Blue Pencil

Blue Pencil is a “slog”: a slow blog. It does not get updated daily or even on a regular schedule. Instead, it gets updated when there is something of value to be posted. Postings often take a long time to prepare and appear at intervals of a few weeks or even months. Sometimes there is a flurry of postings within the span of a few days. Blue Pencil may be unpredictable in its frequency, but not in its purpose. Blue Pencil is fiercely dedicated to the 3Rs: research, reading and writing.

31 January 2018

The Definitive Dwiggins no. 101—Martinsville, Ohio

“Welcome to Martinsville” sign on eastern outskirts of town. Photograph by Paul Shaw (2006).
Clinton County. Detail from Topographical Map of Clinton, Fayette, Greene, Pickaway, and Ross Counties (1872).
Martinsville, Ohio. Detail from Map of Clinton County, Ohio by H.E. Walling (1859).
Martinsville, Ohio—the town where W.A. Dwiggins was born in 1880—is in Clark Township, Clinton County. It lies nearly due south of Wilmington, the county seat. In 1889, Henry Howe described it thusly:
Martinsville, on the M. & C. Railroad, …
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30 January 2018

The Definitive Dwiggins no. 90—W.A. Dwiggins’ Ancestry, Part III: Moses and Eva Dwiggins

Moses Dwiggins at age 14 (1866). Photograph by Joe Wolfe (Wilmington, Ohio). Courtesy Special Collections, Boston Public Library.
W.A. Dwiggins’ parents were Moses F. and Eva S. Dwiggins.
Moses Frazier Dwiggins was born April 25, 1852 in Clinton County. Like his younger brother James, he worked on the family farm for several years after reaching manhood. [1] And, like his father Zimri, he taught school for a brief period. Clara Dwiggins, wife of Moses’ cousin Charles E. Dwiggins, wrote that “He taught school for …
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29 January 2018

The Definitive Dwiggins no. 100—The New Vienna Whiskey War

In the winter of 1873-1874, Dr. Dio Lewis of Boston sparked a series of temperance crusades in the center of Ohio. He lectured on temperance in Hillsboro on December 22 and in Washington Court House three days later. His first lecture “which came down like an electric cloud” fired up Mrs. Eliza J. Thompson who, with seventy-five women from the Hillsboro Presbyterian Church, began the First Crusade on Christmas Eve. That evening, and for several days thereafter, they gathered in prayer at …
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28 January 2018

The Definitive Dwiggins no. 85—W.A. Dwiggins’ Ancestry, Part II: Benjamin Y. and Sarah Siegfried

W.A. Dwiggins’ maternal grandparents were Baptists, the Rev. B.Y. Siegfried and his wife Sarah.
Rev. Benjamin Y. Siegfried. From Proceedings of the Seventy-Sixth Anniversary of the Ohio Baptist Convention (Columbus, Ohio: Press of Myers Bros., 1901), p. 33.
Rev. Benjamin Y. Siegfried (c.1868–1871). Photograph by G. Wm. White (Chillicothe, Ohio). Courtesy of Special Collections, Boston Public Library.
The pastor of the First Baptist Church in Wilmington in 1878 was the circuit-riding Rev. Benjamin Young Siegfried. He was born September 25, 1816 in …
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27 January 2018

The Definitive Dwiggins no. 83—W.A. Dwiggins’ Ancestry, Part I: Zimri and Phoebe Dwiggins

Zimri Dwiggins (c.1886). Photograph by East End Studios, Stigleman & Son, Richmond, Indiana). Courtesy Special Collections, Boston Public Library.
W.A. Dwiggins’ paternal grandparents were Zimri and Phoebe Dwiggins. [1] Zimri was born July 20, 1827 in Wilmington, Ohio, the county seat of Clinton County, situated midway between Columbus and Cincinnati. [2] “As a young man,” recalled the Wilmington News-Journal, Zimri “taught school in winter and farmed in the summer, and as an older man he devoted himself to farming….” In 1859 he owned …
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24 January 2018

The Definitive Dwiggins no. 80—The Society of Calligraphers

The first Society of Calligraphers was formed by Edward Johnston (1872–1944), Eric Gill (1882–1940), Percy Smith (1882–1948), and others in 1907, but by 1910 it had dissolved—possibly due to accusations by Johnston of plagiarism regarding Smith’s portfolio Lettering and Writing (London: B.T. Batsford, 1908). Eventually it was replaced by the London-based Society of Scribes and Illuminators in 1921. Between then and the early 1970s a handful of other groups devoted to the propagation of calligraphy were established: in 1935 the short-lived Cursive Group in …
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20 January 2018

Paper Is Part of the Picture no. 26—The Creative Doldrums (1974–1985)

This is one in a series of blog posts accompanying Paper Is Part of the Picture: Strathmore Paper and the Evolution of American Graphic Design 1892–2017, an exhibition that I curated at The Opalka Gallery of The Sage Colleges in Albany, New York. The exhibition ran from October 3 to December 15, 2017.
Strathmore Artlaid II watch book (Strathmore Paper Co., 1980). Designer unknown. Photograph by Vincent Giordano.
“The Sixties” came to an end with the resignation of President Richard Nixon …
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18 January 2018

