Liberty Is Desirable: Nationalism, Patriotism, and Jingoism in 19th Century Type Specimens

On August 8, 2024, I gave a talk at the Letterform Archive on Liberty Is Desirable: Nationalism, Patriotism, and Jingoism in 19th Century American Type Specimens. The video is now available at Vimeo.

Eight Line Pica Condensed from Specimens of Printing Types and Ornaments Cast by Johnson & Smith (Philadelphia 1834). Image courtesy of Columbia University Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

A Note on the Title
The original title of this talk was Reading Type Specimens: From Cicero to Spoonie Diddel, Ladies Cicerone. It was copied from the title of a talk I gave in June at St. Bride Library in London. That talk was a chronologically and geographically broad investigation into the literary content of type specimens. For the Letterform Archive I decided to narrow the topic to expressions of nationalism and patriotism and to limit my sources to 19th century American type specimens.

The subtitle was taken from The Typographic Advertiser, the house organ of the MacKellar, Smiths and Jordan foundry in Philadelphia where it was used as copy for Long Primer Gothic No. 4. “SPOONIE HIGHDIDDEL, LADIES’ CICERONE / accomplished Professor of Small Talk and Agreeable Nothings / Offers his Services to Good Society / For exceedingly trivial Remunerative Acknowledgments / Room No. 2367, Boudoir of Leisure.”* This text first appeared in an 1868 specimen book from MacKellar, Smiths and Jordan. Between 1868 and 1892, the year that MacKellar, Smiths and Jordan became the linchpin of American Type Founders’ Company, it was constantly altered and truncated in various specimen books. Finally, in the 1895 ATF specimen book Spoonie Highdiddel became Spoonie Diddel.

I chose From Cicero to Spoonie Diddel, Ladies Cicerone as the subtitle because of the verbal pairing of cicerone (in English, a guide in an art museum; in Italian, a chaperone) with Cicero. I reluctantly jettisoned it once I made nationalism and patriotism the focus of my Letterform Archive talk.

“Type for Display with Old Styles” in The Typographic Advertiser vol. XVII, no. 2 (January 1872), p. 490. Image courtesy of Columbia University Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

A Note on the Tagline
To spark interest in my Letterform Archive talk, I threw in the tagline: “Uncle Sam is Some Pumki! No more shall copy bad perplex my brain!” The first part was taken from the sample of Two Line Pica Gothic Shade in Specimens of Printing Type by Walker & Pelouze (New York 1857), while the second part comes from an epitaph of an anonymous compositor that was reprinted many times in the 19th century. I found it in the 1841 specimen book of the Boston Type Foundry. The line about Uncle Sam remained in my revised talk while the epitaph was scrapped.

*There is the possibility of sexual innuendo in Spoonie Highdiddel’s name. See the entry for Spoon in Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang by Jonathon Green (2nd edition, 2005) and for Diddle in Slang and Its Analogues Past and Present: A Dictionary, Historical… (vol. 6) compiled by John S. Farmer and William E. Henley (1892).