Due to the current health crisis The Printing Museum will be closed for the foreseeable future…
If you have the means, please support the Museum during this difficult time.
THE LATEST ON THE MUSEUM BLOG
6 MUST WATCH FILMS FEATURING PRINTING
The perfect antidote to your quarantine blues! Spend your time inside with some great films about or featuring printing and presses.
Park Row 1952
The quintessential film about printing, and the only one that focuses purely on printing, a love letter to printing and journalism. To get an idea of just how into printing this film is, it opens by scrolling through an image of every daily US newspaper’s nameplate, which is quickly followed by the producer’s name in type on a composing stick held by a statue of Gutenberg. The story revolves around two rival newspapers on New York City’s Park Row in the 1880’s. The movie goes into great detail explaining print shop terminology and imagery with a young Printers Devil serving as the audience stand-in. It even features a completely fabricated, but enjoyable, version of Ottmar Mergenthalers invention of the Linotype. You should watch this film for the dialogue alone which includes gems like “There are four subjects one should never argue about; Anthropology, bird calls, romance, and, of course, Newspapers”, “Mr. Spiro, escort this wench back to her slaughterhouse before I throw her out of here right on her front page” and, the perfect pick up line for a printer, “What’s a job printer like you doing with such a big press?”
Stream on Amazon Prime
Part Four of our series on Women in Printing History
To round out our discussion of Women in Printing History, let’s take a look at a woman better known for her writing than for her printing. What started for her and her husband as a hobby turned into a fulltime publishing business. This Saturday, March 28, marks the 79th anniversary of her death.
Virginia Woolf was born on January 25, 1882. After the death of her mother, Virginia experienced her first mental breakdown. She was only 13 years old. Two years later, her half-sister and a mother figure to her, passed. Ten years later, Virginia’s father, who encouraged her to begin writing professionally, passed away, and she once again suffered a mental breakdown.Woolf was troubled by her mental illness throughout her life. These mental challenges, incidentally, were instrumental in her becoming a typesetter and printer.
Independence Day Celebration
Saturday July 4th
Featuring
The Confounding Brothers
Patriotic Printing, Colonial Friends, and Freedom Dogs included!