DIES ~ DESIGN ~ DIGESTS ~ DAGUERREOTYPES

March 31, 2026

DIES ~ DESIGN ~ DIGESTS ~ DAGUERREOTYPES

FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES

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American History, Brick Walls, Puzzle Pieces, Charts and Maps, Collections, Critical Analysis, Family Stories, Genealogical Writing, Research Methods and Tips. _______________________________________________________________

Artist: Margaret Armstrong

LOC Library of Congress

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Book Stamp Engravers, Die sinkers

Gaskill, Copper & Fry. 18 Minor Street, Philadelphia, Catalog, "Book of Patterns"
Samuel Dodd (later Dodd Mead) of New Jersey.
Charles A. Wells and Benjamin Bradley of Boston (see B. Bradley)
John Feely of England and New York.

PHILADELPHIA

Gaskill, Copper & Fry.

18 Minor Street, Philadelphia.

Source: Nicholson, James B., A Manual of the Art of Bookbinding.

The image displays patterns from Gaskill, Copper & Fry's Book of Patterns, likely used for bookbinding. These patterns are intended for providing insight into 19th-century bookbinding techniques and design aesthetics.:

Gold Tooling: Impressing designs onto leather, paper, or cloth using gold leaf.
Blind Tooling: Creating similar impressions without gold leaf.
Decoration: Adding ornamental details to book covers and spines.
Stencils: The patterns could also be used as stencils for various decorative purposes.

Minor Street is no longer a street in Philadelphia. Businesses on Minor Street 19th C include

Gaskill, Copper & Fry. 18 Minor Street,

R. P. Smith, Lithographer, 15 Minor Street, Philadelphia.

R. Smith Brewery,

M. Carey & Son, Carey & Lea, Lea and Blanchard

Mathew Carey (1760–1839), was a native of Ireland and an influential economist, political reformer, editor, and publisher whose patrons included Benjamin Franklin and the Marquis de Lafayette. He founded a publishing firm, which soon became among the leading firms in Philadelphia and the young United States. During Carey's lifetime, the publishing firm evolved to M. Carey & Son (1817–1821), M. Carey & Sons (1821–1824), and then to Carey & Lea (1824).[14] Carey retired in 1825, leaving the publishing business to his son, Henry Charles Carey and son-in-law Isaac Lea. Frances Anne Carey (1799–1873) married Isaac Lea, who joined the Careys' publishing firm and became a partner. In 1833, Isaac Lea took on a new partner, William A. Blanchard. After the death of Mathew Carey and retirement of his son Henry Carey, they changed the business name to "Lea and Blanchard." Later Lea took on his own sons, and they changed the name to "Lea Brothers and Company."

Henry Charles Carey (December 15, 1793 – October 13, 1879) In 1821, Carey became the leading partner at Carey & Lea, at the time the largest publishing house in the United States. From 1849–57, Carey was a leading editorialist on political economy at Horace Greeley's New York Daily Tribune

Carey & Lea David Kaser

Messrs. Carey and Lea of Philadelphia: A Study in the History of the Booktrade (Anniversary Collection)

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BOSTON

Benjamin Bradley of Boston

https://www.nudelmanbooks.com/pages/books/6116/jared-sparks/binding-cloth-b-bradley-of-boston-1839-stellar-large-quarto-near-fine-condition-the-life-of-george

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NEW YORK

John Feely was a nineteenth century book stamp engraver. He hand cut brass stamps to decorate the covers of cloth-covered books."

"In her article “Book-Cover Stamps Engraved by John Feely, 1842-1877” in Decorated Cloth in America (1994), Sue Allen traces John Feely’s journey from Ireland where he was born around 1819, to London where a fifteen-volume set of Shakespeare’s Plays and Poems decorated with Feely stamps was published in 1842. By 1846, Allen found that Feely’s ads were appearing in New York City directories. He described himself in The American Advertiser (1851) as a “Designer and Engraver of Typographical and Bookbinding Ornaments”. Feely signed at least 109 of his more than 260 stamps with one of two monograms: either FEELY or JF joined together as if the two were one letter."

Sources: https://blogs.loc.gov/preservation/2022/02/john-feely/

Book-Cover Stamps Engraved by John Feely, 1842-1877”

Allen, Sue and Charles Gullans. Decorated Cloth in America: Publishers’ Bindings 1840-1910 UCLA, 1994.

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Other

Sarah Wyman Whitman (1842-1904), Boston.

https://blogs.loc.gov/preservation/2024/05/sarah-wyman-whitman/

Margaret Armstrong (1867-1944), New York.

https://blogs.loc.gov/preservation/2023/07/book-designs-armstrong/

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Bibliography

1. Nicholson, James B., A Manual of the Art of Bookbinding.

2. History of Bookbinding

https://www.marshallrarebooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/History-of-Bookbinding-Online.pdf

3.https://exhibitions.library.columbia.edu/exhibits/show/bindings/bibliography

Bindings

English bindings

John Carter's Publisher's cloth: an outline history of publisher's bindings in England 1820-1900 (New York: Bowker, 1935) is the standard history from a largely technological view.

