Category: book conservation

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Hymen Lipman and the Winterthur Museum and Library

During the month of February 2014 I will be continuing research into early nineteenth century bookbinding while on a Fellowship at the Winterthur Museum and Library.  Conservation and tool business will be on hold until March 3, 2014, but feel free to email me. Apologies for any inconvenience.

The Winterthur has one of the premiere collections of decorative arts in America, and one of the premiere book conservation programs, Winterthur/ University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation. The librarians seem to have a good sense of humor. Below is a excerpt from a blog post about their collection of trade cards, which mentions Hymen L. Lipman, who was a stationary bookbinder in Philadelphia:

“Hymen Lipman, born in Jamaica to English parents, immigrated to Philadelphia in 1829. Eleven years later he succeeded Samuel Stewart as the city’s leading stationer remaining at the 139 Chestnut Street address until 1849. His real claim to fame may be either as the first person to patent the revolutionary invention of a pencil with an attached eraser in 1858 or as having one of the five funniest names in history as posted in a YouTube video  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8c9mRklqQM.”

In The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance, Henry Petroski notes Lipman did indeed patent a pencil with an attached eraser, though after some litigation with Eberhard Faber in the 1860’s, a judge declared both patents invalid. Petroski’s book is very readable, encyclopedic and highly recommended.

Don’t miss the image of Hymen Lipman’s trade card on the Winterthur blog.

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Louis-Sebastien Lenormand: Scientist, Professor, Daredevil, Author of a Bookbinding Manual.

One may safely assume that most of the authors of bookbinding manuals tend to be somewhere between mild-mannered and introvertedly geeky. There are some starteling exceptions to this rule, however. Witness one Louis-Sebastien Lenormand. In the image below, he is hanging from the wood framed parachute, which he invented and publicly demonstrated.

From the wikipedia entry for Louis-Sebastien Lenormand

He coined the name para-chute (Greek-against, French-fall) and intended it to save people that had to jump from tall burning buildings. He also was a professor of physics, chemistry, and technology. In his spare time he was an editor of 27 volumes of Dictionnaire Technologique (1822-1827). And he wrote one of the best bookbinding manuals of the 19th century.

His 1827 Manuel du Relier  (Nouvelle Edition, 1833) was in print for over one hundred years.  He credits Dudin and Lesne as predecessors.  It is comprehensive and is especially concerned with technique. In addition to bound books, it also covers cartonnage allemand, or Bradel binding. There is a tremendous amount of interchange between English and French technical descriptions of bookbinding throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. Hannett, in Bibliopegia, 1835, thought that Lenormand’s illustrations of the man ploughing and the disembodied beating hammer were good enough that he copied them. Even if you do not read French, the fold out plates are worth spending some time with, though unfortunately they were not opened when Google scanned Nouvelle Edition….

I won’t even attempt to speculate about the relationship between parachuting and bookbinding, other than that both fascinated Lenormand immensely. I can only applaud his life and work, like the cheering crowd in the image above.