Blog

We are busy here at the new museum location.We are almost entirely out of the original location. It is strange and sad to see it so empty. However, the new location will allow us to expand in many ways. It doubles the amount of space the museum occupies, which means more of the collection will be on display, we will have dedicated residency studios, and we can develop a classroom and library. In May we will be preparing the space with new paint, new lights, and doing a few repairs. Then in June and July we hope to have many volunteers who will help us set up the new pressrooms, displays, and classrooms. We can't wait to reopen and start printing again.

If you would like to help us unpack in our new location, at 1816 10th Street, Two Rivers, WI, please join us for one of our 'Move Events'. This is your chance to help re-open the new Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum. The museum is closed to the public for tours and general admittance, but you are welcome to join us as a volunteer as the...

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We have been busy packing since the beginning of the year. And now our first truck load has gone to the new location which is only 10 blocks away from the original location at 1816 10th Street, Two Rivers, Wisconsin! You can see how many of our Hamilton friends and family have helped up pack and get to our new home.

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For the last month we have been packing up one of the largest collections of wood type in the world. Here you can see what it takes to pack up 1.5 million pieces of type, a large collection of presses and machines, and many patterns for making wood type. While it takes a lot of boxes and bubble wrap, it also takes a lot of hands. Thank you to everyone that has made the trip to Two Rivers to help wrap, pack, and move this wonderful collection. We couldn't do it without you! This move will make us a stronger organization and we cannot wait to reopen and begin printing, teaching, and giving tours again.

Click on an image below to view more.

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If you would like to help the museum pack and move to a new location please join us for one of our 'Move Events'. The museum is closed to the public for tours and general admittance, but you are welcome to join us as a volunteer as the museum goes forward with their move to a new location in Two Rivers, Wisconsin. Check our calendar for the latest 'Move Event' dates. If you can't make any of the dates we currently have scheduled please check back, because we will constantly be updating the calendar. We have done such a wonderful job of raising money for the move because of our many supporters. This is just one more way to ensure that Two River's, printing, and design history will be preserved.

We will be having both weekend and weekday teams for packing, moving, and unpacking in the new location. Each 'Move Event' has a team leader and (hopefully) a hearty team of volunteers. Teams of volunteers...

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On December 29th, 2012 the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum hosted an open house with printing, type cutting demonstrations, and a celebration of the legacy of the Hamilton Manufacturing Company.

Thank you to everyone who could join us for our last open day in the museum's original location. We have a lot of work ahead of us with packing one of the premier wood type collections in the world at over 1.5 million pieces of wood type, but the event instilled even more hope in our hearts. The support from both around the world and here locally reminded us that we have a big wood type family. For those of you who couldn't make it please enjoy the wonderful photographs taken by Jeff Dawson of the local Lester Public Library. To see more please visit the flickr set. Please join us when we celebrate our reopening in our new Two Rivers location, which is yet to be announced.

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To help raise money and awareness for the museum the printers over at Mama's Sauce have dreamed up a fundraiser that unites lovely letters and great designers. They're releasing a set of 7 letterpress printed alphabet coasters inspired by the legacy and craft of the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum.

Love Letters is made with French Paper, includes A, E, I, O, U, &, and Y. Don't miss out on a project with such a fine roster of designers: Fuzzco, Justin Mezzell, Aaron Draplin, Dana Tanamachi, Jon Contino, Jessica Hische, Ross Moody.  These beautiful designs and their kindness has made us swoon. Get your pre-order on over at their website! They are currently taking pre-orders with completed sets expected to ship 1/25/13.

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Friends of the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum have banded together to help us in our time of need. Currently there will be two fundraisers on December 15th, 2012 one in Chicago and the other in Brooklyn. A great time to come together, get some great holiday gifts, and support the museum. Information is below, but if you would like to know more please contact those organizations directly.

Center for Book and Paper Arts
Columbia College Chicago
1104 S. Wabash
2nd Fl Chicago, IL 60605

Please join us for an open house, demonstrations, and print sale with all proceeds benefiting the Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum.

As you may know, the museum is being evicted from their current historic space and is asking for your support to make their impending move possible. Please consider donating some of your time and some of your printed material into making the dream of a new facility come true.

