Antioch Bookplate Company I

Antioch Bookplate Company

By

Edith Anderson Rights

Suddenly my attention has been focused on the Antioch Publishing Company (formerly the Antioch Bookplate Company) a concern with which most Americans who love books are familiar. [All facts about the history of Antioch Bookplate Company and any quotations used in this article were taken from the company’s publications: catalogs, brochures, and online web sites.] The spark for this attention was the announcement [New York Sun, June 14, 2007] that Antioch College (founded by Horace Mann) of Yellow Springs, Ohio, plans to close its doors on July 1, 2008, because it can no longer function in a fiscally valid manner. A few days later concern was expressed about the future of the periodical Antioch Review, a publication earlier spun off from its parent institution; unlike the Antioch Publishing Company which had never been officially a part of the college.

The Antioch Bookplate Company (the earlier name) is, so far as I can determine, the only business that has provided bookplate services for nearly a century, had absorbed an unknown number of their smaller competitors and is still the principal producer of universal bookplates in the United States. Small bookplate divisions still exist in companies, a few companies have survived more than a few years, and new companies still appear, but Antioch Bookplate Company is the largest and best known in the United States.

As early as 1946, I (then a college student) chose the Antioch bookplate G9 for use in my personal library. Later, in two decades (1984-2004) of inspecting institutional bookplate collections I saw and photocopied for my own use those advertising brochures and bookplate catalogues as appeared in these collections in order to identify properly some of the bookplates that had entered my collection. Any inspection of a bookplate collection created in the early 20th Century may well disclose a small brochure produced by a graphic artist who offers a group of designs from which an individual could choose a bookplate; any number of these entrepreneurs solicited business in this manner, although most collections have only one or two of these brochures. Most of those bookplate brochures by individual artists had no publication date although in some cases a date can be surmised from the age of the collections in which they appear. So far the only other significant 20th Century catalog, that I have seen, came from the firm Berliner & McGinnis.

Antioch Bookplate Company III

With permission from the college, the students named their venture The Antioch Bookplate Company. Eventually Kahoe sold his interest to Morgan; while Morgan continued his education during daylight hours and printed bookplates and bookmarks by night. Relatives and friends pitched in to help him with his fledgling business. To sell his product to dealers, Ernest Morgan hitchhiked his way around the region. “As Morgan neared the end of his academic education, he was offered an attractive employment opportunity with McGraw-Hill and he had to decide between a promising future with an established publishing firm or continuing the struggle to make his own business grow. After much thought, he chose to risk following his own course because his dreams included much more that simply earning a living. His goal was to create a ‘community of work,’ based on the Quaker values with which he was raised. These values included honesty, mutual respect, tolerance, recognition of the dignity of people and their ideas, and corporate and individual responsibility. Far ahead of his time, Ernest looked upon the workplace as a community of equals, sharing in the process of meaningful work and its rewards. By 1929, profit-sharing was a practice of the company, an institution that pioneered in democratic, inter-racial and profit-sharing policies.

The first flyer from Antioch, presumably in the1930s, consisted of ten design images, coded in the catalog as M. The two most often seen are the first featuring owls and the second having a stylized gazelle, both universally popular images for bookplates. A later undated single sheet flyer depicted twelve new images including that show two additional very popular themes, the first with a familiar verse by an unidentified author and the other with a frigate under full sail. Variations of the frigate image have been used without the compass rose and with the addition of lines from Emily Dickinson’s poem: “There is no frigate like a book to take us lands away.”

With the publication of the 1944 catalog (35 pages), the company’s inventory of designs had grown exponentially. They had also acquired the design stock of Stenzel & Company of New York City and the black and white designs of the Rustcraft Company of Boston. Rustcraft had in the 1920s and 30s also carried a series of at least eight four- color designs enhanced with gold accents that Antioch apparently did not acquire. The bookplate image of M6 had appeared also in an earlier Joseph G. Bolger flyer, although Antioch, using the same pictorial, restyled the lettering. The design used as R66 is representative of the twelve bookplate designs identified in the Antioch catalog as “the more popular items of the series formerly published by the Rustcraft Company, of Boston.”

