September 27th is World Tourism Day! This United Nations observance was created to raise awareness of the role of tourism within the international community and to demonstrate how it affects cultural, social, political, and economic values and growth worldwide. For today, Jared letterpress printed a solid lead electrotype from the Stockton High School Print Shop Collection. The cut depicts an old automobile traveling on the highway. If you’re looking for a place to travel, Old Sacramento is a great tourist destination! This was printed with black rubber base ink using our Washington hand press. #WorldTourismDay #tourism #SacHistoryMuseum #sacramento #museum #history #letterpress #printingpress #printing #printmaking
We have a very special letterpress greeting card for the person you are font of! After all September 26th is National Love Note Day! This day encourages individuals to send a note and that it doesn’t have to be Valentine’s Day to do so. The text used is all individual letters of type that has been locked in the chase. Top and bottom line is 36 point Stymie Black font and reads “I’m very___of you!” The word “FONT” in the middle is set in the following 48 point typefaces from left to right: Rimmed Black, Cheltenham Bold, Cloister Drop Letter, and Caslon Openface. The back of the card includes an image of a Washington hand press and the words “Printed at the Sacramento History Museum.” This card and other cards are available in our Museum Store! This was letterpress printed in a mix of rhodamine red and opaque white rubber base ink using a 3x5 Kelsey Excelsior tabletop printing press. #lovenotes #lovenote #pun #typography #art #SacHistoryMuseum #sacramento #museum #history #printingpress #asmr #printing #printmaking
September 26th is World Maritime Day! This day reflects the gratitude of those in the maritime industry and the benefits it brings to the world through global trade. While we don’t have many maritime cuts in our print shop, fear naut! Howard navigated our collections to find a very detailed photo engraving to letterpress print for today. This cut was made in the early 2000s to promote a special exhibit that was in conjunction with the Folsom History Museum. The print depicts a 19th century sailor with a ship a port in the background. This was printed using black rubber base ink using our Washington hand press. #WorldMaritimeDay #maritime #art #SacHistoryMuseum #sacramento #museum #history #printingpress #asmr #printing #printmaking
One of the great parts of having new traveling exhibitions throughout the year, our exhibits team strives to make local connections to Sacramento. With September 25th being National Comic Book Day, we thought we’d share about Sacramento’s first superhero. As part of "America's Monsters, Superheroes and Villains: Our Culture at Play," our newest exhibition by SuperMonster市City, we partnered with Impound Comics. Created by Brent Trayce Sands in 2020, Impound is Sacramento's first superhero. Over the last 4 years, the Imound Universe has grown and the business behind the comic is located in the Downtown Commons, just a few blocks from the Sacramento History Museum. #SacHistoryMuseum #museum #impoundcomics #history #sacramento #comicbooks #oldsacramento
September 25th is National Comic Book Day! Here at the Sacramento History Museum in our print shop, we don’t have any comic books, but we do have the a magnesium plate for printing the comics in the local newspaper almost 50 years ago. In this video, Howard discusses the magnesium engraving plate dated December 5, 1975 from The Sacramento Bee newspaper. This plate includes comics you might know such as Marmaduke, Witch Hazel, and Dennis the Menace. Jared and Howard also showed a portion of our newest exhibit, “America’s Monsters, Superheroes, and Villains: Our Culture at Play,” an exhibition by SuperMonster市City. It explores how toys we played with have reflected the country’s changing values and cultural tensions over the past 80 years. Hundreds of vintage toys, comic books, games, posters, media and more will be on display until January 2025. #NationalComicBookDay #comics #comic #SacHistoryMuseum #sacramento #museum #history #printing #newexhibit #oldsacramento
September 24th is National Punctuation Day! This day celebrates all things pertaining to punctuation. For today, Howard letterpress printed the standard punctuation sorts you would find in a California job case. The font is 72 point Caslon. Printed from left to right is period, comma, semicolon, colon, hyphen, apostrophe, question mark, exclamation point, and ampersand. This was printed with black rubber base ink using our Washington hand press. #NationalPunctuationDay #punctuation #typography #art #SacHistoryMuseum #sacramento #museum #history #printingpress #asmr #printing #printmaking
Viewers of our videos often mention that our print shop is very organized. There is an old phrase we live by and it’s the phrase that is printed in this video. For this press run of 50 copies, Jared letterpress printed a phrase in 36 point Cheltenham Bold Condensed type font. This phrase “A place for everything and everything in its place” has a variety of different origins. It has been a quote attributed to Ben Franklin and it has also been a quote published at the end of old American Type Founders type catalogs. The meaning of the phrase is the notion that everything should have a rightful place to be kept and that it should be returned to that location when not in use. This was printed with reflex blue rubber base ink using a 3x5 Kelsey Excelsior tabletop printing press. This print is part of a bundle of prints available in our museum store and website #typography #sacramento #museum #history #letterpress #printingpress #asmr #printing #printmaking #sachistorymuseum
September 23rd is National Baker Day, a day dedicated to the baking profession. What is the most common food associated with baking? Bread of course! For today, Jared letterpress printed a small photo engraving that he received about a year ago from a coworker at the Sacramento History Museum. This print depicts a loaf of bread and a fresh baked pie. This was printed with black rubber base ink using our Washington hand press. #NationalBakerDay #baker #bread #pie #powerofthepress #SacHistoryMuseum #sacramento #museum #history #letterpress #printingpress #printing
