CRS Offset Typography

Topic: CRS Versions
Lynn Rohrbough made a major change in his print operations in 1951 when he purchased an offset press and hired Oscar Bailey to operate it.  This brought changes to the organization, including Oscar’s wife, Sara, who handled page layout. [1]

As mentioned in the post for 1 May 2022, offset images are not as clear as those of a letter press.  This does not seem to have affected the music plates made by Jane Keen, but it did affect the titles.  The Varityper machine still was used, but a simpler font was selected.

If one compares the heading with that from an earlier edition discussed in the post for 8 May 2022, one can see that the capital “C” is similar, although the differences in line width are less pronounced.

The new font is sans-serif and the vertical lines are all straight.  The leg and the ascender on the capital “K” join the stem below the x-height line, so the ascender is longer and thinner.  The lower-case “k’s” are identical with the upper-case one.

The same font was used when CRS published “The Keeper” in a 1955 songbook for the Canadian Council of Churches.  The bars on the lower-case “e’s” are horizontal, rather than slanted as they are in the verses.  Coincidentally the capital “T” in the title is very close to the Keen’s handwritten one in the lyrics.

While the typefaces are simpler, the actual work of composing the page was more complex.  When the letter press was used, the physical properties of lines of type kept the components of a page aligned.  With offset, it was the skill of Sara Bailey that did that.  The title for the “Cuckoo” is right on the edge of the plate and parallel to the staff lines.

The difference in skill is obvious from the heading for “Over the Meadows” published after Sara and Oscar left CRS.

Someone, perhaps Keen, wrote the credit for Augustus D. Zanzig.  Then, that person or another, pasted it onto plate at a slight angle.  Keen didn’t always keep all her letters on a baseline, but she also did not write on an incline.  It looks like the addition wasn’t aligned.  This is not an error Bailey or Keen would have made.  They were better artisans.

Notes on Performers
Sara Besco was born in Portsmouth, Ohio, and raised in the county north of Wheeling, West Virginia, where she was active in 4-H.  Sewing was one of her main projects. [2]  Sewing with a paper pattern requires eye-and-hand coordination to match each piece with a fabric’s design so that seams are not visible when a garment is completed.  That is a key skill she used when she was doing layouts for CRS.  In later life, she turned to quilting, which required even more manual dexterity. [3]

In West Virginia, the top award winners in each county were awarded scholarships to the state 4-H camp.  She went five times. [4]  It probably was there that she met Jane Farwell, who was a recreation specialist for the state extension office in Morgantown. [5]  They may have met again when Bailey attended West Virginia University.  Her family remembers she was a bit overwhelmed by the school, and went to the 4-H offices for help. [6]

Farwell led the folk dancing program at Oglebay Park in Wheeling, where Sara met her future husband.  A photograph of them at Oglebay appears with the post for 1 May 2022.  She later wrote an appreciation of Farwell that was included in a collection published by CRS. [7]

Unlike most members of the CRS staff, Bailey was interested in music.  She organized a 4-H chorus, and was active in the local Methodist church. [8]  She later became a Quaker, so her children could be full member’s of her husband’s church.  However, her family recalls she “remained partial to old hymns.”  When she was older, and her memory was failing she still “knew all the words and harmony to any song we could find in an old hymnal.”  They added, “She knew quite a bit about singing, developing a voice, how to ‘tune’ voices to one another.” [9]

The details of her work illustrated in the post for 29 May 2022.

Graphics
1.  “Cuckoo - (Kuckuck),” English by K. K. R., copyright 1953, Cooperative Recreation Service.  63 in Lift Every Voice, edited by Larry Eisenberg for Inter-Division Committee of the General Board of Education of the Methodist Church.  Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, Cooperative Song Service.  KFR is Katherine Ferris Rohrbough.  The copyright was nullified by publications like that for the YWCA, which did not carry the copyright notification as required by law.  The song is discussed in the post for 8 May 2022.

2.  “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.  See the post for 8 May 2022 for more details on the songbook.

3.  “The Keeper.”  52 in Lift Your Voices, edited by Kenneth S. Willis for Department of Christian Education, Canadian Council of Churches.  Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, Cooperative Song Service, sixth edition, 1955.

4.  “Over the Meadows.”  8 in Sing Along, edited by Mary Wheeler, Lura Mohrbacher, and Augustus D. Zanzig for the YWCA’s National Board, Bureau of Communications.  More details on the songbook are in the post for 24 April 2022.

5.  Sara Besco, at left, with members of the Seminole 4-H Club Chorus, Ohio County, West Virginia.  Copy courtesy of her family.  The capes probably were a club sewing project.

End Notes
1.  “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.

2.  “Know Your Neighbor: Miss Sarah Besco.”  Newspaper clipping in scrapbook of Sara Besco Bailey, 24 May 1939.  Copy provided by her family.

3.  Sara Besco Bailey’s family, email, 27 February 2022.

4.  “xxx H Girl Wins High Recognition.”  Newspaper clipping in scrapbook of Sarah Besco Bailey.  Copy provided by her family.  Top corner with headline partly obscured; after 1941.

5.  “Jane Farwell.”  Wikipedia website.
6.  Sara Besco Bailey’s family, email, 24 February 2022.

7.  Sara B. Bailey.  “Introduction.”  2–3 in Folk Dances for Fun.  Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service.  The songbook seems to have been published first by the West Virginia state extension office. [10]  Bailey may have been responsible for the CRS edition, which was published sometime after 1956 when Farwell had toured Japan.  The book contains no credits, but it seems possible Bailey did the blue-on-white cover design and added some artwork to the pages. [11]  This book sold for .25.  A later edition, with a wedgewood blue cover that sold for .50, has a different introduction.

8.  “Know Your Neighbor.”
9.  Sara Besco Bailey’s family, email, 24 February 2022.

10.  Ron Houston.  “Folk Dances for Fun.”  The Society of Folk Dance Historians website, 2018.

11.  Grace Goulder mentions Sara was a silk-screen artist in “Good Neighbors in Action.”  Cleveland Plain Dealer Pictorial Magazine, Cleveland, Ohio.  Copy provided by Sara Besco Bailey’s family.  The post for 1 May 2022 has details on its possible publication in 1951.