Rochester Public Library Book Arts Ephemera

The Rochester Public Library Book Arts Ephemera spans the period from 1906 through 1942 and contains printed work created by or about three American publishers. The material was once held in vertical files in the library and was given to the Melbert B. Cary Graphic Arts Collection in the 1970s. Other published items received with the ephemera were cataloged separately. The ephemera remains filed as it was received Cary Collection, organized into three series: I. Frederic W. Goudy and the Village Press, 1933-1939. II. Earl H. Emmons and the Maverick Press, 1935-1942. III. Elbert Hubbard and the Roycroft Shop, 1906-1921. Series I, Frederic W. Goudy and the Village Press primarily holds ephemera related to Goudy rather than produced by Goudy. Folders 1 and 2 contain announcements and keepsakes from the noted Pilgrimage to Deepdene made in 1938 by a group of Goudy’s friends and colleagues in honor of the 35th anniversary of the founding of the Village Press. The outing was largely organized by New York printer Earl H. Emmons and the participants were asked to create keepsakes dedicated to Goudy which were assembled into souvenir portfolios. Also in the series is a folder of stationery and ephemera created by the Goudy Testimonial Committee, another group of supporters who were organized after the Village Press and Letter Foundery was destroyed by fire in January 1939. The third folder holds miscellaneous ephemera related to Goudy and his work. Series II, Earl H. Emmons and the Maverick Press holds pamphlets, cards, and other ephemera printed by Emmons on his home press. Emmons lived and worked in New York from the mid-1914 through approximately 1940 when he returned to Iowa, where he was born and raised. He was a close friend of Frederic Goudy and in deference to him would often spell his press name Maveric. Emmons was the self-published author of many humorous poems dedicated to subjects as diverse as Goudy’s hat and Mae West’s bust. His wife Ruth Ordway Emmons was a participant in projects of the Distaff Side, a group of women printers in New York. With his second wife Florence, Emmons ran the Hobby Shop in Iowa City, Iowa. Series III, Elbert Hubbard and the Roycroft Shop contains a series of booklets and maxims composed by Hubbard and published by his community of craftsmen in East Aurora, New York, with two larger pamphlets also written by him. The maxims were printed on postcard-size paper with one, “Horse Sense,” issued as a broadside.