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.

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.