Topic: CRS Versions
The production of custom songbooks by Lynn Rohrbough’s Cooperative Recreation Service (CRS) involved more than the compilation of a list of available songs. It also required the creation of a physical plant to produce the booklets at low cost with reasonable quality.
Before the Rohrboughs moved to Delaware, Ohio, they used commercial printers in Chicago [1] and, before that, in Boston. [2] They probably used someone local when they first relocated, but soon after bought a “small hand-fed press.” Rohrbough’s wife, Katherine Ferris Rohrbough, recalled, they “put it in the barn and hired one man to operate it. [3]
Most likely it was a letterpress printer. Usually, type was set and the pages laid out. Then, copper-sheet molds were made that were used by the press. [4] They could have been setting the type themselves or hiring the work done. In 1937, Lynn said CRS had four employees, plus some who worked part-time. [5] The latter probably helped with shipping.
The introduction of music added a level of complexity. Jane Keen’s drawings were transferred to copper plates with light-sensitive coatings. Then, like photograph negatives, they were exposed while electrical impulses etched the lines. These thin sheets often were backed by chrome so they could withstand long press runs. [6]
The Rohrboughs hired William Detwiler to operate the press, [7] and probably sent the artwork to Van Bolt Kreber Electrotype in Columbus. [8] Frank Kreber bought out the interest of George Van Bolt in 1938, and his son continued to run the company. [9] By 1957, the Electrotypers Union was supplying chrome-plated copper printing plates. [10]
Newer presses were added to the hand-fed one, until Donald Frye remembered there were four in the barn. [11] In 1948, Grace Goulder described them as “thundering, up-to-date presses” that could “ turn out as many as 30,000 booklets at a time.” [12] John Leininger set the type and Hugh Macmillan ran the letter press. [13]
In 1951, Rohrbough introduced offset printing. [14] Oscar Bailey photographed completed pages, and exposed the negatives “under arc-light in contact with aluminum printing plates in a vacuum frame.” [15] In 1957, the Photoengravers Union of Newark Engraving Company was supplying zinc etchings. [16]
Offset printing images are not as clear as those of letterpress, [17] but involve less labor. More important, the technology provides more flexibility. When I was in high school in the early 1960s, our yearbook was produced by a commercial offset printer. [18] All the photographs and lines of text were rubber cemented onto large pieces of paper marked by light blue graph lines, then shipped off to the printer.
This means that, whenever CRS produced a new songbook, all the shop had to do was take Keen’s original autograph, [19] or a photograph of it, and lay out a new page with new page numbers and whatever changes were required in the headings. After the songster was mocked up, Bailey could create new plates. There was no need to redo Keen’s work, and no need for outside skilled labor.
Because offset printing relied on photography, it allowed artwork to be incorporated at little cost. However, CRS did not exploit these uses. The only artistic book produced by the company was a reissue of Flora McDowell’s collection. The cover of the 6 5/8" x 8 5/8" book has a drawing by McDowell’s son. [20]
Notes on Performers
William Detwiler’s grandfather [23] moved to Thompson Township, in the northwestern corner of Delaware County, Ohio, where he opened a tavern in the 1830s. [24] William was born in 1913, [25] so he would have been in his twenties when he began working for Rohrbough. He and his wife moved to Alabama while he served in the military in World War II, when Rohrbough would have needed someone else to run his press. The Detwilers returned after the war. [26] I do not know when he retired. He died in 1981. [27]
Bailey met his wife when he attended folk dances sponsored by the Oglebay Park in Wheeling, West Virginia. [33] Their interest in dance may be one reason that devoted such attention to the McDowell revision.
