McMurtrie a Depression Era Typography

The eye of this depression era typographic storm was the city of Chicago, then the printing capital of the United States.The person stirring up this storm was Douglas C. McMurtrie (1888-1944) publicist for the Ludlow Typograph Company.' McMurtrie's Modern Typography and Layout (1929), Some Modern Ludlow Typefaces (1929), The Fundamentals ofModernism in Typography (1930), Structure in the New Typography (1930) and Typography Overseas (1932) promoted European modernism in this country.6 Prior to his relocation to Chicago, McMurtrie had designed a typeface for Vanity Fair and the format of the New Yorker, and had imported a number of European typefaces into the American market as a founding member of the Continental Typefounders Association. While his work at that time (the early to mid1920s) was more traditional in its appearance, Chicago seemed to have altered his vision. I can only speculate as to how this change took place. What is certain, however, is that McMurtrie was exposed to the European strain of typographic experimentation.Certainly he read Advertising Arts, Commercial Art and Industry and Gebrauchsgraphik: The Monthly Magazine for the Promotion ofArt in Advertising (all publications which introduced the then current European trends), and he was in touch with the German scene. In fact, in 1926 McMurtrie contributed an essay entitled Die Ersten Drucke im Englischsprachigan Nord-America (The First Printer in English Speaking North America)"to the German Sonderabzug aus dem Gutenberg-Jahrbuch.

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