September 22nd this year is the Fall or Autumnal Equinox. That means summer is over and fall is here! For today, Jared letterpress printed our most fall festive photo engraving that we have in our print shop exhibit. This cut, made 3 years ago by our supplier, was used for our 2021 museum holiday card. The print depicts a leaf with a rain drop falling from it while a steamboat travels on the Sacramento River in the distance. This was printed with black rubber base ink using our Washington hand press, which was made in 1852. #autumnalequinox #autumn #fallishere #fall #art #SacHistoryMuseum #sacramento #museum #history #letterpress #printingpress #printing
On September 21, 1879, May Hollister Woolsey passed away at the age of 12 of viral encephalitis, likely stemming from a mosquito bite. May’s grieving parents, Luther and Mary Woolsey, presumably gathered up May’s childhood belongings, placed them in a trunk, and sealed it in a wall under the staircase of their home at 916 E Street in Downtown Sacramento, California. The trunk was discovered 100 years later when a new owner of the house was doing renovations. The trunk’s contents, over 600 items, offer a rare glimpse of life in Sacramento during the 1870s. May’s gravesite at the Old City Cemetery is one of the most visited gravesites in the cemetery with many visitors leaving toys at her headstone. The May Woolsey trunk, in addition to a selection of objects once stored inside it, is on exhibit on the third floor of the Sacramento History Museum. In this video, our Museum Director, Delta, discusses the trunk. #onthisday #todayinhistory #sacramentohistory #maywoolsey #history #museum #sacramento #oldsacramento #sachistorymuseum
Showing the whole letterpress printing process & getting ready to print for Get Ready Day (September 21)
We get a lot of questions from viewers about how we get ready to print in our print shop exhibit at the Sacramento History Museum. Well, today is a great day to cover that because September 21st is National Get Ready Day! For today, we are showing every step of the letterpress printing process.
The video begins with Howard entering the shop and putting on his apron and sleeve protectors. Then we move onto Howard rolling out black rubber base ink on the ink stone. This is done to create an even layer of ink on the stone and brayer. The remaining ink at the top of the stone will gradually be rolled out throughout the day as we’re printing.
The next step shown is setting type from the type case and then Howard sets the type on the bed of the press. He arranges furniture and quoins to lock the type up in the metal frame called the chase.
Howard then proceeds to letterpress printing the words “Get Ready Day,” which was set in 30 point Caslon font. This was printed with black rubber base ink using is our Washington hand press, which was manufactured in 1852.
#getready #getreadywithme #getreadyday #oddlysatisfying #history #museum #sacramento #letterpress #printingpress #printing #oldsacramento #sachistorymuseum #asmr #printmaking
September 20th is National Tradesmen Day! This day honors those in who work in trade professions and their skills that help build and benefit society. For today, Jared looked for inspiration in an old handy pack of various sorts that illustrate trades and professions. These type metal sorts from a handy pack were made by the American Type Founders in the 1920s. Handy packs contain small symbols for informational or advertising purposes for printers in the letterpress trade. Those printed from left to right illustrate a Washington hand press (pressmen), ink balls (printing trade), book binders, druggists/pharmacists, spinners, and dramatists,. Yes, we know what you’re thinking, Jared used our hand press to print an image of a hand press. These were printed with black rubber base ink using our Washington hand press, which was made in 1852. #NationalTradesmenDay #tradesmen #history #letterpress #museum #sacramento #printing #printingpress #oldsacramento #sachistorymuseum
September 19th is Talk Like A Pirate Day! For today, Howard turned to the largest wood type that we have in our print shop exhibit at the Sacramento History Museum to share his favorite pirate related joke. This large letter C is 30 line pica (5 inches) and is of the French Clarendon typeface. This piece of type was made in the late 1880s by the Hamilton Wood Type Company in Two Rivers, Wisconsin. This was printed with black rubber base ink using our Washington hand press, which was made in 1852. #SacHistoryMuseum #TalkLikeAPirateDay #joke #jokes #pirates #pirate #typography #museum #letterpress #printingpress #sacramento #history #asmr #printing
It’s not often that friends from other printing offices stop by the Sacramento History Museum, but when they do, we have them join us behind the printing press! While Michelle from Nice & Graphic Letterpress Studio in London was traveling in Northern California, she stopped by our print shop exhibit to meet Jared and Howard. Well, we couldn’t let her leave without printing something! In this video, Jared and Michelle letterpress printed a wanted poster with the name Nice & Graphic on the poster. If you like our letterpress videos, you’ll enjoy her videos as well! This was printed with black rubber base ink using our Washington hand press. #printmaking #sacramento #history #museum #printingpress #printing #typography #letterpress #oldsacramento #sachistorymuseum
Happy Type High Day! Today, September 18th, celebrates the height of type (although it could vary in different countries) in letterpress printing. All of the metal type, wood type, woodcuts, electrotypes, and halftones that we use in letterpress printing in our print shop exhibit, from the very smallest to the largest, measures exactly .918 inches in height (or at least it should). For today, Howard letterpress prints the number for type high, which is .918, using 12 line pica sized wood type in the Latin typeface. This type was made over 120 years ago by the Hamilton Wood Type Company. This was printed with black rubber base ink using our Washington hand press, which was made in 1852 by the Charles Foster & Brother Company in Cincinnati, Ohio. #TypeHighDay #typehigh #typography #SacHistoryMuseum #sacramento #museum #history #letterpress #printingpress #asmr #printing
