Here is the cover of the Autobiography. It is now available for sale on the Items for Sale page. It is 5.5 by 8.5 inches and contains 114 pages. Besides the Autobiography, it contains the Genealogies of 1898 and the 1927 update. It also contains 21 pages of photographs, 14 of which are carte-de-visite photographs from a private album.
The Autobiography is now an InDesign file with a layout of 50 pages containing 24 drawings by Maeve Bradley. It is currently being proofread by Nancy Brooks. It will be a 5.5 by 8.5 inch book with an additional 41 pages of scanned genealogical material. I will experiment to see how some pages of photographs print when we order proof copies. So the final book will be about 92 to 100 pages, a perfect bound paperback, with a color cover and an ISBN number. It should be available in June and will be available for sale on this website. Here are drafts of the title page and first page of the Autobiography:
Update on May 28th, 2017: Proof copies of the 110 page book have been ordered!
The Book Arts Collaborative is up and running in Muncie, Indiana and their website shows my press equipment in it’s new setting. I recommend their video here to see what they are doing for the Ball State University and the Muncie community.
Here is our new Railway Station Press logo which will be used for the first time on the reprint of the Autobiography of Henry Martin Bradley. The image is a woodcut by Chris Manson of Crooked Crow Press and the font is 48 pt. Herculanum from Photoshop.
Also, The Kickstarter project has been successfully funded at 175% of our original goal!
We have an illustrator, Maeve Sullivan Bradley, lined up and the book will be available by May of 2017.
Update: We now have an Editor for Railway Station Press! Nancy Growald Brooks had a long and distinguished career as an editor for the Smithsonian American History Museum and is now retired. I will assume the role of publisher.
After selling the letterpress print shop, I am taking Railway Station Press in a new direction. It will be a publisher and distributor of select small press titles beginning with a reprint of the scarce “A Brief Autobiography of Henry M. Bradley” which was first printed in 1907. Henry Martin Bradley was my great great grandfather and lived from 1824 to 1918. This is currently a 30 day Kickstarter project to fund the actual printing.
He was born in western Massachusetts, helped his family clear the land and farm in northeastern Ohio, owned and worked for lumber companies in Bay City and Saginaw, Michigan, and prospected for iron ore in northern Minnesota. He finally settled in Duluth, Minnesota with many of his children and grandchildren (and that was where I was born).
Railway Station Press will continue to offer the Midway Midget playing cards and 1893 Chicago World’s Fair history cards as well as John Haines poetry broadsides (see blog posts below and Items For Sale page). My “Moving with the Frontier: The Bradley Family of America 1644 – 1918” published in 1977 is also available on the Items For Sale page.
My other website & blog, dedicated to the Bradley family and related families history and genealogy, can be found at www.BradleyHistory.com and my new email address is bradleyhistory.com@gmail.com Thank you.
Scan of first page of one of only two original copies that are known to have survived.
Update on May 5th & June 1st: The print shop has been sold to Ball State University and it’s letterpress and book arts program in Muncie, Indiana. Workshops are no longer available.
For many reasons I have decided to sell my entire Railway Station Press print shop but not the press name or the printed inventory. Items include a Chandler & Price Old Style Pilot Press with three chases and one set of rollers, two oak type cabinets full of type, two library card catalogs full of leading, type, cuts, ornaments etc., trays of space material from 12 point to 48 point, two imposing stones, a slug cutter, a large paper cutter, a roll of tympan paper, 16 cans of VanSon Rubber Base ink, Lettra and other fine paper, many books and other associated pieces of furniture. Everything that you need to letterpress print is included such as composing sticks, quoins, wood furniture, tweezers, a bodkin and a total of 71 fonts of type and 29 type cases.
The APA (Amalgamated Printers’ Association) was founded in 1958 by letterpress printers who wanted to share their hobby. The membership is limited to 150 and each member is required to print at least four items for the monthly bundle that is mailed to each member. I belonged to the group from 2007 until 2016 when I sold my press.
