Over the course of wood type history in America, production was carried out by just a small number of manufacturers. Through the nineteenth century, never more than three or four manufacturers were operating at any one time in America. The 1880s were the high point for competition, with six manufacturers in operation at the same time. The major names of the industry during the nineteenth century were: Darius Wells, William Leavenworth, Edwin Allen, John Cooley, Horatio & Jeremiah Bill, William Page, David Knox, William & Samuel Day, Charles Tubbs, Heber Wells, William Morgans and James Hamilton.

Connecticut and New York City were the centers of wood type production all through the nineteenth century. This

shifted as James Hamilton, based in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, acquired major competitors at the end of the century. While several minor manufacturers, including the Empire Wood Type Co., American Wood Type Mfg Co. and Eastern Brass & Wood Type, remained in New York City during the first decades of the twentieth century, the center of wood type manufacturing had moved west. In 1904, Tubbs Mfg Co., Hamilton’s remaining major competitor and the last Connecticut- based manufacturer, moved to Ludington, Michigan.

By selling Holly Wood types at half the cost of the competition and by developing a business model that relied on a national network of local distributors, rather than selling directly to the customer, the

Hamilton Mfg. Co. gained an economic advantage over its competitors in the 1880s and 1890s. This advantage allowed Hamilton to acquire all of its major competitors. William H. Page Wood Type Co. was purchased in 1891, Morgans & Wilcox Mfg Co. in 1897, and Heber Wells in late 1899. Tubbs Mfg Co., the last major competitor from the nineteenth century, was acquired in 1909.

The wood type industry went into decline after about 1920; most specimen books were reduced to offering a range of Gothic styles throughout the rest of the twentieth century. The remaining manufacturers shut down one by one. Empire Type Foundry, which produced wood type at its Delevan, New York factory, seems to have

ceased production in 1970. Hamilton Mfg Co., in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, ceased production in 1985. Rube Mandel’s American Wood Type Mfg. Co., which opened in 1932 out of New York City and moved later to Long Island, quit manufacturing wood type in late 2001.