Letterpress Workshops

Get Hands-On at the Seaport Museum

The South Street Seaport Museum celebrates the community and economy that grew up around the shipping industry. Central to that industry and our Lower Manhattan neighborhood was printing – every business and transaction needed receipts, bills, advertisements, and certificates, and printing offices like Bowne & Co. filled the need.

Workshops at Bowne & Co. are in a working print shop and utilize the Seaport Museum’s collection of 19th- and early 20th-century type and printing presses. Be prepared for an experience where you don’t just learn history, you’ll get a chance to be hands-on and make it yourself.

Letterpress Workshops are currently paused. Please contact us below to be the first to receive updates on our schedule.

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500 Years of Printing in One Hour – Returning 2024

60 Minutes | Maximum 34 participants | Grades 6–Adult

Using objects and equipment from the Seaport Museum’s collection, the printers at Bowne & Co. will take you through the history of printing from Gutenberg to the New York Times.

• See demonstrations of several presses
• Learn the New York printing story
• Pull a print from the press
• Get a printed keepsake to take home

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Custom Stationery Workshop – Returning 2024

3.5 hours| Maximum 6 participants | Grade 9–adult

This workshop introduces participants to typesetting and letterpress printing.

• Choose from a selection of the Museum’s vintage lead type to design personalized stationery
• Set type, fine-tune a design, and print a final run
• Use a 19th-century press
• Go home with twenty personal stationery items

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Team Broadside Printing – Returning 2024

3.5 hours | Maximum 16 participants | Grade 9–adult

A broadside is a large sheet of paper printed on one side to create a poster, which could be anything from a circus advertisement to a political announcement.

• Collaborate with classmates to design and print a broadside poster
• Select wood type from among the hundreds of fonts in the Museum’s collection
• Lock letters into the press and then ink, proof, and print
• Learn about the physical origins of leading and character spacing
• Pull a final print
• Go home with three copies of the group’s poster

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Workshop instruction is very time-sensitive. Students arriving over 15 minutes late will not be permitted to participate. No open-toe shoes allowed.

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