Conferences

American Typecasting Fellowship

Note: This is just my own personal page with information about these Conferences. It is not officially affiliated with the ATF; I'm merely a member of this group.

For more information on the group, see the (unofficial!) CircuitousRoot ATF Notebook.

See also the CircuitousRoot Notebook containing a Partial Bibliography of ATF Keepsakes.

This is a list of the biennial Conferences of the American Typecasting Fellowship, together with some of the sessions of Rich Hopkins' periodic "Monotype University" and Skyline Type Foundry's "Thompson Tech." My thanks to Rich Hopkins for his additions and corrections to this list; any errors which remain are my own.

If the conference's number and date are highlighted as a clickable link, click on this link for a page devoted to that conference.

Conference No. 1 (1978). Terra Alta, WV.

July 17-19, 1978. Conference title: "The First National Conference on Typecasting and Design." Hosted by Lynda and Rich Hopkins.

Conference No. 2 (1980). Larchmont and New Rochelle, NY. Hosted by E. H. ("Pat") Taylor, Out of Sorts Letter Foundry. Also called the "Second National Conference on Typecasting and Design."

The papers presented included Paul Hayden Duensing's very important Proposed Draft for a Syllabus of Typographic Taxonomy. This has been reprinted by CircuitousRoot.

• Visit to Pat Taylor's Out Of Sorts type foundry.
• Mike Parker, Mergenthaler Linotype Company gave two "multi-media" presentations on "letterforms and the roots of the various modern-day alphabets."
• Steve Saxe gave a presentation on the roots of American Type Founders, with a diagram of the ATF family tree.
• Visit to American Type Founders.
• Visit to Columbia University's Butler Library.
• Visit to A. Colish Press.
• Talk by Herb Johnson on Goudy.
• Stan Nelson "gave a thorough discussion on the making of the hand mold, accompanied by well-prepared slides on the process."
• Will Reuter discussed his methods for typeface design.
• Andy Soulé gave a presentation on electroforming matrices.

Conference No. 3 (1982). Oxford, UK.

July, 1982. Organized by Stan Nelson and Harold Berliner. The broadside commemorating this notes that it was held at St. Catherine's College, Oxford and that it was sponsored by the Printing Historical Society and the American Typecasting Fellowship with support from L'Association Typographique Internationale and the British Library.

Conference No. 4 (1984). Washington, DC. Hosted by Stan Nelson.

• Warren Chappell. "In Praise of Hot Metal."
• Stan Nelson. "Linecasting, An Ingenious Solution."
• Stan Nelson. "A Brief Look a the Typographic Collections of the Museum of American History."
• John Dreyfus. "Memories of Monotype. Dreyfus' notes and slides were later edited by Paul Hayden Duensing and Rich Hopkins into a paper entitled "Aspects of Monotype - I," presented as a keepsake at the ATF Conference No. 10 (1996, Charlotte, NC)
• Harold Berliner. "The Private Typefoundry as a Business."
• Jim Rimmer. "Lettercutting at the Pie Tree Press."
• Paul Hayden Duensing. "State of the Art."
• Stephen O. Saxe. "The Bruce Foundry" (published in ATF Newsletter No. 10 as "The Bruce Legacy to Typefounding.")
• Elizabeth Harris. "Wood Type Transatlantic."

Conference No. 5 (1986). Indianapolis, IN. Hosted by David Churchman.

This conference was reviewed in Fine Print Vol. 12, No. 4 (October, 1986). The conference included:

Clinics:

• Supercaster (led by Bob Halbert).
• Thompson (led by Bill Riess, Quaker City Type Foundry).

Presentations:

• "Making a Font of Type" (Richard L. Hopkins video).
• "Typecasters and Their Inventors" (Stephen O. Saxe).
• "Scale in Type Designs" (John Schappler, Ludlow Typograph Co.)
• "Foundry Pin Marks" (Dave Churchman, slides by Herb Harnish).
• "Driving and Fitting a Matrix" (Stan Nelson).
• "Matrix Forms and their Uses" (Paul Hayden Duensing).

Panels:

• "What Constitutes Good Type" (Pat Taylor, Rich Hopkins, Harold Berliner, Bill Riess).
• "The Future of Our Technology and Equipment" (moderated by Rich Hopkins)

Note: A commemorative casting was done at this conference; see below in the "Keepsakes" section.

Conference No. 6 (1988). Terra Alta, WV. Hosted by Lynda and Rich Hopkins.

• Peat, David W. "A Short Discussion into Victorian Type Design Patents"
• Rice, Roy. "MONO.COM Monotype File Conversion Program."
• Walczak, James E. "Water, Water, Everywhere - But Not In the Mold!!!" ("A short treatise on unclogging waterway passages in a Thompson typecaster mold.") Reprinted, with permission, by CircuitousRoot

Conference No. 7 (1990). Nevada City, NV. July 19-22. Hosted by Harold Berliner.

Conference No. 8 (1992). Williamsburg, VA. Hosted by Willie Parker, Dale Dippre and Pete Stinley.

Conference No. 9 (1994). Buena Park, CA. Hosted by Mark Barbour and the International Printing Museum.

Monotype University I (1995). Terra Alta, WV. Rich Hopkins.

Conference No. 10 (1996). Charlottesville, NC. Hosted by E. H. ("Pat") Taylor, Rick Newell, and Heritage Printers.

