February Midday Program

Oh we’re gonna shuffle-uffle-uffle off to Buffalo.

You won’t have to navigate the crowds at Grand Central Station to shuffle off to Buffalo. Just click a Zoom link and you’ll be transported to the Nickel City during what designers now call the mid-Century modern era.

As you arrive, you’ll be swept along to meet the Salisbury Club, a bibliophilic society that grew out of a friends group of the rare books branch of the Buffalo Public Library. During their time together, the members promoted public collections at the Buffalo library, the local historical society, and the University of Buffalo.

They also published a handful of private fine press editions (with stunning wood-cut illustrations) that highlighted little known documents as well as national figures with upstate New York connections. (For instance, it’s an easy drive from Buffalo to Elmira … if there was any well-known author who took up a Conklin fountain pen there.)

If you’ll be eating lunch as you watch, and Buffalo wings are too spicy, then put some brats, cheese soup, and maybe a bottle of Spotted Cow on the menu. We’ll be in the company of Jonathan Senchyne, Associate Professor of Book History and Print Culture in the Information School and Director of the Center for the History of Print and Digital Culture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Go Badgers!

So avoid a kerfuffle as off you shuffle and book into Buffalo today!

Preregistration required via website. Zoom presentation is free and open to all. Please forward this notice to anyone who may find it of interest. 

Even if you can’t attend at the scheduled time, if you’re interested, please register. After the program, we’ll send an email to all registrants, asking if you’d like a link to the complete recording. That way you can see the program even if you couldn’t attend live, ran into technical issues, or simply wanted to watch it again.

February Evening Program

Robert Hunter Middleton (1898-1985) was a Caxton Club stalwart for half a century. He is now remembered primarily as a pioneer in the revival of the great engraver on wood, Thomas Bewick. In his own day, however, Middleton was best known as the prolific designer of types for the Ludlow Typograph Company of Chicago. In 1985, the Caxton Club published a retrospective of Middleton’s career as RHM: The Man and His Letters, still the standard reference. In this talk, Paul Gehl will illustrate how Middleton embodied (and wrote about) the relationship of fine press printing and other craft practices to design for mass-market, industrial scale printing.

Paul is Curator Emeritus at the Newberry Library. At the Newberry, he processed the Middleton archive, and after retirement he authored a book on Middleton’s early career as type designer. Just this year he edited a volume with the title, The Designer-Craftsman Speaks: Writings of Robert Hunter Middleton.

Both of Paul’s books and the Caxton Club’s memorial volume will be available for purchase upon registering for the program. See details below.

Register today.

Doors open 5:30 PM CT. Presentation 6:00. Optional Reception: $32, including light appetizers and refreshments, to follow. Event ends at 8:00 and does not include dinner.

Registering for the program will allow you the opportunity to purchase copies of books for pickup on the night of the program. Books will not be offered for sale the night of the program.

March Midday Program

“So, are you going out with that Aldus guy again?”

“I don’t know. Not sure I like that type.”

Aldus. Aldine Press. Italics. Octavo. All immensely influential in the history of printing innovations. So let’s Zoom to Venice in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries to meet that fascinating and exacting printer, publisher, and nurturer of writing talent: Aldus Manutius.

Our guide on this journey will be Dr. Oren Margolis, associate professor of Renaissance Studies at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, a UNESCO City of Literature. Much published, Margolis created an exhibition called Aldus Manutius: The Struggle and the Dream at Oxford’s Bodleian Library and is the author of Aldus Manutius: The Invention of the Publisher (Reaktion Books, 2023).

Even though he was awarded his PhD from Oxford and his MA in Medieval History from King’s College London, Oren speaks passable American, having earned his BA from that traditional Big Ten school the University of Southern California.

Aldus printed incunabula, was instrumental in publishing and printing works of Desiderius Erasmus, and in a remarkable feat that outshone anything Nostradamus forecast, once predicted that he would be the subject of a well-attended Caxton Club meeting. Don’t let Aldus down. Register today!

Live attendance and optional lunch

View Zoom program on eighth floor, Steel Room, Union League Club. Presentation begins at 12:00 PM CT. Optional lunch immediately following in the fourth floor Rendezvous. $35 includes non-alcoholic beverage, a cup of soup, and your choice of sandwich, salad, or hot entree, tax, and tip.

Zoom presentation is free and open to all.

Zoom begins at 12:00PM CT/1:00 PM ET. Preregistration required via website.

Please forward this notice to anyone who may find it of interest.

Even if you can’t attend at the scheduled time, if you’re interested, please register. After the program, we’ll send an email to all registrants, asking if you’d like a link to the complete recording. That way you can see the program even if you couldn’t attend live, ran into technical issues, or simply wanted to watch it again.

Transportation to the Union League Club at 65 West Jackson Blvd., Chicago.

The Union League Club is easily accessible through many public transportation methods. Additionally, the following options are available for those who wish to travel by cab or car.

The Union League Club front desk offers a connection to cab service through Curb. The desk will call cabs for members and all guests while allowing riders to remain inside until the cab arrives. No curbside wait. Cabs will accept all payment forms, following the payment procedures you experience with a street-hailed cab.

If you are traveling by car, the Union League Club offers valet parking for Caxton events at $35.00. You must register and prepay in advance through the Caxton Club. Valet parking options will now be included as an option with all event registrations.

Spot Hero is an independent parking option, generally offering spots at the 318 S. Federal Street garage adjacent to the Union League Club. You may reserve and pay for a guaranteed parking spot through the Spot Hero app or website (spothero.com).

This calendar event serves as a placeholder for our upcoming 2025 Annual Caxton Club Meeting to be held on Thursday, 22 May 2025 at 6:30 PM CST.

Registration for this event will be via the Caxton Club website. Please check the website in the weeks ahead of this event to register. The event will be held via Zoom.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact secretary@caxtonclub.org.