He left in 1956 to pursue a master’s degree in fine arts from Ohio University. He taught photography at State University College in Buffalo and the University of South Florida. While he was teaching, Bailey’s reputation as an artist grew. Ohio Wesleyan University exhibited his works in Delaware in 1964. [34]
Oscar and Sara [35] moved to the North Carolina mountains near Burnsville [36] after he retired in 1985. [37] His interest in art turned to more manual ones: he designed their home, built furniture, and designed kites, which he called “wind-supported sculptures.” [38] A member of the Society for Photographic Education recalled: “Oscar was a fun and exciting person to be around. He liked to figure out how things worked and then explored how he could integrate these qualities with his ideas.” [39] Bailey died in 2010. [40]
The Newark Engraving Company was founded by James Dean Mackey in 1926. He was born near Marietta, Ohio, but lived in Columbia, South Carolina, and Parkersburg, West Virginia, before returning to Ohio. In each city he worked as a professional musician and ran engraving companies. He patented some improvements in the design of clarinets. [41]
Graphics
1. Flora L. McDowell. Folk Dances of Tennessee And Other Authentic Folk Material. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service. Cover by Jack McDowell. Music autographs by Jane Keen. Typesetting, layout, and sketches by Sara Bailey. Photography by Orville Joyner. Printing by Oscar Bailey. Editorial Supervision by Lynn Rohrbough. McDowell is discussed in the post for 12 December 2021. As suggested then, this booklet may have been published in 1953, or shortly thereafter.
2. Bottom line of “Shuckin’ of the Corn.” Credits and other illustrations of this music appear in the posts for 372 12 December 2021, 13 February 2022, and 22 February 2022.
3. John A. Leininger. Photograph by Grace Goulder for her “Good Neighbors in Action.” Cleveland Plain Dealer Pictorial Magazine. Cleveland, Ohio. Copy provided by Oscar Bailey’s family. [42]
4. Hugh MacMillan. Photograph by Grace Goulder for 1951 article.
5. Sara Besco Bailey and Oscar Wilson Bailey at Oglebay Park, Wheeling, West Virginia. Copy provided by their family.
End Notes
1. Holland Press. [43]
2. Old Dutch Press. [44]
3. Katherine Ferris Rohrbough. “Good Times as a Career.” Wellesley Alumnae Magazine 84–86:January 1956. 84. Quoted by Larry Nial Holcomb. “A History of the Cooperative Recreation Service.” PhD dissertation. University of Michigan, 1972. 108.
4. “Letterpress Printing.” Encyclopædia Britannica website, 20 July 1998; last updated 30 October 2013 by Yamini Chauhan. The plates were coated to preserve the lead type.
5. Lynn Rohrbough. “Cooperative Recreation Service.” Consumers’ Cooperation 33(11):171–172:November 1937. Cited by Holcomb. 108.
6. “Electrotyping.” Wikipedia website. Katherine Rohrbough said “for a long time, I did all the music drawings from which electrotypes were made.” [45]
7. Grace Goulder. “Play Is Business for Delaware (O.) Couple Who Specialize in Group Recreation.” Cleveland Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio, 5 December 1948. Cited by Holcomb. 109. Also, 108.
8. The YWCA listed the unions involved with its 1957 songbook. [46] There is no reason to believe Rohrbough changed contractors, once he found good ones.
9. “The Evolution of Kreber.” Company website.
10. Forward to Revised Edition.” 1–2 in Sing Along, edited by Mary Wheeler, Lura Mohrbacher, and Augustus D. Zanzig for the Young Women’s Christian Association’s National Board. Delaware, Ohio: Cooperative Recreation Service, Cooperative Song Service, 1957. 1.
11. Donald Frye. Interviewed by Larry Nial Holcomb on 7 January 1972. Cited by Holcomb. 109. Frye was born around 1928, [47] and began working for the company in the late 1930s mowing lawns. He learned the printing trade, before leaving in 1950 to open his own business in Delaware. [48]
12. Goulder, 1948. Quoted by Holcomb. 109.
13. Goulder, 1951.
14. “Oscar Bailey.” National Gallery of Art website.
15. “How a Sampler Is Made.” Song Sampler Number 3:7–8:July 1956. Quoted by Holcomb. 134.
16. YWCA. 1.
17. Robert Lechêne. “Printing.” Encyclopædia Britannica website; revised 9 May 2000; last updated on 1 October 2020 by Aakanksha Gaur.
