Exhibitions

Printing and Graphic Arts

January 1, 1964 – December 1, 2003

National Museum of American History
1300 Constitution Ave., NW
Washington, DC

3rd Floor, West Wing

See on Map Floor Plan

This hall traces the history of prints and printing techniques. Settings feature a printing office of Benjamin Franklin's time, with 2 wooden presses; a 19th-century foundry in which type was still cast by hand, as it had been since Gutenberg's day; a job shop of 1865, equipped with hand and treadle presses; and an 1880s newspaper office with a steam-driven Hoe cylinder press. There are also exhibits on printmaking, from the first etchings and woodcuts to modern photomechanical methods.