The Cary Graphic Arts Collection is a
library and
archive of books, type specimens, manuscripts, documents, and artifacts related to the history of graphical communication. Located in Wallace Library at the
Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), in
Henrietta,
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
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, the Cary Collection contains literate artifacts as old as
cuneiform tablets and as recent as computer tablets and
e-books, in all comprising some 40,000 volumes in addition to
manuscripts, correspondence, printing types and traditional
letterpress printing equipment.
A recent, newsworthy acquisition is the Albion hand press from the Kelmscott Press of
William Morris. The Cary Collection also possesses one of the rare copies (only 440 printed) of the extravagantly produced and illustrated Kelmscott Chaucer of 1896, which the
British Library has called "a new benchmark for book design at the end of the 19th century". The Kelmscott Chaucer was hand printed on the Kelmscott Albion press which is also held in the Cary Collection.
History of the Cary Collection
The original collection of 2,300 volumes was assembled during the 1920s and 1930s by
Melbert B. Cary, Jr., director of
Continental Type Founders Association, past president of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (
AIGA), typophile, and proprietor of the private Press of the Woolly Whale. In 1969, the books that formed the nucleus of the Cary Graphic Arts Collection were presented to RIT by the
Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, as a memorial to Mr. Cary. The Charitable Trust also provided funds to support the use and growth of the Cary Collection, which has expanded almost 20-fold since its inception, and now includes materials related to the history of writing, the art of