River Rat Printers

My husband and I have spent most of our lives along the Mississippi River, appreciating both old time letterpress printing and the romance of the steamboat era. We began in La Crosse, Wisconsin, moved downriver to Lynxville, Wisconsin, then to St. Louis, Missouri. We’ve learned that our twin interests are more linked than you might imagine: newspaper printing was the mass media of the 19th century, and riverboats a major form of transportation. The Mississippi was like a super highway in those days, and printers depended on it to deliver presses, type, and paper, and distribute news up and down the river.



As printers interested in history, we’ve done quite a few pieces relating to riverboats. Our first was “A Little Book of Steamboat Puns”, a small booklet of atrocious river puns we made up ourselves. Though the puns were bad, the booklet was nice. We gave a copy to the late John Hartford, musician and river lover, at one of his performances. Years later we met him again, and he actually remembered our booklet. Maybe it was because the puns were so awful.



While in St. Louis we became volunteers at the Golden Eagle River Museum, and got to use our riverboat cuts some more. We printed programs, name badges, and bookmarks for the group.




We also added to our riverboat cut collection through the generosity of Golden Eagle members. Irv Braun had worked for transportation printer Con Curran, and saved many railroad and riverboat cuts from oblivion when the company switched from letterpress to offset. And James Swift, known to everybody as Jimmy, was a writer and historian for the Waterways Journal, a St. Louis based river magazine. Jimmy bequeathed his collection of river cuts to us. Some of our cuts from Irv and Jimmy are shown below.



While in St. Louis, we actually had the opportunity to print on a steamboat. The Bibliographical Society of America hosted a Mississippi River cruise at its 2004 meeting. Bob and I hauled a Baltimorean table top press, paper, and supplies over uneven riverfront cobblestones and onto the boat, where we were offered a small, wobbly table to set up. We wondered if any of the attendees from major libraries and rare book rooms would want to bother printing our little bookmark. To our surprise, we had a long line. People were thrilled to have the opportunity to print something themselves.



Years later we once again find ourselves printing along the Mississippi River, this time back in our hometown of La Crosse. We’ve come full circle, and we wonder what links between letterpress printing and the river we’ll discover this time around!

I Love Cuts: Planes, Trains, Boats, and Automobiles

Some of my favorite printer’s cuts relate to transportation ― by locomotive, biplane, steamboat, clipper ship, Model T Ford, hot air balloon, or even horse-drawn hearse! Most of these vehicles are dated since printer’s cuts aren’t a 21st century item, but that’s part of their charm. No cuts of supersonic jets, bullet trains, or space shuttles exist as far as I know, but that’s okay. I’m perfectly content to stick with the old stuff!

Letterpress cuts of old cars can be light-hearted and humorous, as the pictures above and below show. It’s a world few people remember first-hand, when the automobile was a novelty, and driving on dirt roads either an adventure or an exercise in frustration. And then there are the logos for old cars you can’t buy anymore ― Auburn, Durant, Packard, Studebaker, and Nash ― all collectible and fun to play with.



I’ve written about train logos before, but didn’t get a chance to show any cuts of the trains themselves. Many of these were given to us by a friend who was a former employee of Con Curran, a St. Louis firm that printed for railroads.


Boats are another area of cuts to explore, and we especially enjoy them since my husband is a steamboat enthusiast. We were fortunate enough to receive a collection of steamboat cuts through our good friend Jimmy Swift who wrote for the Waterways Journal, a St Louis river-based magazine. We met Jimmy volunteering for the former Golden Eagle River Museum (see badge below). Jimmy Swift was a wonderful historian and writer who truly loved the river. In his will he provided a free memorial river cruise for his friends, complete with dinner and old-time banjo music. We printed a memorial piece for that cruise, featuring some of the riverboat cuts Jimmy had given us.





Cuts of planes, trains, boats, and automobiles ― souvenirs of the past, and fascinating mementos to collect. One of our cut drawers below shows a few more kinds of transportation. How many can you spot?

