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Altemus
Book Bindery
In the early years of Altemus
& Company the main order of business was as a book bindery.
Examples of early work however are hard to find.
This is mainly because a fair percentage (?most) of the books bound by
Altemus have no indication their bindery anywhere on or in the book. As
can be seen below occasionally Altemus is mentioned as the binder
within the book in a preface. See Leaflets of Memory.
The Altemus name is sometimes placed within the gilt on the cover as
noted on the Christmas Blossoms 1849 published by E. H. Butler. Other
books have the Altemus name embossed on the front cover. See below the
Poetical Works book top of the front cover published by Grigg and
Elliot.
Occasionally it is noted in an advertisement that Altemus did a
particular book's binding.
At this time the following companies are known to have used Altemus
bindings.
Geo. C. Appleton Philadelphia
E. H. Butler
Willis P. Hazard
Kay and Brother
H. Cowperthwait & Co.
Peck and Bliss
C. Desilver
Hayes and Zell
D. Appleton & Co. New York
Dunigan & Brother
Leavitt & Allen
John Murphy & Company Baltimore, Md.
Lucas Brothers
T. Newton Kurtz
A. Morris Richmond, Va.
W.B. Keen Chicago
Franck Taylor Washington, D.C.
Taylor & Maury
William Smith London
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Here is an 1850 example. This
book published by E. H. Butler &
Co. cites Mr. Altemus as the executor of the embellished binding.
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The Leaflets of Memory books
were published yearly during the 1840's and 1850's. Previously an 1850
book bound by Altemus has been shown. Now from the same series an 1851
book also published by E.H. Butler has been discovered. As with the
previous book, there is nothing that indicates the Altemus bindery on
the cover. Mr. Altemus is mentioned in the "advertisement" (preface) of
the book as the binder.
The 1851 book is the seventh in the series. I do not know how many (if
any) other books beside the 1850 and 1851 were bound by Altemus.
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Here is an example of the
Altemus book bindery. This book, The Poetical Works of Rogers,
Campbell, J. Montgomery, Lamb Kirke White was published by Grigg
& Elliot, a Philadelphia company, in 1847. If you look very
closely at the top of the book's front cover, you can see the words J.
T. Altemus ...Binder Philad. This shows again the difficulty of finding
Altemus bindings in the 1840's and 1850's.
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Here is another example from
the Altemus bindery. This book, Christmas Blossoms and New Year's
Wreath from 1849 by Uncle Thomas, was published by E.H. Butler
& Co. As can be seen, the words Altemus Binder are engraved at
the bottom of the book within the gilt pattern.
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Read's Female Poets of America,
Third Edition, published by E. H. Butler in 1850 is reviewed in
Sartain's Magazine in 1849. As can be seen, the article notes that
Altemus did the ornamental design. Without this article it would be
impossible to be sure what company did the binding.
It is of interest that the decorative pattern is very similar to the
1850 Leaflets of Memory (see above) book also published by E.H. Butler.
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1860 Ad for Book Bindery
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American Circular and
Trade Gazette 1859
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