Antioch Bookplate Company V

The catalog of 1959 also illustrated four of eight designs (printed in brown) created in the 1950s by a new artist Benton Ferguson; in 2001 the series was labeled ‘The Young Moderns’ and had been expanded ten designs, each with stick-figure people whose faces are obscured by their open books. Another artist, Mark Kelley contributed three designs for a series of eight color bookplates for children, William Pringle provided four designs, and Carl S. Junge was credited with a single design for bookplates that were otherwise plain labels. Dorothy Burrage Chandor’s cat on a stack of books, John Hucthhausen’s leprechaun, and Cullen Rapp’s ornamented label, all introduced in the 1950s, were designated ‘old favorites’ by 2002.

Among the new offerings in the 1966 catalog of 29 pages were Raymond Da Boll’s calligraphic design created for himself [see Bookplates in the News, #15, January 1974] that was printed originally by Antioch and later adapted as a stock plate with minor changes; and even later republished using only Da Boll’s calligraphic lettering; a reproduction of Katsushika Hokusai’s Wave now designated an ‘old favorite’ and (also without identifying the artist) a contemporary design.

By 1968 sales had reached $350,000 annually. That year Lee Morgan, Ernest’s youngest son, joined the company, and during the next two decades the product line expanded into new book-related items such as bookmarks and journals.

In the 1980s the company was renamed Antioch Publishing Company and eventually established operations in Canada, the United Kingdom and Mexico and has continued to expand. From a two-person operation utilizing a borrowed press in 1926, Antioch Publishing grew to have 600 employee-owners by the 1990s. For seven decades the company has continued the community-oriented spirit and human-centered values of its founder through its recycling programs, its charitable foundation, and its employee profit-sharing plans.”

Antioch Bookplate Company VI

The catalog of the 1990s covered Antioch Publishing Company’s expanded product line, relegating its bookplate coverage to pages 41 through 47, with thirteen new bookplate offerings among the many older designs like the ancient map of the world and the bouquet of massed flowers.

The online listing of 2001 and 2002 contained illustrations of two designs which had obviously been part of Antioch’s stock for years and that were newly labeled as ‘old favorites’ without any reference to their earlier catalog numbers: the sepia design of an owl in a leafy background, and a colored design of a central medallion with two birds and three flowers within a scrolled branch.

Since 1926 Antioch Bookplate Company has published numerous versions of their philosophy and general policies that are interesting and informative. While universals, by their very nature, are not tailored expressly to an individual owner’s taste, in 1959, Antioch stated that: “bookplate art … alone among the arts seeks to show, in graphic form, some clue to the personality and spirit of its owner, some suggestion of his motivating values or interest, or something of his feelings about literature and life [and that] hidden beneath the sedate workaday exterior of each of us there is another self, a freer, truer self which most of us are afraid to show the world, lest our dignity suffer. There is a hunger for romance, poetry and adventure. Thus a personal bookplate should be both a device for identifying the books with their owner, and in a deeper sense a medium for identifying the owner with his books … to get a design that somehow ‘fits,’ not just in subject matter, but in feeling as well.”

And for those individuals who were not satisfied with a ‘universal’ design Antioch suggested: “If you have a design of your own, or can obtain such a design from an artist, our charge for making a cut is $3.00 … We strongly advise that wherever possible special designs be done by artists who can collaborate personally with their clients.” One such ‘commissioned’ bookplate [that I have seen] was prepared for and used by S. Barksdale Penick’s library in his home in Montclair, New Jersey. A print of this bookplate is in the Montclair Art Museum’s collection and reproduces the over-mantel metal sculpture of garden tools that hung over this library’s fireplace. Mr. Penick was later the president of the Montclair Art Museum’s board of trustees.

Antioch Bookplate Company VII

The (undated) enclosure in an Antioch bookplate box promised that “If, for any reason, you are disappointed with the bookplates you order we shall consider it a favor to have them returned regardless of whose fault it may have been, for few things are more annoying than a displeasing or defective bookplate.” Whether this policy is still in effect is not known.

Antioch designs represent the selected work of many artists through its eighty-plus years, and have covered a wide range of subjects and styles. While the designs illustrated here are representative, other recognized bookplate artists (in addition to those already cited) provided designs including Valenti Angelo, Franklin Bittner, Bank B. Gordon, Dan Burne Jones, and Thijs Mauve.

Antioch bookplates do have a ‘universal’ appeal, although many designs became dated because of changes in modern opinions about styling. Many of their designs have been used for decades – are still popular, as their recent designation as ‘old favorites’ states. Certainly Dorothy Chandor’s cat deserves this accolade as does the bookplate featuring Sir Galahad in addition to the Spitzweg adaptation.

