put his mind and hand; _Because_ he found American printing at the end of the last century in a dreary condition, held up to it the examples of the early colonial printers, revived the simplicity and dignity of Pickering and caused to flourish again the use of Caslon and the other old style types; _Because_ he created a wealth of new ornamentation and by his own demonstration introduced many original uses of ink, paper and bookbinding; _Because_ he redesigned the American magazine and gave to it the charm of a new outer garment with each appearance; _Because_ he cast the illumination of his talents upon the art of the poster, the children’s book, and even the motion picture; _Because_ his great direct aid and even greater inspiration have been acknowledged by many American typographers, including such leaders as Frederic W. Goudy, W. A. Dwiggins, Oswald Cooper and T. M. Cleland; _And finally_ because he has not ceased to be for the printers of our day, as for those of two previous generations, an inexhaustible fountain of kindly encouragement and new discoveries.”

Despite their glow, these words spell a clear appraisal of this man’s talents and graphic spirit. Ahead of his times, Mr. Bradley proved a pace-setting pioneer whose work was so fresh that its vitality is as measurable in the specimens of Strathmore and ATF, as in the Hearst periodical pages. Particularly when compared with that of his contemporaries, as Walter Dorwin Teague points out in his perceptive introduction.

Mr. Bradley was born in Boston in 1868. His father, a newspaper cartoonist, died when he was eight. Four years later his mother moved to Ishpeming, a small iron-mining town in northern Michigan. Here, he became a printer’s devil on the local newspaper.

The brief chronology of events in his legendary career (pp. 92-96) reveals pertinent details of the early years as art department apprentice with Rand McNally, Chicago map-makers, and as free-lance artist. He soon won recognition for his cover designs and drawings for _Harper’s Weekly_ and _The Inland Printer_, and posters for Stone and Kimball’s _Chap Book_.

In 1895 he returned to New England to set up his Wayside Press in Springfield, Mass. He was twenty-seven then, had just designed his first sample book for Strathmore, and developed publishing plans for _Bradley: His Book_. Volume one, number one was dated May, 1896; the subscription price, one dollar the year. The cover was a poster treatment of a tree on a grassy hilltop; the frontispiece was by Edward Penfield, himself the subject of a lead article. Center spread pages, decidedly in the Kelmscott manner, were devoted to a poem by Harriet Monroe, with a floriated border surrounding the text in caps. The body type was the ATF version of the Morris Golden face.

_Bradley: His Book_ was planned as an art and literary magazine, and also “a technical journal for those engaged in the art of printing.” Seven issues comprised its life span; the first four varied slightly from the initial 5¼ × 10½ inch size; the last three (of volume two) were 8 × 11 inches. A note indicated that “advertisements are newly prepared for each number without extra cost.” Products promoted included writing and printing papers, type, ink, periodicals, a “talking” machine, auto tires, baking and washing powder, and soap. A further note evidenced concern for design and typography, mentioning that “advertisements may be appropriately illustrated by any artist, provided the character of design and execution are suitable for pages of this magazine. Text on electrotypes will be reset in type from _Bradley: His Book_ fonts.”

From this point on, the Bradley career moved into high gear. In 1900 he was commissioned by the _Ladies’ Home Journal_ to design eight full pages of house interiors; he also designed a roman and italic type.

Three years later, at thirty-five, he headed a typographic and publicity campaign for ATF (1903), and wrote and designed their famous _Chap Books_. In 1907 he was art editor of _Collier’s_; and from 1910 to 1915 the simultaneous art editor for _Good Housekeeping_, _Metropolitan_, _Success_, _Pearson’s_ and _National Post_. Then in his early forties, he dipped into the field of the motion picture as art supervisor of serials for William Randolph Hearst. In 1918 he was writing and directing motion pictures independently. Two years later he rejoined the Hearst organization as art and typographic supervisor for their newspapers, magazines and motion pictures. In 1930, age sixty-two, he retired to southern California.

