The Inland Type Foundry was an American

type foundry A type foundry is a company that designs or distributes typefaces. Before digital typography, type foundries manufactured and sold metal and wood typefaces for hand typesetting, and matrices for line-casting machines like the Linotype and ...

established in 1894 in Saint Louis,

Missouri Missouri (''see #Etymology and pronunciation, pronunciation'') is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it border ...

and later with branch offices in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

and

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. Although it was founded to compete directly with the "type trust" (

American Type Founders American Type Founders (ATF) Co. was a business trust created in 1892 by the merger of 23 type foundries, representing about 85 percent of all type manufactured in the United States at the time. De Vinne, Theodore Low, ''The Practice of Typogr ...

), and was consistently profitable, it was eventually sold to ATF.

History

Inland was founded by the three sons of Carl Schraubstadter, one of the owners of the Central Type Foundry which had shut down upon being sold to

(ATF) in 1892. William A. Schraubstadter had been superintendent of the old foundry and, not being offered a similar position in the consolidation, founded Inland with his two brothers, Oswald and Carl Jr. At first the foundry sold type made by the

Keystone Type Foundry American Type Founders (ATF) Co. was a business trust created in 1892 by the merger of 23 type foundries, representing about 85 percent of all type manufactured in the United States at the time. De Vinne, Theodore Low, ''The Practice of Typogra ...

and the Great Western Type Foundry, but soon enough was cutting and casting faces of their own. All three brothers were familiar with the foundry business and quite soon the firm began making type that was "state of the art," being point-set and having a common base-line for all faces of the same body size. This last feature was a recent innovation and, as Inland had no back stock of non-linging faces, they advertised this heavily as "Standard Line Type." Two magazines, ''Practical Printer'' and ''Printers' Wit & Humor'' were published by the firm in order to showcase their type. In 1897 Inland bought out the Western Engravers' Supply Company of St. Louis. In 1911 the brothers sold the foundry to ATF, which divided the matrices between their own facility in

Jersey City Jersey City is the List of municipalities in New Jersey, second-most populous

and that of their subsidiary Barnhart Brothers & Spindler in

. While the other two brothers simply retired, Oswald Schraubstadter worked for ATF for many years. Inland was arguably the most successful American type foundry, certainly the most successful of its day. Several factors were responsible for this including the experience and capability of the Schraubstadter brothers, a well designed high-quality product, an aggressive program of direct mail advertising, and reduced transport costs due to both the closeness of lead mines and the concentration of the printing industry in the Midwest and Tennessee. Another factor in their success might have been widespread resentment among printers of the "type trust," represented by ATF.

Typefaces

Inland, alone among foundries, often named their type faces after prominent customers. ''Studley'', for instance, was named after Robert P. Studley, a St. Louis lithographer. The following foundry types were issued by Inland:List of foundry types taken from these sources: * Eckman, James, ''The Inland Type Foundry, 1894-1911,'' PAGA, vol. 8, pp. 31-52, 1960. * McGrew, Mac, ''American Metal Typefaces of the Twentieth Century,'' Oak Knoll Books, New Castle Delaware, 1993, . * Jaspert, W. Pincus, W. Turner Berry and A.F. Johnson, ''The Encyclopedia of Type Faces,'' Blandford Press Lts.: 1953, 1983, .

References

* Eckman, James, ''The Inland Type Foundry, 1894-1911,'' PAGA, vol. 8, pp. 31–52, 1960. * {{Authority control Letterpress font foundries of the United States Design companies established in 1894 Design companies disestablished in 1911 1894 establishments in Missouri 1911 disestablishments in Missouri Metal companies of the United States Manufacturing companies based in Philadelphia