18. Our school paper was produced by the local newspaper and went through the older printing processes that included linotype machines. I am drawing up my own knowledge of the two publications to fill gaps left by web articles that assume the reader either knows or does not care about details. Many write about technological processes as they exist today, not as they did in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
19. “Autograph” is the technical term for preparing a piece of music for print.
20. Flora McDowell’s son was William Jackson McDowell. He was living in Cincinnati, Ohio, when he died in 1994. [49]
21. The one exception may be an African Song Sampler, which featured a multi-colored painting by Thango. The 1958 edition was overseen by Walter F. Anderson of Antioch College and is twice as wide as a CRS publication.
22. Keen’s early work is illustrated in the post for 24 April 2022. Her later work is discussed in the posts for 8 May 2022, 15 May 2022, and 29 May 2022.
23. Detwiler’s father was John Harry Detwiler. [50] John Harry’s father was John Detwiler. [51]
24. Illustrated Historical Atlas of Delaware County, Ohio. Philadelphia: L. H. Everts and Company, 1875. 11.
History of Delaware County and Ohio. Chicago: O. L. Baskin and Company, 1880. 546.
25. “William L Detwiler.” Ancestry website.
26. “Margaret Elaine Detwiler.” The Delaware Gazette, Delaware, Ohio, 25 October 2012. She was William’s wife.
27. “William L Detwiler.”
28. Goulder, 1951.
29. “Hugh McMullian in the 1940 Census.” Ancestry website.
30. Bailey’s mother was Rebecca Steer. Her ancestor, Moses Hall, arrived from North Carolina in 1804. [52] The Bailey line has been traced back to Lindley Patterson Bailey who was born in Belmont County in 1850. [53] The movement of Quakers from North Carolina to Ohio is discussed in the post for 28 March 2021, which describes the ancestry of Varner Chance.
31. National Gallery of Art. Prabook makes clear the commercial printer was CRS. [54]
32. Mary Lea Bailey. Email to John Blocher, Jr. 25 June 2016.
33. Email from Oscar Bailey’s family, 23 February 2022.
34. National Gallery of Art.
35. Sara Bailey is discussed in the post for 15 May 2022.
36. Barbara Edwards. Photograph on Flickr website.
37. National Gallery of Art.
38. “Remembering Oscar Wilson Bailey.” Society for Photographic Education website, 30 January 2010. Bailey was a founding member of the organization. [55]
39. Society for Photographic Education.
40. National Gallery of Art.
41. Will Peebles. “James Dean Mackey’s Clarinet Patents.” The Clarinet 47(4):46–49:September 2020.
42. Holcomb has the date as 1949, but 1951 is more likely. Not only are the Baileys mentioned, but the Homestead Acres project is described as “three years ago.” In note 15 for the post for 22 May2022, Holcomb says that project began in 1948.
43. Holcomb. 63.
44. Holcomb. 63.
45. Katherine Ferris Rohrbough. 108. Quoted by Holcomb. 84.
46. YWCA. 1.
47. “Donald Frye in the 1940 Census.” Archives website. He was living in Radnor, Township to the northwest of Delaware.
48. Holcomb. 109.
49. Steve Eskew. “Fora E. Lassiter.” His website; last updated 25 August 2021.
50. “William L Detwiler.”
51. “Delaware/OakGrove.” Internment website.
“Detwiler Tavern.” Past Perfect Online website.
52. Elizabeth J. (Hall) Hartley. Descendants of Moses Hall, John Dounda, and Benjamin Hall (Quaker Families of Belmont County, Ohio, from Virginia & North Carolina. Denver, 1958, second private printing. vii on Moses Hall, 1 on his son Moses Hall, 146 on Joseph Hall, 181 on Thomas Hall and David Hall, 182 on Linley Hall who married Millicent Bailey, and 183 Mary Hall who married William James Steer.
53. “Oscar Joseph Bailey.” Roots Web website. Oscar Joseph was Oscar Wilson’s grandfather. Oscar Wilson’s great grandfather was Lindley Patterson Bailey.
54. “Oscar W. Bailey.” Prabook website.
55. National Gallery of Art.
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