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John Fass: Longing for his Lancaster County Home ...from his Room at the Bronx YMCA

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Above: Little books about Lancaster County by John Fass.  1950s.  Hand-printed in his room at the Bronx YMCA. "The Hammer Creek Press"

My new website about John Fass is now online, here.

 

John Fass is Lancaster County's great claim to fame in the world of the 20th century book design and private press printing.

John was a Pennsylvania Dutchman from the village of Lititz, Lancaster County.  He was born here in 1890. (And he died here in 1973.) After working in the pressroom of a Lititz newspaper, he left home to seek fame and fortune in New York City.

He found no fortune in the Big Apple, but in the 1920s and 30s he became one of the best American typographers and book designers.

John Fass is celebrated, today, for the intimate little books he created in the 1950s from the cramped apartment room at the Bronx YMCA.  He printed his books with the name "Hammer Creek Press," in memory of the Lancaster County stream of his childhood.

John frequently returned to his family home here in Lititz, where he maintained rooms with his sister Esther Wert. 

He finally returned here to Lititz to stay, and lived the last years of his life near the sunfish and turtles of his favorite creek.

 

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Above: A Note on the Hammer Creek.  A little book by John Fass.

John printed a brief history of Lancaster County in this book, based on the 1883 History of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, authored by Ellis and Evans.

John Fass lived at the Bronx YMCA for 15 years, while working as a typographer for Madison Avenue advertising agencies.  During this time he printed more than 50 projects, for his own pleasure, on a tapletop Hughes & Kimber Albion press. 

He received the press from the illustrator Valenti Angelo in 1950, who one year earlier received the press from Bruce Rogers of The Riverside Press in Cambridge, Massachusetts. 

Bruce Rogers was one of the most influential American typographers and book designers of the 20th century, and had much influence on the John's design sensibilities.

 

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Above: A Primer of Life along the Hammer Creek.  A Little Book by John Fass. 

John DePol (born 1913 - died 2004) is one of the best-know American wood engravers. He was a native of New York City, where he worked for various commercial printing and publishing companies.

John DePol illustrated numerous books created by his friend John Fass.  The University of Delaware Library has the papers, photographs, and archives of both these artists, Here and Here.

 

 

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Above: Along the Hammer Creek a wood engraving by John DePol.

John Fass printed this pamphlet to showcase two John DePol wood engravings.  DePol and his wife Thelmas visited John Fass on various occasions in Lititz, where they all had a chance to get his feet wet in the Hammer Creek.

In 1998, the Rochester Institute of Technology published a biography / bibliography of John Fass and his Hammer Creek Press.  It is Here. 

"Fass was essentially a private printer, working alone at his own pace. What he did was done for his own pleasure. But his work, small in size and issued in minuscule editions, was exquisite and executed with impeccable taste. He was a genius at the arrangement of type, ornaments, and wood engravings. Every piece he produced was a small gem, for Fass had the time, skill, and materials to print everything by hand patiently and perfectly." Aveve Cohen.

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Merry Christmas from John Fass in the 1950s ...Printed in his One-Room Apartment in the Bronx YMCA

During the 15 years that John Fass lived in the Bronx YMCA he worked in Manhattan as a typographer for major Manhattan advertising companies. He worked in the type composition shops for these companies, including Young and Rubicam, one of New York's largest advertising firms.

John's responsibility was to render the ad designer's copy into type metal with "proofs on the desk in the morning."  It was night work.  He worked while the ad executives slept.

In the mornings, after work, he returned to his room at the Bronx YMCA where he printed mini masterworks on his table-top printing press.

A library in Portland, Oregon, recently exhibited a collection of Christmas cards printed by John Fass in the Bronx. That exhibit is Here.  I have a few more of those cards below.

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John Fass: A Premier Printer & Book Designer in the 1920s & 30s

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Above: Thomas Caryle on Books.  As Printed by John Fass.

In the 1920s, John Fass established a reputation as one of the leading American printers and book designers. He had earlier worked for the famous New York printer William Edwin Rudge ...who was known for employing and instructing some of the best American printers / book designers of the time, including Bruce Rogers and Frederic Warde.

In 1925 John Fass formed the Harbor Press, in Manhattan, along with Roland Wood. They quickly established an excellent reputation as fine printers and book designers.

George Macy, the publisher of the Limited Editions Club books, immediately noticed John's talents. From 1925 into the 1940s, John designed and printed many of the books published by John Macy.

John also worked as a typographer-designer for other printers and publishers.

Books designed and printed by John Fass and Roland Wood at their Harbor Press include the following partial list:

  • Extracts from the Diary of Roger Payne (for the American Institute of Graphic Arts) (1928)
  • Undine by F. De La Motte Fouqué (for the Limited Editions Club) (1930)
  • The Epping Hunt by Thomas Hood (for the Derrydale Press) (1930)
  • Idyll in the Desert by William Faulkner (for Random House) (1931)
  • A Bibliography of the Works of Ernest Hemingway by Louis Henry Cohn (1931)
  • The Golden Ass by Apuleius (for the Limited Editions Club) (1932)
  • The Angler by Washington Irving (1933)
  • Hunting Sketches by Anthony Trollope (1933)
  • The Study of Incunabula (for the Grolier Club) (1933)
  • Typee by Herman Melville (for the Limited Editions Club) (1935)
  • The Ballad of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde (for the Limited Editions Club) (1937)
  • An evening with Ninon by Louis How (1941)

In the 1930s, John also designed books for The Typophiles, a New York club for printers and typographers.

Dr Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt, in his Book in America explained that John Fass and his Harbor Press created books with "...a flavor of good breeding and tradition...which is pleasantly mixed with a sense of humor and intimacy." 

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Along the Hammer Creek Today

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