American common press, Shield

This American common press was made by Francis Shield in about 1811. The press included an American open hose, a platen attached by hose bolts and faced with iron. It includes is original tympan and frisket, but its plank was repaired in the Museum. It is marked on the hose “F SHIELD.” The press has a height of 75 inches, a width, at cheeks, of 29.5 inches, and a length of 70 inches. The platen measures 12.5 inches by 18 inches.

The press was made by Francis Shield, a Londoner, who set up his press-building factory in New York in 1811 soon after arriving in the country. In England Shield had built iron Stanhope presses. Here, he produced a press that is typically American in style, with open hose and heavy simple timbers instead of the box hose and lighter timbers of English presses. This may be the press that he made for the Long Island Star—one of the first two presses that he built in the United States.

The press arrived at the Museum with an unusual “stone,” or type bed seated in plaster, which was a cast-iron plate measuring 20 inches by 26.25 inches. The bed was one inch thick and it included a raised iron box in the center. It was evidently a late addition recycled from some other kind of apparatus, that was probably not a printing press. The plate has been removed.

Donated by the Friends of Long Island’s Heritage, 1987

Citations: Philip Gaskell, “A Census of Wooden Presses,” in Journal of the Printing Historical Society 6, 1970 (census no. 17, p. 31); Elizabeth Harris, “The American Common Press,” p. 46, in Journal of the Printing Historical Society no. 8, 1978; Elizabeth Harris, "Printing Presses in the Graphic Arts Collection," 1996.