William Edwin Rudge Papers

The collection contains mainly correspondence and estimates from the Elm Tree Press and Lane Press. The collection summarizes Rudge’s work in the fine printing business and gives particular insights into business partnerships with Robert L. Dothard (circa 1929-1980), a typographer and book designer, and Benjamin (Ben) Lane (1897-1987), president and general manager of The Lane Press from 1928 until 1961. Ben Lane’s work was known at the time for its high standards of printing. The documents provide an outlook of the trade’s changing pace. A series of letters, for example, offers a technical description of the purchase of new printing equipment and the impact that this will have in the quality and speed of his service. The letters also mention to a handful of customers that Mr. Rudge visits New York City very frequently.

While the collection does not hold any issues of Print magazine, it contains valuable information about its previous version, The Print Collector’s Quarterly (founded in 1940), in the form of subscription blanks and, for Print, information about its scope, circulation, advertising rates, address, and publication schedule. In these documents, Print is presented as "periodical relating to every phase of books, printing and printmaking. […] In it you actually see demonstrated the work of a variety of designers and typographers, different techniques of illustration and reproduction, many printing methods, papers and binding."

Rudge’s customers included Yale University Press, Columbia University, Vassar College, and Barnard College, Columbia University, University of Minnesota, New York University, The New York Public Library, the American Society of the French Legion of Honor, Inc. of New York, the Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis, the Archaeological Institute of America, the United Nations, the State of Vermont, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and the Bennington Historical Museum and Art Gallery. The collection also houses correspondence with reputed journals, like the Hudson Review and the Russian Review and popular magazines like McCall’s Magazine.

The Lane Press correspondence provides significant information about the business partnership between Rudge and Lane. Rudge's work as agent demonstrates his networking with previous Elm Tree Press customers to promote the Lane Press outside of Vermont.

Some financial information regarding the Elm Tree Press is available in the form of price lists, paper samples, binding samples, typefaces, and the work output including printed guides or catalogues to art exhibits (ex. a Grandma Moses Exhibit at Galerie St. Étienne in New York).

The collection may interest researchers of the history of fine books printing and publishing in Vermont and the development of the printing business during the 20th century. It may also be useful for understanding the history of graphic arts and typography.

The collection is arranged chronologically.