Dissertation Information for Bruce Johnson NAME: - Bruce Johnson
DEGREE:
- Ph.D.
DISCIPLINE:
- Library and Information Science
SCHOOL:
- University of California, Berkeley (USA) (1983)
ADVISORS: - Frederic J. Mosher
COMMITTEE MEMBERS: - Robert D. Harlan - James D. Hart
MPACT Status: Fully Complete
Title: JAMES WELD TOWNE: PIONEER PRINTER, PUBLISHER, AND PAPER MERCHANT
Abstract: When the printing firm of Towne & Bacon was dissolved in 1868 by mutual consent, the event not only marked the close of one of San Francisco's most influential printing houses during the first twenty years after statehood, but also cut short a new and promising phase of James Weld Towne's printing career. Towne had come to San Francisco in 1852 and, the next year, had established Whitton, Towne & Company with his friend, Abel Whitton. Before coming to California, Towne and Whitton had worked together as journeymen in Boston at the Dickinson Type Foundry. Although San Francisco boasted several dozen printing firms, which competed for what was inevitably a finite amount of business, Towne seems to have received a greater share of business than most others. Job printing and small pamphlets were staple items produced at the Excelsior Printing Office, but Whitton, Towne & Company was also capable of producing books that can be compared favorably with any issued by commercial printers on the East Coast during the same period. If surviving examples of printing are any indication of output, Whitton, Towne & Company (and later, Towne & Bacon) produced almost 20% of the commercial printing issuing from San Francisco's presses. In September 1858, after a.three-month hiatus in Victoria, British Columbia, Towne returned to San Francisco to establish a new partnership with Jacob Bacon. Towne & Bacon built successfully upon the reputation developed earlier by Whitton, Towne & Company, and for almost ten years held sway as the preeminent printing and publishing house in San Francisco. Towne's ability to maintain adequate supplies of all sorts of printing materials went far in assuring this success~ James Towne's reputation was not built upon fine printing, for his Excelsior Printing Office was a commercial enterprise. Even so, in the mid-1860s Towne printed several books that were distinguished typographically, largely because of Towne's growing concern for the quality of paper and type he used in his books, the style of binding, and the general layout and design of his productions~ Unfortunately, Towne's health did not allow him to remain in San Francisco to capitalize upon his growing interest in quality books, finely printed. Towne's reputation as a commercial printer is secure. The press in San Francisco was still utilitarian in its service to the populace, and Towne's output closely reflects this nature,. The blank form, the legal brief, the almanac, the newspaper, the published sermon, the separately printed advertisement, and all other manner of utilitarian printing produced by Towne, provide an opportunity to understand the forces that set in motion, or inhibited, the political, social, economic, and religious activities in San Francisco from 1853 to 1868; the output of the Excelsior Printing Office closely reflected the concerns of citizens in San Francisco during that era~ James Towne left San Francisco in 1868 to become Eastern representative of the paper merchandising firm of Blake, Robbins & Company, which later became Blake, Moffitt & Towne. Although his print ing career was_ at an end, his standing as the foremost commercial printer in San Francisco before 1868 remains unchallenged, and his contribution is the yardstick against which the printing of all subsequent commercial printers must be measured.
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MPACT Scores for Bruce Johnson A = 0
C = 0
A+C = 0
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2008-06-27 20:22:53
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