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Grammar School Arithmetic (a book from 1904)
Posted by Stickley in
21 Jan 2011 — 10:09am
21 Jan 2011 — 10:09am
Some scans from a book I picked up recently (for 25¢). Printed in 1904.
Interesting just to see how the type is set; complex fractions (all are all nut—no virgules to be found), the @ symbol for per-item cost, page structure, impressive engravings for illustrations, and the thoughtful mix of typefaces. Quite a complex project for metal type. All for the kids.
Yes, it has all the answers in the back.
Mcs
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21 Jan 2011 — 10:22am
A rather stylish cover, too: very au courant for the Art Nouveau period. Wouldn't mind some of that 49¢-a-pound coffee...
21 Jan 2011 — 10:47am
I believe that nut fractions were the default for the modern style at the time, if not for all styles.
At any rate, I made nut fractions the default in Scotch Modern, which is my version of the face shown here.
However, I only did the basic fractions—half, thirds, quarters, eighths—in pre-composed form (with arbitrary fractions in slash form), as I couldn't get anything more complex to work across the board in layout apps.
If this typographic layout were to be attempted today, it would be best done in an app which handles complex maths, probably in the Computer Modern typeface.
21 Jan 2011 — 12:50pm
Nice, thanks for sharing.
Gotta love that potato basket.
Poor kids, though.
21 Jan 2011 — 1:22pm
From examples given in "The Manual of Linotype Typography" by Orcutt and Bartlett, p. 182-183, however, it should be noted that this sort of thing was within the capacity of a Linotype machine. I couldn't say whether that, or letterpress sterotyping, would be more likely in 1904, however.
21 Jan 2011 — 1:50pm
out of curiosity, how was the long division sign set?
21 Jan 2011 — 4:05pm
The division sign looks to be a close parentheses with a line above it, they don't actually touch.
21 Jan 2011 — 4:13pm
This image is 2x3 inches, and being cut to actual size, whoever did the engravings had a very good hand (it's signed at the bottom, but I can't make it out).
Teachin' kids 'bout wheat.
21 Jan 2011 — 6:19pm
@ Stickley ,
Thanks.
22 Jan 2011 — 6:21am
Engraving like this was pretty standard fare for the period. There were legions of engravers. It was an industrial profession — shop rooms full of people making all those engravings for catalogs and advertisements, etc.
22 Jan 2011 — 6:08pm
The style used for this book is beautiful. It make be harder to read for a student due to the spacing, but it's certainly less dull than the textbooks that I used in school.
22 Jan 2011 — 9:57pm
Incidentally, I did a search for this book, and found that while this particular book is not on Google Books or the Internet Archive, several other books by this author are. Instead of being a teacher, he was a mathematician; he had written several books about the history of mathematics, as well as other textbooks for more advanced grades.
In fact, he was the compiler of one book that was still being reprinted into the 1960s: A Source Book of Mathematics.
26 Jan 2011 — 1:39pm
A title character in Peter Carey's novel "Parrot and Olivier in America" is one of those legions of engravers, drafted into his profession by a forgery ring. Pretty interesting descriptions of that venerable trade.
26 Jan 2011 — 2:40pm
This looks, and reads, great. The craftmanship is amazing. I especially appreciate the use of smaller-size figures for numbering of the exercises. Very sensitive…
26 Jan 2011 — 3:00pm
The Clarendon is the correct bold for the Scotch Modern.
I regret making the bold of my Scotch Modern high contrast (assuming that was people's expectation).
I should have made it a Clarendon, kind of like a Linotype duplex combo.
27 Jan 2011 — 6:15am
How about an alternate Bold then? Never too late, is it?
27 Jan 2011 — 8:19am
It is too late, I'm afraid. I don't have the stomach for another revival—the Modern Suite was a new idea for me at the time, and a huge undertaking, now I have some fresh ideas I need to explore. Maybe some other typeface will now get two bolds.
27 Jan 2011 — 9:47am
Umm... what about some kind of mash-up of a Bodoni and, oh, I don't know, an Egyptian?
27 Jan 2011 — 10:24am
There are two bolds in the new Pratt fonts of the Globe and Mail 2010 Adrian Norris redesign: both a traditional high contrast version and, au courant, a slab style.
27 Jan 2011 — 11:33am
Engraving like this was pretty standard fare for the period. There were legions of engravers. It was an industrial profession — shop rooms full of people making all those engravings for catalogs and advertisements, etc.
Would they still be engraving into metal, or by this time would a lot be done on scratchboard/scraperboard for photographic reproduction?
27 Jan 2011 — 1:25pm
Usually end-grain wood engraving. Wood engraving was most popular for several reasons- one reason being that the wood engraving could be set with the type. (Which would then be used to make the plates for mass printing.) Metal engravings are printed on a completely different kind of press- meaning: on separate pages, often on a different kind of paper.
31 Jan 2011 — 5:12pm
Wood engravings were usually turned into electrotypes so as not to smash the originals in lengthy print runs.
31 Jan 2011 — 5:40pm
Would they still be engraving into metal, or by this time would a lot be done on scratchboard/scraperboard for photographic reproduction?
The halftone process was more or less perfected by 1872, so one may presume that straight litho negs (black-and-clear only) were also used on or after that date.