[I have been unable to find a public domain portrait of Rollins.]
Printer, educator, writer. Printer to Yale University.
Alexander Lawson wrote a biographical sketch of Rollins on the anniversary of Rollins' death. This has been reprinted in the Alexander Lawson Archive at http://www.lawsonarchive/november-20/ [2022: lawsonarchive.com seems not to be responding; try looking for this on the Wayback Machine of The Internet Archive.]
To the typemaker, Rollins is notable for two things only tangentially related to his great skill as a printer and his influence as a designer:
The passage in which he does the second of these things appears first in his "American Type Designers and Their Work" (1947):
[Rollins begins with hand punchcutting in steel by Abel Buell (1759).] "It was not until the invention of the Benton pantograph punch-cutting machine in 1885 that any other method was known. All type made before 1885 was therefore dependent on hand punchcutting..."
"American Type Designers..." (1947)
In 1947, R. R. Donnelley & Sons Company (founded in 1864 and still a major printing company today) held an exibition on the subject of "American Type Designers and Their Work" at the offices of their prestige imprint, The Lakeside Press, in Chicago. For this exhibition, Carl Purington Rollins wrote an essay (of the same title) and prepared a list of "American Type Designers and their Type Faces." The set of documents reprinted here comprises the four-page advertising flyer for the exhibition, together with Rollins' article and list (which were printed together). This particular copy was sent originally to the Indian typefounder Arvind Patel a decade after the exhibition (postmarked July 5, 1957). I have included a scan of the envelope for this, as it is a part of the history of this document. (Note: the name on this envelope is typed as "Ervind," but I believe that the correct spelling was "Arvind.")
The image above left links to these documents as hosted at The Internet Archive, where they may be read online. Here is a local copy of the PDF (304 Megabytes): donnelley-rollins-american-type-designers-and-their-work-1947-0600rgbjpg.pdf
This 1947 compilation ("American Type Designers and Their Type Faces") is the original source for most subsequent attributions of particular types to particular designers for the first half of the 20th century. As such, even though it is almost unknown, it may well be the most often (indirectly) cited publication in the history of 20th century type.
Both the essay and the list were reprinted in Print, Vol. 5, No. 4 (1948): 1-20 ( see below).
His essay in this work ("American Type Designers and Their Work") is also a concise summary of 20th century attitudes toward both the advent of machine methods in type-making and 19th century display types. This essay (without the list) was reprinted in the popular anthology Books and Printing: A Treasury for Typophiles edited by Paul A. Bennett (Cleveland: The World Publishing Company, [1951 or 1952; my copy is the "Forum" imprint paperback reprint of 1963.])
"American Type Designers..." (1948)
Rollins, Carl Purington. "American Type Designers and Their Work." Print. Vol. 5, No. 4 (1948): 1-20. This is a reprint of much of the material in Rollins' 1947 literature for the Lakeside/Donnelley exhibition (see above) .
Note that this article by Rollins is at the present time often being mis-cited as either " Print, No. 4" or " Print, Vol. 4, #1". Both of these citations are incorrect.
The image above left links to a reprint of this article as hosted at The Internet Archive, where it may be read online. Here is a local copy of the PDF (218 Megabytes): print-v05n4-1948-rollins-american-type-designers-0600rgbjpg.pdf
1. For a further discussion of this, see ../../../typemaking/ (Making Printing Matrices & Types) -> history (Type & Typemaking History and Design) -> how (How Do We Know?), which is a Notebook attempting to collect all of the sources for our knowledge of who designed which type in the 19th and 20th centuries. Rollins' position in this study is central.
Rollins' 1947 work for the "American Type Designers and Their Work" exhibition was published in the US without copyright notice at a time when such notice was required to secure copyright. It therefore passed into the public domain upon initial publication. This digital reprint remains in the public domain.
The copyright on the 1948 volume of Rudge's Print, in which Rollins' 1947 work was reprinted, was not renewed (as was then required). It therefore entered the public domain upon the expiration of its initial copyright. This digital reprint remains in the public domain.
Note however that the illustration of a pantograph engraving machine used in Rollins' essay was taken (with permission) from The Dolphin (published by Macy's). (This is acknowledge in the 1947 Donnelley version, but not in the 1948 Print version.) The copyright on The Dolphinwas renewed, and it remains in copyright. So any use of this image other than in a literal reprint of these 1947 and 1948 editions of Rollins' essay would probably be a violation of Macy's copyright on it.
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