Joseph Blumenthal

Joseph Blumenthal was an American printer and publisher, typographer, and book historian. As founder of the Spiral Press, he was a well-known figure in the 20th-century fine-press movement, designing and printing work for prominent clients such as the poet Robert Frost. In 1952, the American Institute of Graphic Arts awarded him a medal for craftsmanship in printing. Blumenthal was also a self-taught historian of books and printing and wrote both anecdotal and more scholarly accounts of the book arts. Early life and education Blumenthal was born in New York City in 1897. His father was a German immigrant who started out as a traveling salesman, which grew into a successful life as a merchant; his mother was the daughter of a German immigrant and nurtured Blumenthal's interest in books and reading. Educated in the public schools, he enrolled in Cornell University, but he left his sophomore year to enlist in the military, as did many of his classmates, when the United States entered World War I in 1917. He joined a Naval aviation unit, but he later recalled that his military service was uneventful. Early career and founding of Spiral Press Blumenthal initially followed his father into a sales career, but his love for books soon led him to seek a different type of job. His business experience would still prove useful as he began to work in printing and publishing. In 1924, he took a position with B. W. Huebsch, known for publishing authors such as James Joyce who were controversial at the time, and there Blumenthal quickly began to educate himself in the world of specialized publishing and fine printing. On sales trips, Blumenthal was first exposed to the work of fine printers and book designers including Bruce Rogers, Daniel Berkeley Updike, and the Nonesuch Press. Blumenthal, aware that he had not completed college, then went to Europe in 1925-26 to embark on a program of self-education in the history of books as well as the contemporary fine-press movement. To continue his informal education, Blumenthal subsequently found apprentice-type jobs in the print shops of William Edwin Rudge and Hal Marchbanks.