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Harry Duncan

NYT: "Harry Alvin Duncan was born in Keokuk, Iowa. His father owned a furniture store and his mother was a champion bridge player." "bachelor's degree in English in 1938 from Grinnell College in Iowa. Intending to become a poet, he went on to study at the independent Cummington School of the Arts."

UNO NBAC: "Harry Duncan began printing at the Cummington School of the Arts in Cummington, Massachusetts in 1939. Using a hand press, he published books of contemporary poetry under The Cummington Press imprint first in Massachusetts, then in Iowa and Omaha, Nebraska.

From 1956 until 1972, Mr. Duncan directed the typographic laboratory and taught typography, book design and production full-time at the School of Journalism of the University of Iowa in Iowa City.

In 1972 he came to the University of Nebraska at Omaha where his full-time position was half teaching and half printing. He founded Abattoir Editions here, publishing three or four titles a year. Following his retirement from teaching in 1985, he resumed printing under The Cummington Press imprint from his shop on the university campus in Omaha.

Newsweek magazine said in 1982 that Mr. Duncan had come to be "considered the father of post-World War II private-press movement." In 1978, Fine Print magazine said: "Harry Duncan's virtuosity, taste and experience have enabled him to reconcile the esthetic and practical demands of printing and typography and weld them together with literary excellence." "

LAT: "Harry Duncan, 80, a widely respected hand-press printer who published early works of poet Robert Lowell and writer Tennessee Williams. Duncan dedicated his life to making books with a hand press similar to Johann Gutenberg's original invention. A 1982 Newsweek article dubbed him the "father of the post-World War II private press movement." He co-founded his Cummington Press in Cummington, Mass., in 1939. The operation was moved to Iowa City in 1956 when Duncan became director of the typographical laboratory at the University of Iowa's School of Journalism. In 1972, he founded the fine arts press, called Abattoir Editions, for the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Throughout his long career in fine printing, Duncan continued to publish early works of successful poets and fiction writers. Among them were Wallace Stevens, Allen Tate, Marianne Moore, William Logan, Stephen Berg and Dana Gioia. On Friday in Omaha of pneumonia."

Citations

• "Harry Duncan, 80, Hand Printer of Literary Works, Dies," New York Times, 23 April 1997 [1]
• "Harry Duncan; Hand-Press Printer," Los Angeles Times, 25 April 1997 "*The Cummington Press and Abattoir Editions : a descriptive bibliography of the presswork of Harry Duncan, 1939-1985, Mel Bohn, 1986. Dissertation: Ph. D. University of Nebraska--Lincoln 1986 [2]

External Links

• The Cummington PRess, Mary L. Richmond, From Books at Iowa 7 (November 1967) [3]
• The Cummington Press 1939-1997, Harry Duncan (1916-1997) [4]
• Reflections in Time interview with Harry Duncan, UNO___
• Harry Duncan Flickr photo collection, UNO Criss Library, [5]
• Cummington Press Papers, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa. [6]
• Cummington Press records and Harry Duncan papers, Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University.[7]
• Mary L. Richmond Cummington Press Collection, Archives & Special Collections, Criss Library, UNO [8]
• Abattoir Editions Collection, Archives & Special Collections, Criss Library, UNO [9]
• SNAC [10]