"Mini-Conference" (October 1996). Terra Alta, WV. International attendees.

Monotype University II (1997). Terra Alta, WV. Rich Hopkins.

ATF Trip to Germany (October 4-11, 1997). Note: This was an organized trip, not a Conference.

Conference No. 11 (1998). Sunnyvale, CA. Hosted by Frederica and Monroe Postman.

Monotype University III (1999). Terra Alta, WV. Rich Hopkins.

Monotype University IV. (2001) Terra Alta, WV. Rich Hopkins.

Conference No. 12 (2000). Rindge, NH. With technical session at Ashuelot, NH. Hosted by Julia Ferrari and Dan Carr (Golgonooza), and John Kristensen.

Conference No. 13 (2002). Provo, UT. Hosted by Rob Buchert, Dr. Thomas Hinckley, and Lou Crandall.

Monotype University V (2003). Terra Alta, WV. Rich Hopkins.

Conference No. 14 (2004). Terra Alta, WV. Hosted by Lynda and Rich Hopkins.

• James E. Walczak. "My Self-Contained Cooling System for Type-Casting Machines." (Oxon Hill, Maryland: Sycamore Press & Typefoundry, 2004). Reprinted, with permission, by CircuitousRoot

Note: The original plans for a 2004 meeting in Leipzig did not come to fruition.

Monotype University VI (2005). Terra Alta, WV. Rich Hopkins.

Monotype University VII. QUESTION: When was it?

Conference No. 15 (2006). Carson, CA. Hosted by Mark Barbour and the International Printing Museum.

Conference No. 16 (2008). St. Louis, MO, Grafton, IL, and Kampsville, IL. Hosted by Johanna and Schuyler Shipley (Skyline Type Foundry, then at Kampsville, IL).

Conference No. 17 (2010). Piqua, OH. Hosted by Gregory Jackson Walters.

The speech at the banquet was by Theo Rehak. This was captured on video by Nick Sherman and is online at: http://vimeo.com/47799644. This conference also featured a screening of a pre-release version of Richard Kegler's film Making Faces. For more on this film, which is in my opinion the most important work in English on making metal type, see the P22 web page for it at: https://www.p22.com/products/makingfaces.html or the trailer for it on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ph0ooDzD4ZQ

Thompson Tech I - III. (WHEN?) Kampsville, IL. Skyline Type Foundry.

Thompson Tech IV. (possibly 2009) Kampsville, IL. Skyline Type Foundry.

Thompson Tech V. (January 2012). Prescott, AZ. Skyline Type Foundry.

Conference No. 18 (2012). Portland, OR. Hosted by the C. C. Stern Type Foundry & Museum of Metal Typography. http://www.metaltype.org/

Thompson Tech VI. (June 15-19, 2013). Prescott, AZ. Skyline Type Foundry.

Thompson Tech VII. (WHEN?) Prescott, AZ. Skyline Type Foundry.

Monotype University VIII (August 25-31, 2013). Terra Alta, WV. Rich Hopkins. Focus on the Welliver computer interface to the Monotype Composition Caster.

Conference No. 19 (2014). Aug. 13-17 2014, co-sponsored by Frank Romano (Salem, NH) and the Museum of Printing (North Andover, MA).

Conference No. 20 (2016). Aug. 11-14 2016, in the "Finger Lakes" region of New York state. Co-hosted by Richard Kegler and the Wells College (Aurora, NY) Book Arts Center, the Press & Letterfoundry of Michael and Winifred Bixler (Skaneateles, NY), the Cary Graphic Arts Collection of the Rochester Institute of Technology, and Geri McCormick and Virgin Wood Type (Rochester, NY).

Conference No. 21 (2018). M&H Type Foundry, San Francisco. TO DO: Conference agenda and keepsakes pages.

Thompson Tech VIII. (January 2019) Prescott, AZ. Skyline Type Foundry.

Conference No. 22 (2021). Organized by Kylian and Sara Wrzesinski (Raky Press), Brian Ferrett (M&H Type Foundry), and Dr. David M. MacMillan (CircuitousRoot). Sponsored by The Typemakers Society, Inc. This was to have been held in southwestern Wisconsin at and near the foundries of the Wrzesinskis and Dr. MacMillan, but the COVID pandemic intervened. We planned it completely as an in-person conference for 2020, but had to cancel it. We planned it completely again in 2021 as an in-person conference (with the venue moved to nearby Madison, WI), but again had to cancel it. In the end, we did it as an online conference in 2021. Everyone was disappointed, of course, not to be able to meet in person, but the online format did allow significantly expanded participation, especially by people overseas. TO DO: Conference agenda and keepsakes pages.

"Mini Mono U." (March 2022). Terra Alta, WV. Rich Hopkins. See the ATF Newsletter, No. 45 (June 2022) , pp. 16-19.

Conference No. 23 (2023). This conference was to have been hosted by Gregory Jackson Walters in Piqua, Ohio, in 2022. However, Greg's unexpectedly early death in January of 2022 made this impossible. Scott Vile (Ascensius Press, Buxton, Maine) has graciously stepped up to host it at his press and at Wolfe Editions (Buxton, Maine). It will happen over three days from April 28 through April 30, 2023. As of late 2022 there is no further information available.