History of Vermont Printers Now Available

The Lane Press, Inc. announced the availability of the book A Celebration of Vermont Printers 1904 - 2004. Published by Lane Press to recognize Vermont printers and to commemorate its 100th anniversary, the book features interviews of 20 prominent contributors to the states printing industry, a history of printing techniques, and the changing role of technology during this time. Putting ink on paper is one of the central acts of a civilized society, the book begins. For private messages, a pen will do. But for spreading public informationanything from advertising to sacred textsprinting has long been the medium that has joined the individuals in a culture.
How important is printing to the Vermont economy? Today there are 119 commercial printing businesses that employ more than 3,600 people with sales of more than half a billion dollars.
Authored by Chris Granstrom with oral histories by The Vermont Folklife Center and photography by Michael Sipe, the book is a compilation of stories and images that bring to life the important role printers play in the dissemination of information, our ideals, and the freedoms we enjoy as a result of the printing industry.
In the preface of the book, Philip Drumheller, president of Lane Press, says that more than anything else, this is a people story. This is a story about families, fathers and sons, and a lot of great individuals, lively characters who make the story of printing in Vermont both appealing and engaging. The oral history interviews with noted printing professionals bring the printing history alive through the stories they tell.
Rocky Stinehour, founder of Stinehour Press in Lunenburg, Vermont, spoke at length during his oral history interview about the role of technology in printing. Printing has always been a technologically driven business, right from the get-go. I mean, putting those scribes out of business that were making those beautiful handmade books. There were books long before printing came along, and beautiful books, and great books, but printing did something. Printing was a tool and it took pens out of the hands of the scribes and they had to start setting type. The technology may change, but the book remains.
A Celebration of Vermont Printers 1904 2004 is available in hard and soft cover at www.lanepress.com.