I Love Cuts: Railroad Cuts and Logos

I’ve always enjoyed trains — as a kid I grew up within a few blocks of where the Burlington Northern ran through my hometown. My sister and I made games of counting freight cars and seeing how many different kinds we could spot. We watched spinning train wheels until we were dizzy. And once we spotted a hobo, riding in style in a new car that was travelling by train to some auto dealer’s lot. We waved, and the hobo waved back to us. I love the sounds trains make, too – the whistles, the clack of the wheels, and that oddly fading sound (Doppler effect) as they pass by. So naturally as a printer, I love railroad printing cuts.

Our railroad cut collection got a big boost in the mid-1990’s. We hosted a meeting of the St. Louis Letterpress Society in our home, and one of our friends who attended said he had some cuts to give us. Irv was a former employee of Con P. Curran, a St. Louis firm that specialized in railroad printing. Con Curran advertised themselves as “the railroad printers”. Their offices, dating from 1893, were once located at 3rd and Locust in downtown St. Louis, in the area now occupied by the Gateway Arch. When the letterpress shop of Con Curran was broken up years ago, Irv was able to save railroad cuts and logos that otherwise would have been trashed.

Printers' cut of the old Con P. Curran office building at 3rd and Locust in downtown St. Louis circa 1893.


When we saw what he’d saved, we were amazed and grateful for his gift. There were cuts and logos from many different railroad lines — Detroit, Toledo and Ironton, Western Pacific, Rio Grande, Cotton Belt Route, Colorado and Southern, Frisco, Santa Fe, Burlington, Katy, Florida East Coast, D and W, Milwaukee Road, New York Central, Wabash, and Mobile and Ohio, to name a few. There were cuts of hand signals for trains, and cuts of the trains themselves. And there were cuts of the old Con Curran office building. It was a treasure trove for us.

Below are pictures of some of our railroad cuts. It’s fascinating to me to see what logos were used by what railroad lines. And for some of the old railroad lines long since defunct, these cuts are a memento of a time when much of the country traveled by train. What a great souvenir of our railroading past!










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I Love Cuts : Cuts of Women

I absolutely love cuts! These metal or wooden printer’s illustrations are addictive to collect. Big cuts, small cuts, plain cuts, fancy cuts, cuts of people, places, or things – there is no such thing as too many cuts. They’re one of the first things I look for at any printers’ swap meet.

One of the things that fascinates me about cuts is the things they show about the time when they were cast. Most cuts are line drawings, so like cartoons they tend to exaggerate stereotypes and perceptions. One subject that especially shows this is cuts of women. They can be roughly dated by their clothing, the way they’re drawn, and sometimes by their appearance in a specimen book.

A group of cartoon cuts we have of women (probably from the 1950’s) shows cute young women bending over to file, burning dinner, and even answering the phone in a towel from the shower while still wearing high heels. A “typical” housewife sings along with her Bakelite radio as she dries the dishes. The mood is light-hearted and frivolous, almost a Barbie doll-like caricature.



The artificial cheeriness of 1950’s ads turns up in the cut of a cowgirl with a lipstick-outlined grin. The cut of a woman under a barrel-like hair dryer in a beauty parlor is probably more realistic.



Contrast these to a circa 1930’s cut of a woman vacuuming her steps with a portable vacuum cleaner. Probably created as part of an ad campaign, this little cut shows a hard-working, no-nonsense woman during the Depression years. But the cut of the mysterious lady with the hat over one eye from a similar time period projects an air of intrigue.



Our cuts with a 1920’s feel show women who are seriously glamorous: a lady in a ruffled blouse in front of her mirror; and an elegant socialite dancing in a slinky gown and feather headdress. There are more stylized images, too, of a woman drinking a martini, and one with ripples of Art Nouveau style hair.





A circa World War I era cut shows a lady shopper, apparently sneaking home with an enormous new Easter hat, judging from the bunnies in the picture. The huge hats women wore then were a common joke.


One of our older cuts of women shows a 19th century woman in sunbonnet and muslin gown holding a basket of flowers. Though the cut is a bit worn, she looks sweet and innocent, part of a more rural society. The detailed copper engraving is characteristic of 19th century cuts, and makes them well worth seeking out. Though not easy to find, some still hide in the back rooms of older print shops or the corners of antique malls.


I wish we had more cuts of women! I’d love to have cuts of Gibson girls, women in hoop skirts, women in bloomers, or Rosie the Riveter women from World War II. Just like a snapshot, cuts show the way women were viewed not so long ago. And they’re certainly fun to collect!