There's no better time to spread...

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From our press release that was posted today:
Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum will no longer reside in the building that bears its name. The property owners recently informed the museum that the 1619 Jefferson St. building in Two Rivers, Wisconsin will close and must be vacated, perhaps as early as February 2013.

Hamilton Wood Type is urgently seeking donations to address this sudden need and to protect its vast collection of wood type, antique printing equipment and rare type specimen catalogs. The museum’s director Jim Moran, artistic director Bill Moran and assistant director Stephanie Carpenter remain committed to transitioning to a new space.

“We are definitely moving and will be staying in Two Rivers,” says Jim Moran. “Unfortunately, the hopes of staying in the Hamilton building are not an option. It will be an important break in continuity for Hamilton as a manufacturer going back to 1880. However, this is an opportunity to find a...

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Last December brought more than winter. Just before Christmas, Thermo Fisher announced more layoffs in Two Rivers along with news that the plant’s operations were moving south to Texas and Mexico. Thermo Fisher is the owner of the complex that the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum resides in. A meeting with then General Manager of the plant was not encouraging. While the move was expected to take at least a year and a half, it was suggested that we make contingency plans to find a new home. There was a slight silver lining in those clouds. Should Thermo Fisher leave, the 150 office jobs in the main building would continue on site, and we could be around as long as the office was open. It must be noted that when the museum opened, it was due to the dedication of then General Manager, Mike Brown, to allow the Two Rivers Historical Society 20,000 sq. ft. of unused space to house the new museum. This came with an incredibly low lease which included heat and lights.

This year brought...

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P22 type foundry  and the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum are proud to announce a partnership that brings 19th Century ingenuity into relevance with the latest online technologies. This joint venture, known as the "Hamilton Wood Type Foundry" (HWT), will see a large collection of wood type designs converted into digital fonts that can be used with the latest Webfont CSS and Opentype programming abilities. P22 is working with the Hamilton Museum and other collections of scarce printed specimens as well as actual wood type to render these classic designs into fully functioning computer fonts.



Wood type first appeared on the printing scene in the early 1800s. This innovation allowed for letters to be made at very large sizes, previously not possible with metal type. As a result, posters and advertising materials...

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Found while looking through pattern drawers today. "Return to me." I wonder if they ever got it back.

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On Sunday, July 22^nd, the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum was packing ‘em in.  One hundred and thirteen visitors toured the museum, pulled a print and checked out the world’s largest collection of type.

Paper pressman’s hats were folded and worn by some. Others wandered into the pressroom to learn a bit of printing. Two presses had been set up for enthusiasts to try. One was a lock up of the state of Wisconsin with Two Rivers and Manitowoc heading the top of a poster. Lock up number two was a composition made up of a myriad of businesses from the two city’s past, including Schroeder Brothers Department Store, Mirro Aluminum, Carron Net Company, Paragon Electric and the Waverly Inn. All the cuts had been donated by Malley Printing, just a block south of the museum. Curious visitors got to crank one color on one press and do an overprint on the second.

Demonstrations of type cutting were handled by Georgie Brylski Leisch, daughter of Hamilton...

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Last night at the museum we hosted a Two Rivers Business Association 'Networking at Night' program. Many owners and employees from local businesses came to pull prints, learn about Hamilton's history, and see why so many people travel so far to visit our collection. It was a lively and fun evening. Our friend, Jeff Dawson, from the local Lester Public Library, took some wonderful photos of the event that you can see after the jump. Please make sure to check out more photos here on their flickr site.

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This morning blew in like a sauna full of fish, white fish. Lake Michigan simmered like a sea gull soup. The inside of the museum was dank with wilting paper and ink that refused to dry. Even the type was getting sticky and stuffy. Nothing could be kerned but the xxx condensed, the extendeds elbowed each other for space. The latins and romans grumbled from the lower cases and somebody had taken all the furniture. The pressroom slept like a gothic cathedral and some of the tuscans had wandered off. Quotes were tossed about in empty spaces, falling on deaf ears. No key would fit a quoin, the slugs refused to be locked up. Rules had been broken. It was time to turn on the lights.