Paper Is Part of the Picture no. 25—The 1960s (Part II: Swiss Style)

This is one in a series of blog posts accompanying Paper Is Part of the Picture: Strathmore Paper and the Evolution of American Graphic Design 1892–2017, an exhibition that I curated at The Opalka Gallery of The Sage Colleges in Albany, New York. The exhibition ran from October 3 to December 15, 2017.
the gestalt assault cover (Strathmore Paper Co., 1970). Design by Ken Kuenster. Photograph by Ariel Smullen.
From the early 1960s to the early 1970s Strathmore’s promotional mailings reflected the …
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14 January 2018

The Definitive Dwiggins no. 56—New Kind of Printing Calls for New Design

Front page of the Graphic Arts Section, Part Three of the Boston Evening Transcript (August 29, 1922). Design by George Trenholm.
W.A. Dwiggins has held an anomalous position within design history. His varied work as an advertising designer, book designer, and type designer is often praised but rarely shown in design history surveys. Instead, he is included principally as the coiner of the phrase “graphic design.” It is an assertion that I debunked several years ago, though it still persists. …
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7 January 2018

The Definitive Dwiggins no. 81—Who Coined the Term “Graphic Design”?

Three and a half years ago I wrote two posts about the origins of the term “graphic design” that debunked the commonly held view that W.A. Dwiggins deserved credit for it: “Graphic Design:” A brief terminological history (June 4, 2014) and  “Graphic Design:” more on the terminology of a profession (June 8, 2014). In them I traced the first use of the term to the California School of Arts and Crafts in 1921, one year before Dwiggins used …
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5 January 2018

Paper Is Part of the Picture no. 24—The 1960s (Part I: The Pushpin Style)

This is one in a series of blog posts accompanying Paper Is Part of the Picture: Strathmore Paper and the Evolution of American Graphic Design 1892–2017, an exhibition that I curated at The Opalka Gallery of The Sage Colleges in Albany, New York. The exhibition ran from October 3 to December 15, 2017.
“If All the World Were Paper” mailer cover (Strathmore Paper Co., 1964). Design by Push Pin Studios. Photograph by Vincent Giordano.
Seventy years after its founding, the Strathmore …
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4 January 2018

Paper Is Part of the Picture no. 23—The Return of Will Bradley

This is one in a series of blog posts accompanying Paper Is Part of the Picture: Strathmore Paper and the Evolution of American Graphic Design 1892–2017, an exhibition that I curated at The Opalka Gallery of The Sage Colleges in Albany, New York. The exhibition ran from October 3 to December 15, 2017.
Invitation to Strathmore Luncheon Honoring Will Bradley at the University Club, New York CIty (1954). Photograph by Ariel Smullen.
Will Bradley was rediscovered at the age of 82. …
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31 December 2017

The Definitive Dwiggins no. 71—Metaphlap-Jerbiam

Metaphlap-Jerbiam “Celebration” (Fiddlestrummings) (1916). Illustration by Hermann Püterschein (pseud. W.A. Dwiggins); calligraphy by W.A. Dwiggins.
Another peculiar bit of Dwigginsiana is Metaphlap-Jerbiam “Celebration” (Fiddlestrummings) (1916), a satirical poem written out calligraphically and illustrated by Dwiggins (in the guise of Hermann Püterschein). It consists of a single sheet of coarse, irregularly-shaped tan paper printed in black. Jerbiam in the title indicates that the poem is the work of John J. Phillips, Jr., who used the pseudonym J.J. Jerbiam in Vague, the magazine that …
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31 December 2017

The Definitive Dwiggins no. 72—More about Vague

Among the many items in the 2001 W.A. Dwiggins Collection at the Boston Public Library is a single undated sheet headed “MAXIMS and AXIOMS.” It is signed on the reverse by Hermann Püterschein (the alter ego of W.A. Dwiggins) and there is a pencil note that says “Page from the Notebook of a Modernist.” [1] The text suggests that the sheet is related to Vague no. 7, the satirical magazine that Dwiggins (in the guise of Püterschein), John J. Phillips, Jr., and …
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31 December 2017

The Definitive Dwiggins no. 69—Vague

Vague no. 7 (1915) is probably the strangest project that W.A. Dwiggins ever worked on. It is a hilarious satire of the avant-garde art and literature of its time with a few jabs at advertising along the way. But, true to its name, it is not easy to recognize all of its allusions or to understand all of its jokes.
Vague no. 7 front with belly-band (1915). Design by W.A. Dwiggins.
Vague was published in the spring of 1915 by J.J. …
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31 December 2017

Paper Is Part of the Picture no. 21 Cornelia Hoff addendum

At the end of Paper Is Part of the Picture no. 21 I included a short note about Cornelia Hoff. Since I published that post Alex Jay, who operates The Tenth Letter of the Alphabet blog, has sent me more information about Hoff which he plans to publish on January 8, 2018. What follows is a summary of what he has learned.
Cornelia Josephine Hoff was born on June 22, 1903 in Concord, Massachusetts to Anton J. and Pauline Hoff, …
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