Printing Presses: Keeping the Craft Alive in the Colleges

By the 1980s all twelve Yale residential college’s housed their own traditional printing presses. Thirty years later only Branford, Davenport and Jonathan Edwards continue to provide students with courses and the opportunity to use their printing pressesThe presses are experiencing a renaissance, Branford College considered repurposing the press in the basement with other facilities in 2011 but student support for the press resulted in the college its reopening after several years of being closed. In the era of modern media and graphic design some things cannot be supplanted. The photographs below depict the Jonathan Edwards press and some of the items housed in its collection.