A more recent overview of the history of English publisher’s bindings is found in Esther Potter’s article, "The Development of Publishers Bookbinding in the Nineteenth Century," in the Journal of the Printing Historical Society, No. 28, 1999, pp. 71-93.

An anecdotal approach is taken by the English collector, Robin de Beaumont, in the well-illustrated article "Nineteenth-Century Publishers' Bindings 1820-1900: A brief survey from my shelves" in The Private Library, 4th Series, vol. 9, no. 1, Spring 1996, pp. 146-185.

Standard references include Douglas Ball's Victorian Publishers' Bindings (London: Library Association, 1985) and the books by Ruari McLean, including Victorian Publishers' Book-bindings in cloth and leather (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1973).

For designer bindings from the latter part of the century, see Marianne Tidcombe’s "The Development of Modern Design in British Bookbinding," in The Private Library, 5th Series, vol. 1, no. 4, Winter 1998.

American bindings

Sue Allen’s Victorian Bookbindings: A Pictorial Survey (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972, reprinted 1976), is a nice overview of the American side. Unfortunately, the illustrations are on microfiche in a pocket in the back cover.

Decorated Cloth in America: Publishers' Bindings, 1840-1910 (Los Angeles: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, 1994) is a very interesting book, although the title is a little misleading -- it is actually two essays, one by Sue Allen on John Feely, the other by Charles Gullans, on Sarah Whitman and Frank Hazen.

Joseph W. Rogers "The rise of American edition binding" in Bookbinding in America, ed. Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt (Portland, ME: Southworth-Anthoensen Press, 1941), discusses technological history.

For designer bindings, Nancy Finlay's Artists of the Book in Boston, 1890-1910 (Cambridge, MA: Houghton Library, 1985) is useful. Although the book focuses on Boston, it includes many of the more important American designers.

Contemporary accounts

Three readable accounts, although from the end of the period are: Brander Matthews, Bookbindings Old and New (1895), Commercial Bookbindings: An Historical Sketch, with Some Mention of an exhibition…at the Grolier Club (1894), and William Matthews, Modern Bookbinding Practically Considered (1889)

For a technical approach, most nineteenth century works on bookbinding are either devoted to case bindings, or have sections on case

https://grolierclub.omeka.net/exhibits/show/rare-book-school/bookbindings-post-1800

NEW YORK

HOOLE DIES, MACHINE AND ENGRAVING WORKS

Prospect Street and Washington Street

"John R. Hoole (1811-1884) emigrated to America from England, where he had been a bookbinders’ finishing tool maker, around 1830. This was very early in the history of specialist finishing tool makers (as opposed to general engravers, who had done the work in earlier centuries). The trade coalesced because of the great amount of work involved in engraving large dies for the stamping of redition bindings, not just the manufacture of small tools for one-off bindings. Hoole and his children built a flourishing firm in New York, and became a major retail bookbinders’ supplier as well as a manufacturer of finishing tools. Several other American firms had similar 19th-century arcs. Around 1890 the firm passed out of family hands and moved to Brooklyn, and surviving Hoole tools (which are common) show that the amount of machine work increased dramatically around the time of the move. With the 20th century the binders’ supplies side of the trade sloughed off, and the manufacture of finishing tools declined. Between the Great Depression and the 1960s all of Hoole’s American competitors went out of business, and after the 1960s Hoole itself probably made no finishing tools, though they remained available to make them. The firm survived because it had branched out into page-numbering machines and other metal stamps, finally declining to a one-man general machinist’s shop. Thus, the Hoole firm lived through the whole arc of the specialist bookbinders’ finishing tool maker’s trade; and all its American competitors disappeared half a century ago, leaving almost nothing to record their existence beyond the tools they made and their listings in city directories. In addition, it was at the top of the trade in America, both for size and for quality, for most of its existence. Any historical materials on the Hoole firm and how it worked are vital to understanding the finishing tool trade, which was a key supplier to the binding trade. Hoole Machine & Engraving Works New York and Brooklyn, NY 1832-1911 Addresses in Brooklyn: 29-33 Prospect Ave. ; 30 Main Street. Directory of American Toolmakers Information While the "Est" date is 1832, this name and the Brooklyn address may be post-1900. The Hooles were America's most prolific bookbinding toolmakers, including John R. Hoole and his son, William E. Hoole. Identifying Marks HOOLE/MACH.&ENG.WK'S./BROOKLYN, N.Y."

By, Tom Conroy for American Bookbinders Museum, 355 Clementina Street, San Francisco, CA.