Your studio is now in the Monadnock building. It is the year of the World’s Fair. You have an exhibit that has entitled you to a pass. Jim Corbett is in a show on the Midway. When he is not on the stage you can see him parading on the sidewalks. Buffalo Bill is appearing in a Wild West show. An edition of _Puck_ is being printed in one of the exhibition buildings.
You design a cover for a Chicago and Alton Railroad folder. The drawing goes to Rand McNally for engraving and printing. Mr. Martin asks you to come and see him. His salary offer is flattering. But, aside from Bridwell’s designs at Mathews Northrup’s in Buffalo, railroad printing is in a long-established rut, void of imagination. You prefer free-lancing. Later Mr. Martin buys the K & L plant. Herbert Rogers, the former bookkeeper, establishes his own plant and you hope he will continue the K & L tradition.
Mr. McQuilkin, editor of _The Inland Printer_, commissions a permanent cover. When the design is finished I ask:
“Why not do a series of covers--a change of design with each issue?”
“How about my making an inducement in the way of a tempting price?”
Suggestion approved by Henry O. Shephard, printer and publisher, and the series is started--an innovation, the first occasion when a monthly magazine changes its cover design with each issue. One cover, nymph in pool, is later reproduced in London _Studio_. Another, a Christmas cover, has panel of lettering that four American and one German foundry immediately begin to cut as a type. Later the American Type Founders Company, paying for permission, names the face “Bradley.”
A poster craze is sweeping the country. Only _signed_ copies are desired by collectors and to be shown in exhibitions. Designs by French artists: Toulouse-Lautrec, Chéret, Grasset, etc., some German and a few English, dominate displays. Edward Penfield’s _Harper’s Monthly_ and my _Chap-Book_ designs are only American examples at first available.
Will Davis, manager of the Columbia Theater, has just completed the Haymarket, out on West Madison at Halstead. You design and illustrate the opening-night souvenir booklet. This you do for Mr. Kasten, of McClure’s. Thus you meet Mr. Davis. He introduces you to Dan Frohman who commissions you to design a twenty-eight sheet stand for his brother, Charles, who is about to open the new Empire Theater in New York. So you design a poster for _The Masqueraders_, by Henry Arthur Jones. This is probably the first _signed_ theatrical poster produced by any American lithographer. Then Dan suggests that you visit New York. You do, and meet Charles. Dan takes you to the Players for lunch. There you see show-bills set in Caslon. They influence all of your future work in the field of typography.