Call Number:

SCRC 197

Repository:

Temple University Libraries: Special Collections Research Center

Extent:

152.63 linear feet (252 boxes + 90 map folders + 1 type case, 1 glass-fronted display case, and 1 type tray)

Language:

Undetermined

Preferred Citation:

[Description and date of item], [Box/folder number], Richard W. Ellis Papers, SCRC 197, Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Date:

1368-1985, bulk 1924-1980 (inclusive)

Form:

Administrative records, Architectural drawings, Articles of Incorporation, Bookplates, Books, Booksellers' catalogs, Broadsides (notices), Bylaws (administrative records), Clippings, Copperplates, Correspondence, Diaries, Directories, Drawings, Ephemera, Etchings, Exhibition catalogs, Financial records, illuminated manuscripts, Ledgers (account books), Legal documents, Lithographs, Mailing lists, Manuscripts, Membership lists, Metal types, Negatives, Newsletters, Objects, Paintings, Pamphlets, Periodicals, Photocopies, Photographs, Playbills, Poems, Posters, Press releases, Proofs, Property records, Publications (documents), Publishers' bindings, Reports, Scrapbooks, Slides, Souvenir programs, Speeches (documents), Wood blocks (printing blocks), and Wood types

Abstract:

Richard Williamson Ellis was born in Washington, D.C., in 1895. After being introduced to and inspired by the acclaimed typographer, Bruce Rogers, Ellis began collecting the books of master printers, as wells as their letters, pamphlets, ephemera, broadsides, and proofs.

In 1924, Ellis launched his own press, the Georgian Press, initially located on Fifth Avenue in New York. In 1927, Ellis moved the Georgian Press to a renovated barn in Westport, Connecticut, where he stayed until 1933. Ellis printed some fifty books. Although some of them carried his own imprint, the majority of books produced at Georgian were printed for publishers and private collectors. At Georgian Press, Ellis became associated with many of the famous printers, publishing houses, bookshops, and private collectors of the day such as Cheshire House, Random House, Rimington and Hooper, and Doubleday, Doran and Company. In 1930, Ellis first collaborated with the Limited Edition Book Club, with whom he would establish a lifelong relationship.

Despite Ellis' artistic success and fame at Georgian Press, financial difficulties exacerbated by the Depression forced Ellis to close his business and sell the press in 1933 to George Macy, founder of the Limited Edition Book Club and the Heritage Club. In 1935, he and his wife Esther moved to Camden, New Jersey, where Ellis took a position with Haddon Craftsmen.

Ellis' time at Haddon Craftsmen ended in 1942. From 1942 to 1944 he worked for Kingsport Press in Kingsport, Tennessee. In 1945, Ellis moved to New York as a consulting book printer. Ellis worked at Curtis Publishing in Philadelphia from 1947 to 1956 working on the firm's popular magazines, The Saturday Evening Post, Ladies' Home Journal, Country Gentlemen, Jack and Jill, and Holiday.

After leaving Curtis, Ellis once again struck out on his own. Ellis' final work was commissioned by the Free Library of Philadelphia and was completed while Ellis was in his eighties: Pennsylvania German Fraktur of the Free Library of Philadelphia. Publication of the book marked the end of a sixty-year career in book designing and printing. During his lengthy career, Ellis gained recognition amongst his New York and Philadelphia colleagues as a master of fine printing. Ellis died on October 9, 1982, in Philadelphia.

The Richard W. Ellis Papers primarily document Ellis' career as a publisher, book designer, book collector, and printer. The collection is comprised of manuscripts, job files, correspondence, ephemera, photographs, and printing artifacts. Job files comprise a large portion of the collection, focusing on the multitude of printing and design jobs Ellis performed between 1925 and the early 1970s, and include correspondence, memoranda, publicity records, proofs, dummies, bindings, design sketches, and financial records. The remainder of the papers are divided among documentation of Ellis' personal life and records related to the book publishing industry and prominent personalities in printing and design. Included in the collection are collected manuscripts and papers related to Bruce Rogers and Frederic Goudy, and others printers and publishers. Related to this collection is Ellis' library of books he designed or collected, as well as books and periodicals on the subject of printing and publishing history, also held by and cataloged separately in the Special Collections Research Center.

The collection is arranged into 9 series as follows:

Series 1: Job files, 1916-1984

Series 2: Correspondence, 1917-1980

Series 3: Personal papers, 1919-1985

Series 4: Financial records, 1942-1964

Series 5: Photographs, 1859-1977

Series 6: Ephemera, 1646-1981

Series 7: Collected papers and manuscripts, 1874-1977

Series 8: Artwork, prints, and illustrations, 1770-1979

Series 9: Printing type, scrapbooks, and objects, 1368-1954