CRS Early Typography

Topic: CRS Versions
Type fonts are one of those things that only interest people who are amused by running their cursor down a computer’s menu and watching a word change from Algerian to Blackadder to Windsor.  However, when you are a publisher you are aware it is the first thing people notice subliminally.

Lynn Rohrbough and his wife, the former Katherine Ferris, made decisions for Cooperative Recreation Service (CRS) in the 1940s that gave their songbooks an identifiable style.  Below are excerpts from the indexes of two booklets created in 1944.  The top one may have been done by a commercial printer, and the other by their own press.

I am going to concentrate on “K,” the first letter in “Kumbaya.”  It is composed of three strokes.  The upright post is called the “stem,” while the section that reaches upward and outward is an “ascender.”  The lower line that reaches outward is the “leg.”  The height of lower-case letters is termed the “x-height” and “stressed” is used to identify fonts with lines that vary in thickness. [1]

Beyond the obvious difference in size between the two examples, the main distinguishing feature between them is the use feet or serifs on the left index.  David Carson says such types tend to be used by newspapers, while san-serif fonts are favored by digital publications. [2]  The default in Word and Excel documents, Calibri, has no flourishes, while Times New Roman does.   

The leg and the ascender for the “K” on upper example are equally long and both come from the x-height point on the stem.  All are straight lines, and equally thick.  In other index, done for Songs of Many Nations, the ascender extends beyond the height of the stem and is longer than the leg.  Both come from x-height point on the stem, but the ascender may be slightly thicker—it gets more ink.

The text for an individual song is composed of three parts: the title, the headnotes, and the lyrics. Below the music staff, it might have additional verses and/or a footnote.  In Joyful Singing, the above example, each has a different font.  Jane Keen still was working from South Dakota, and so at least two people worked on the version of “The Keeper” [4] below.

Keen produced a plate with obvious hand lettering.  The stem on the initial “k” in the first verse is curved toward the right, while the “d” in “would” has two curves and the “f” in “first” leans left.  The stem on the “k” is as tall as the capital “T,” but the “d” in “would” is noticeably shorter.  The stem and ascender are plain, but the leg has a finial that points upward. The arms on the capital “T’s” are horizontal.  The one beginning the second verse is not as straight.

The headnote was produced by the same typeset as the index.  The title is a blocky form of sans-serif.  The “K” forms a oblong box, with the ascender and leg coming from the x-height point on the stem.

Keen had remade the plate for “The Keeper” by the time it appeared in the 1944 edition of Songs of Many Nations.  As mentioned in the post for 24 April 2022, the Rohrboughs were creating their own style that included compressing songs so more than one could appear on a page.  The new rendition has three, rather than two, measures in the first line.  Keen did not change her lettering much, although she spaced the notes so they were aligned with the words.

She probably did the headnote, and may also have done the title.  It imitates the block style of the earlier version, but the “K” is more stylized.  The lines on the “K” vary in thickness, with the ascender the widest.  It connects to the stem below the x-height point, and the leg extends from it, not the stem.

Keen moved to Ohio in 1947, and at some time Rohrbough purchased a Varityper machine. [5]  This was a typewriter that allowed multiple fonts, decades before IBM introduced the spinning ball on its Selectric machines. [6]  It was used for the title of “Cuckoo” [7] published in the late 1940s or early 1950s by the YWCA.

Richard Polt was told the “fonts were a half-moon shape and after hammering on the characters toward the center of the font for a couple of years, the fonts had a nasty tendency to lose some of their curvature.” [8]  This can be seen in the capital “C” which is stressed so no two parts of the letter are the same thickness.

The three strokes on the capital “K” are different thickness, with the stem the boldest.  The thin ascender connects to the post below the x-height line, and the leg curves from it with a finial serif.  The headnote was done by Keen: the letters are not even with a base line.  Some of her letters in the verse are more elaborate, but the lower-case “e” and the upper-case “T” only differ from her earlier work in the way hand lettering varies.

Later, Keen seems to have incorporated elements of the Varityper font used by CRS into her own style.  When “The Keeper” was included in the Camp Fire Girls’ edition of Joyful Singing in the early 1950s, the plate remained unchanged.  What changed was the title.  The stems on the capital letters are heavily stressed.

Notes on Performers
Jane Keen is profiled in the post for 24 April 2022.  More examples of her work appear in the posts for 15 May 2022 and 29 May 2022.

Graphics
1.  Index for Joyful Singing, published for The National Convocation of the Methodist Youth Fellowship.  Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, Custom Printed Songs.  As mentioned in the post for 20 February 2022, the “Introduction” refers to songbooks published in 1942; the MYF meeting probably was held in 1944.  It also is discussed in the post for 24 April 2022.

2.  Index to Songs of Many Nations, published for Evangelical and Reformed Church, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, Custom Printed Songs, 1944.  The editor probably was Edward Schlingman.  It is discussed in the posts for 20 February 2022 and 24 April 2022.

3.  “The Keeper.”  9 in Joyful Singing, 1944.

4.  “The Keeper.”  24 in Songs of Many Nations.

5.  “Kuckuck (Cuckoo)”.  61 in Sing Along the Way, edited by Marie Oliver for the YWCA’s Woman’s Press.  Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, Cooperative Song Service.  This has the same cover and most of the same songs as the 1951, fifth printing.  I assume this was earlier, and the date was added for the fifth printing to avoid confusion.  This songbook is discussed in the post for 20 March 2022.

6.  “The Keeper.”  9 in Joyful Singing, Campfire Girls Edition.  Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, Cooperative Song Service.  Dark colored cover.  Copy provided by Josephine Weber of the Winnebagoland CFG Council, Oshkosh, Wisconsin.  Published sometime between 1946 and 1955; I assume in the early 1950s.  The songbook is discussed in the post for 20 February 2022.

End Notes
1.  I am using definitions from Orana Velarde.  “A Visual Guide to the Anatomy of Typography [Infographic].”  Visme website, 30 November 2017.  I found similar information in “Learn: Anatomy of a Typeface.”  Typedia website.

2.  David Carson.  “Serif vs. Sans Serif Fonts: Differences Between the Font Types.”  Master Class website.

4. Camp Songs, Folk Songs provides a short history of “The Keeper” on page 231.

5.  “How a Sampler Is Made.”  Song Sampler Number 3:7–8:July 1956.  Quoted by Larry Nial Holcomb.  “A History of the Cooperative Recreation Service.”  PhD dissertation.  University of Michigan, 1972.  134.

6.  Richard Polt.  “Varityper.”  Xavier University website.

7.  “Cuckoo” is one of the case studies in Camp Songs, Folk Songs, 178–186.  If one were ranking songs introduced by CRS by their importance in camp tradition, it would come second to “Kumbaya.”  It is the only one to spawn a parody as popular as the original: “An Austrian Went Yodeling.”

8.  Former Varityper employee quoted by Polt.