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Of the Bradley renaissance a quarter-century later, a single design accomplishment seems significant: The 1954 Portfolio in the Strathmore distinguished designer series, begun in California in 1951, completed early in 1954 and introduced at a luncheon sponsored jointly by the Typophiles and Strathmore, held at the New York University Club. The date was just a few months short of sixty years from that significant day when the first paper-use specimen was issued by Strathmore in Mittineague.

Among the speakers paying tribute were Edwin H. Carpenter of the Huntington Library; Thomas Maitland Cleland, designer and artist; A. Hyatt Mayor of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Frederic G. Melcher, dean of American publishers; Carl Purington Rollins, printer emeritus to Yale University; Walter Dorwin Teague, industrial designer, F. Nelson Bridgham, Strathmore president, and the undersigned reporter, who served as toastmaster.

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The first-hand account of the fabulous years recorded in this book has been assembled from separate papers written by Mr. Bradley at different times since 1949. No attempt has been made to unify the varying tenses, or modify the sometimes first-person sometimes second-person style of the author in these different memoirs. An attempt _has_ been made to connect these papers into one continuing narrative. To this end, some editing of over-lapping material and cutting of repetitious passages seemed essential.

The sources: A booklet titled _Memories: 1875-1895_, printed for the Typophiles and other friends by Grant Dahlstrom in Pasadena, 1949; another titled _Picture of a Period, or Memories of the Gay Nineties_, printed for the Rounce and Coffin Club of Los Angeles (also by Dahlstrom) in 1950; the Huntington Library hand list, _Will Bradley: His Work_, 1951 (again printed by Dahlstrom). The fourth source item is “Will Bradley’s Magazine Memories,” from the _Journal_ of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (Vol. III, No. 1, 1950).

Like most Typophile projects, this has been in process for many months. Though obviously a cooperative effort, much of the muscle and mind needed to shape and form it has been contributed by Peter Beilenson. He not only attended to the design and printing at his Peter Pauper Press, but also helped materially in its editing.

The alluring prospect of additional illustrations for these pages was reluctantly passed by. Our physical limitations and resources proved inadequate to reflect the qualities, and the scope and variety of Mr. Bradley’s work. Examples of his colorful designing and illustrating may be seen in the comprehensive collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Huntington Library, San Marino, California. A brief selection is shown in _The Penrose Annual_, 1955.

Despite his years, Mr. Bradley generously offered to develop the typographic plan of this book, and rewrite the entire text to further illumine certain passages. He also suggested he make new drawings to replace those on chapter pages, which were drawn in 1949 to enhance the solid text pages of the _Memories_ booklet (The type ornaments on these pages were drawn in 1953 for ATF.) This considerable task seemed an unnecessary burden, particularly since Mr. Bradley had reflected with characteristic charm and candor the recollections of his great years. Like every artist and craftsman of stature, he remains his own severest critic.

Numerous other friends have helped with this book: Among them, Arthur W. Rushmore and Edmund B. Thompson in its early planning; Robert B. Clark, Jr., and his colleagues at Strathmore; Nicholas A. Meyer, David Silvé, Stevens L. Watts and Robert H. Wessmann--each has been quick to answer every call, as has Will Bradley. For myself, it has been a memorable and rewarding book-making experience to work with these good friends, as it is a privilege to record here the indebtedness of The Typophiles for their invaluable and generous assistance.

PAUL A. BENNETT

Typophile Chap Books: 30

This thirtieth Chap Book in the Typophile series has been designed by Peter Beilenson, and printed on Strathmore Courier at his Peter Pauper Press, Mount Vernon, New York. The type face is Waverley; the binding is by the J. F. Tapley Company, New York.

This edition comprises four hundred copies for Typophile subscribers and contributors and 250 copies for general sale.

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Transcriber’s note:

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

The cover image for this eBook was created by the transcriber using the original cover and is entered into the public domain.