Six Bookplates by David Frazer I

Six Bookplates by David Frazer

By

Robert C. Littlewood

As the new Australian Bookplate Society struggles with all the pangs of re-birth, we have before us a dynamic group of young artists willing to create bookplates. One such artist is David Frazer. Frazer's contribution to this second life of the Australian Ex Libris movement is found amongst the English boxwood blocks stored in his studio. David Frazer's enormous energy for this neglected art form has caused him to produce some thirty wood-engraved bookplates in eighteen months. Six of these works were selected to be exhibited at the State Library of Victoria as part of the “Mirror of the World – Books and Ideas” exhibition featuring the finest books and examples of the book arts from the Library's Rare Book collection. Selected independently by the curator (without knowledge of the commissioning process or the forthcoming publication of The Bookplates of David Frazer), as one of the very few examples contemporary contributions to the book arts, it is indeed another fine compliment Frazer has received for his outstanding art work.

Viewing the entire body of David Frazer's bookplates so far reveals an artist with a strong sense of humor. His use of symbolism is so brilliantly simple the viewer may miss it completely in enjoying the fun of each bookplate solely. At times the subject's life story is concealed within a topographical image.

English born artist Tony Irving lives amongst his urban subject matter in his adopted city of Melbourne, Australia. The artist has punctuated his career as a realist painter with focus on images from his city ... the Luna Park fun fair, Dimmey's department store’s Edwardian clock tower folly and the now unused silos which exist simply to support the Nylex Plastics electronic clock.

Leigh Hobbs, artist and author, best known for his children’s book characters of 'Old Tom', 'Horrible Harriet' and 'Fiona the Pig', is depicted here with his friend 'Mr. Punch' embarking on another moonlight adventure.

Secretary of The Australian Bookplate Society, Edwin Jewell is a serious collector of many things. David Frazer has succinctly fused Edwin's profession as an accountant, displaying an abacus, with his collecting all things related to the 'Incredible Hulk', the famous green monster Lou Ferrigno created for television.

Six Bookplates by David Frazer II

If you go down to the woods tonight you're in for a big surprise. Artist John Hart and his fellow bears involve themselves in fun rituals ... big and hairy ... wearing the same tribal uniform, sometimes not! John Hart's constant companion Ralph barks with pagan delight as a good time is had by one and all. Deep inside Ralph's canine mind is a hope that the next life will deliver him to Paradiso.

Some of the author's immediate family are represented here too. Katherine N. Littlewood, affectionately known as Kitty, is a multiple published author in her own field of expertise. Every now and then (and more often in conversation) David Frazer's egocentric sense of humor surfaces in his art work. Interestingly, the artist has put himself in as an author and collaborator of imaginary book titles from the subject's library. The bookplate for Caitlin Littlewood reflects the joy of childhood. Sometimes parental ambition for a child is blind to the notion that a child should enjoy their childhood by simply being a child. The image of the Skipping Girl comes from a landmark in Melbourne, Victoria, where this neon sign sits on the roof of a building that once was the 'Skipping Girl Vinegar' factory.

A critical comment may be mentioned: "David Frazer`s ex libris are some of the most beautiful designs I have seen in my life. They are very, very beautiful - an enjoyment for the senses and the eyes … sensitively full of strength and beauty engraved in a tree. He is really a great artist and Australia can be proud!" -- Ingeborg Kunze–Jørgensen, Curator, Frederikshavn Museum of Art and Ex Libris Collection, Frederikshavn, Denmark.

Six Bookplates by David Frazer III

Checklist of the Bookplates of David Frazer

Yvonne Allen
Doug Beach
David DeCampo
Robert Dickerson
Colin Entwisle
Martin Flanagan
Derham Groves
Ian Halliday
Robbie Harmsworth
John Hart
Pro Hart
Leigh Hobbs
Lars T. Holden
Tony Irving
Robert Jacks
Edwin Jewell
Hendrikje Krone
Caitlin E. Littlewood
James R. Littlewood
Katherine Littlewood
Marcus J. Littlewood
Robert C. Littlewood (The Wine Bar)
Robert C. Littlewood (The Boat)
Stewart Lush
Alan Michael
Andrew Peake
Geoffrey Ricardo
Garry Richards
Wendy Stavrianos
John R. Walker