Canada truly is a cultural mosaic, accepting and actively encouraging the expressions of a multitude of nations. At the beginning of March Canada Type, who has been responsible for reviving many great international typefaces, added another historically important face to their roster with the release of the first digital version of Ronaldson Old Style. Ronaldson was originally designed in metal by Alexander Kay for the MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan foundry of Philadelphia in 1884 and was one of the first great American faces and a very interesting story.
In 1796, two Scotsmen, Archibald Binny and James Ronaldson, set up shop in Philadelphia for what would become the first successful type foundry in America. In 1797, their second year of operation, they were the first foundry to release dollar signs ($) in the United States. In 1806, while expanding their operation, they acquired the casting equipment that Benjamin Franklin had brought from the Fournier Foundry in France many years earlier adding this superior equipment to their own. Their business grew steadily. It wasn’t until 1809 that the Binny & Ronaldson Foundry issued their first type specimen-book, a showing of about one hundred original metal ornaments. This is considered to be the first specimen-book of an American foundry.
On June 16th, 1809, Ronaldson wrote a letter to Thomas Jefferson because the foundry was running out of antimony, one of the three components for casting metal type (lead and tin being the others), due to a trade dispute with England. His plea to Jefferson, who had recently finished his second term as President, was that without the antimony America would stay reliant upon English printing and be subjected to their “Political Principles”. In turn, Jefferson, who was an admirer of their faces and appreciated their entrepreneurship, wrote a letter to Pierre Samuel DuPont, a friend in Paris, enlisting him to help Ronaldson secure the antimony from France so their type-casting operation wouldn’t falter. It took almost two years and the French ship transporting it was briefly impounded by the English, but by the end of 1811 it arrived, mostly intact, back in Philadelphia.
They issued their second specimen-book a year later, in 1812, this one showing a variety of faces including various sizes of a Blackletter face, an elegant French Canon (roughly 48 pt.) in both roman and italic, and a number of smaller popular ‘Transitional’ faces, also issued in both roman and italic, all cut by Binny. In 1815 Binny sold off his share to James, to become a farmer, and the foundry passed over to Ronaldson. James issued one more printed specimen-book in 1816, beautifully printed on much finer paper, adding ranging figures to the ‘Transitional’ faces and, as the printing was much better than the previous two, it showed the faces to greater effect. By the 1820s, the Binny & Ronaldson faces were the most commonly used in all of America and foreign imports had dropped considerably.
Part of their success is attributable to the timing of their business. America, only 20 years into its Independence, was still reliant upon Europe for almost all of its type and casting supplies and thus in desperate need of local sources for supplies. Another reason was the fact that they created more of the then current ‘Transitional style’ faces, which were becoming increasingly more popular, ultimately eclipsing the ‘Old Style’ faces of the previous 250 years. But the main reason for their success was the nature of the partnership; Ronaldson had the solid business knowledge and Binny had considerable skill as a punch-cutter, with their skills complementing each other. Binny’s creativity led him to remodel the hand mould, allowing for increased production in the casting of fonts. In the introduction to his 1816 specimen, Ronaldson attributes much of the success of the foundry to Binny’s “genius and labour.”
In 1833 Lawrence Johnson and George F. Smith purchased the foundry, by then having transferred from James to his brother Richard, and it briefly became Johnson & Smith. Smith died quite suddenly 10 years later, in 1843, and it became L. Johnson & Company. In 1845 Thomas MacKeller and John and Richard Smith (George’s sons) became partners. When Johnson passed away in 1860, Peter Jordan took his place and the firm changed its name, for the last time, to MacKellar, Smiths and Jordan. In 1855 they began publishing a quarterly called the Typographic Adviser — “a general Asylum for Decayed Printers,” the first printer’s newspaper in the United States. In September 1886, when the newly formed U.S Type Founders’ Association looked to establish a common measure for printers, they chose the point and pica measure used by M.S. & J as the new standard. The foundry grew from those early Binny & Ronaldson days through the years to such stature that it is now remembered as the oldest and largest Type Foundry in the U.S. and one of the most significant in the world at that time. In 1892, it merged with 22 other foundries to form the American Type Founders.
In the midst of all that, in 1854 another Scotsman, Alexander MacKay, joined L. Johnson & Co. where he would remain through its change to MacKellar, Smiths and Jordan, for the next 40 years. Upon his arrival in America, Alexander changed his last name, dropping the Mac prefix, to just Kay. He had studied punch-cutting in England under John Skirving, another very skilled Scot working in London, cutting punches for such notables as Henry Caslon, Vincent Figgins and Stephenson Blake. While at MacKellar, Smiths and Jordan, Kay cut two very important historical faces - Ronaldson Old Style and Binny Old Style (1886) - both original American text classics, and named after the partners of the initial foundry. Ronaldson O.S. was released in 1884 and quickly became one of the most popular and most read (and most copied) text typefaces in latter 19th century America. It stayed in regular usage until the 1920s, when the ‘Old Style’ faces enjoyed their considerable revival period. While Binny and Ronaldson are the two faces we tend to remember Kay for, it should also be noted that his skill was such that he also engraved dies for the Philadelphia Mint used for making coins.
Despite the ‘Old Style’ appellation, Ronaldson is really a ‘Transitional’ face - falling between the accepted ‘Old Style’ and the ‘Modern’ classifications. It has a clear vertical axis, solid contrast in the stroke weight and sharp sculpted forms. Historically, it was well regarded for it’s unique and elegant capitals, with their confidently pronounced serifs. Often this style of embellishment proved unsuccessful, as it was seen as unduly ornate making the characters distracting and therefore undesirable. Kay’s skill was such that he was capable of including these features and making them fit well while maintaining the colour and legibility of the face. It borrows part of its style from the earlier Binny faces, particularly his Small Pica No.1 and Long primer No.1 from the 1812 specimen. When first released, it came only in roman in a variety of sizes. In 1889 a sloped Titling was released as a companion to the original. It had nowhere near the success of the roman and was often overlooked in favour of alternate italic faces.
In 1974, Ed Benguiat designed the typeface Tiffany for the International Typeface Corporation. Tiffany was based on a cross between the MS&J Ronaldson, and the 1904 ATF Caxton. Like most of the ITC faces of that era, it has an overdeveloped x-height. It shares many of the very pronounced serifs of Ronaldson, but is considerably darker with even greater contrast in stroke weight - more like a pointy Bodoni. It’s also the closest digital face to Ronaldson.
In the new digital rendition Canada Type is not only faithful to the roman, but adds an impressive companion italic that melds seamlessly with the roman. They also offer a mind-boggling number of ligatures, alternate characters, both lining and ranging figures, small caps and a very complete set of accents. All in all it’s a fantastic and extremely versatile rendition of this classic face. It should do nicely for another hundred years or so!
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