Friday, August 29, 2014
By Gary Frost

The UI Libraries Preservation & Conservation Department continues assistance of the celebration of 300 years of book printing in the Amana Church community. The retrospective exhibit of the imprints, from 1714 to 2014, has been arranged and installed with the help of the conservation staff. Now we are printing the commemorative keepsakes for the various celebration dinners and conferences.

Printing of the keepsakes is underway at the Homestead Print Shop and Post Office. The Print Shop and Post Office is itself a historical exhibit. The recreation depicts printing and communication methods of the 1950’s in the Amana Colonies. The relatively late period depiction enables the inclusion of the Linotype composing machine; not until the mid-twentieth century did the German printers finally accept keyboard composition, modern types and English language.

The keepsake items feature proofs from the stereo-plates of the 1854 setting of the Psalter-Spiel. This hymnal and recitation book was produced from the beginning of the Church of True Inspirationists with the last edition from the 1854 plates printed in 1910. The plates appear to have been cast in Buffalo, New York replicating hand-set composition prepared just prior to relocation of the villages from Ebenezer, New York to the Amana Colonies.

Printing in the Inspirationist community has a long and impressive legacy of book printing. The UI Libraries Preservation & Conservation Department is proud to contribute the persistence of the craft of printing from metal type in the Amanas.