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Taheta 1976, “The Spirit of 76”

Contributed by Hee Jin on Jul 2nd, 2019. Artwork published in .
The cover design addresses the United States Bicentennial and shows the Betsy Ross flag from 1776 next to the 50-star flag introduced in 1960.
Source: catalog.archives.gov License: Public Domain.

The cover design addresses the United States Bicentennial and shows the Betsy Ross flag from 1776 next to the 50-star flag introduced in 1960.

Cover and pages from Taheta 1976, the yearbook for Mt. Edgcumbe High School in Sitka, Alaska. A scan of the full yearbook is available at the U.S. National Archives website.

Page 140 credits some students that worked on the yearbook: Selima Goodman, Thomas James, Joanna Lestenkof, and Esther Jackson (specific roles for these four aren’t mentioned), with editors Anita Chase and Doris Paul.

Taheta 1976, “The Spirit of 76” 2
Source: catalog.archives.gov License: Public Domain.
Taheta 1976, “The Spirit of 76” 3
Source: catalog.archives.gov License: Public Domain.
Taheta 1976, “The Spirit of 76” 4
Source: catalog.archives.gov License: Public Domain.
The Mt. Edgcumbe High School was operated by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) at the time. Most of the student body is Alaska Native. The graduates identified as Eskimo, Tlingit, Aleut, and Athabascan.
Source: catalog.archives.gov License: Public Domain.

The Mt. Edgcumbe High School was operated by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) at the time. Most of the student body is Alaska Native. The graduates identified as Eskimo, Tlingit, Aleut, and Athabascan.

Taheta 1976, “The Spirit of 76” 6
Source: catalog.archives.gov License: Public Domain.
Taheta 1976, “The Spirit of 76” 7
Source: catalog.archives.gov License: Public Domain.

Typefaces

  • Fette Kursiv-Grotesk
  • Times New Roman
  • Univers

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13 Comments on “Taheta 1976, “The Spirit of 76””

  1. Wowzers! It looks like all the display typography throughout the 164 pages was accomplished with press type, or dry-transfer lettering. There must have been a version of Fette Kursiv-Grotesk – better known as Doric in the English-speaking world – that has been adopted for this technique. Formatt carried the similar Charter Oak, but not Doric. Maybe Chartpak? The smaller type looks like it’s set with IBM’s Selectric Composer, at least that’s what the unusual metrics of Univers suggest.

  2. Hi, Florian! I’m a big fan of all that you do, and I absolutely love this site! I’ve learned so much about typographic history here. It represents the very best of the kind of shared knowledge and community that the Internet is capable of creating.

    You are, of course, right about the dry-transfer lettering – you can see the transfer sheet on p. 140 (the 2nd photo from the left on the bottom row).

    Actually, there is something I wanted to ask an expert about, and maybe you can help? In another edition of this same yearbook, there is a typeface that I cannot identify, but I am besotted with it. It is also set in a very irregular way (maybe with the Selectric Composer?) … I can’t access the National Archives Catalog page for that edition right now for some reason, but as soon as I can I will post a picture of it! It has a very unusual lowercase k.

    Also, I don’t know who added the additional commentary about this use, but it’s lovely – thank you kindly!

  3. I guess that explains the part where the clas ses ele cted the of f icers in Septem ber, supervised by the Stude nt Council

  4. Hee, thank you for the nice words, and thanks for contributing to this project! Same here: I learn something new from Fonts In Use every day. The additional info (links, tags etc.) was added by me in the moderation process – you should have received an email about that.

    I had looked at several of the yearbok’s pages, but missed p. 140. Thanks for pointing this out. It’s fantastic to get a glimpse into the process, very meta! So headlines were indeed made with dry-transfer sheets, with cutlines set on a composer. And we know that Joanna Lestenkof and Esther Jackson worked on the typography – credits added. The image you embedded somehow didn’t come through. I’ll include it here.

  5. For the mystery face with the unusual k: I think I found what you are referring to. The face depicted below appears in several volumes of Taheta, as early as 1961 and throughout the 1960s until 1971.

    I don’t recognize it. The design has some Jensonian elements, but the k definitely is special. It looks indeed like some proportionally spaced typewriter font. It’s not included in IBM’s Composer Type Style Portfolio nor their 1983 Type Catalog. I also checked a 1967 Varityper catalog, to no avail. Let’s hope that someone else knows more.

  6. Florian,

    It’s my pleasure to actually be able to add something finally, after years of admiring and browsing! Ah, yes, I did get an E-mail that had a note by you, but didn’t realize what it was for. ^_^

    Meta indeed! Ha. Thank you for re-uploading p. 140 and adding credits. I mucked up the code by both uploading an image as well as “uploading” via URL, which I did bc the upload didn’t seem to have worked.

    And thank you so much for looking into the typeface I could not identify! The angle of the crossbar in the lowercase e and the angle of the flared serifs on some of the uppercase letters like the L, T, E, etc. also differentiate it from typefaces that could have been close matches. After reading the FAQs here, I realize now that that is off topic here, and I am actually in the process of creating an ID request on fontid.co

    By the way, it seems you’ve now browsed the collection of yearbooks as a whole, but I was going to point out some the handlettering in other editions I thought you might enjoy!

  7. Oh boy. I’m so sorry about the images, here they are, for real. This is my first time posting comments, so I didn’t understand how to properly insert pictures. Turns out it works for me in Chrome, but not Firefox.

    Taheta 1969, p. 2

    Taheta 1969, p. 2

    Taheta 1967 (cover)

    Taheta 1967 (cover)

    Anyway, that’s odd that it wasn’t in IBM’s catalogs, because I think that the school had an IBM Selectric I (like you guessed), based on what you can see in p. 140, and also based on the fact that the 1980 edition uses what is definitely Prestige Elite. I’ll include that in my post at fontid.co; perhaps that can narrow things down, since there can only be so many typefaces that were made into type balls.

  8. I was really hoping it was going to be that strange adaptation of Centaur for typewriter but no, totally different.

  9. Look what I just found! The mystery face was included in Alan Bartram’s invaluable article about typewriter type faces in Typographica 6 from 1962 – I should have checked that first. Turns out it’s called IBM Charter, a face made for the “Executive” electric typewriter. This precursor of the IBM Selectric was introduced in 1944.

    Ted Munk kindly shared scans of The IBM Electric Typewriter Catalogue from 1960. The sample is taken from page 20 of this brochure.

  10. Hee,

    That’s some wild lettering! Hard to achieve that kind of brio with type. Way to go, Milton Lewis!

    Sorry about your trouble with the image upload. It should work in Firefox, too. Will look into that.

  11. Florian,

    OH. MY. GOSH. You found it!!! Thank you, thank you!!! Incredible. Well, that’s one mystery solved.

    About the image upload form, I actually think it’s something to do with my own set up and not this site. My Firefox has trouble with JavaScript elements on some other websites, too, but Chrome handles them just fine.

    Blythwood—that’s a neat one though, thanks for sharing that.

  12. Fette Kursiv-Grotesk was indeed adapted for dry-transfer lettering by Chartpak as Etruscan, likely indicating that it’s based off Nebiolo’s Etrusco corsivo nerrisimo (and one of the smaller sizes, owing to the r with that horizontally-cut tail.)

    Here’s a “specimen” from eBay.

  13. Bryson, that’s solid detective work! Thanks for finding the missing link. I’ll include the image below, for future reference.

    Chartpak sheet for Etruscan 42pt S 2342CL. Photo: bjb mall by fizzbombsmother

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