This collection contains items collected by Edwin H. Carpenter about hand printing presses located primarily in California intended to be used to create a list or census of hand presses. Correspondence, photographs, and press information originate from many of those of the California press and printing community.

Edwin H. Carpenter was born in Iowa, August 21, 1915. He enlisted in the Army in Los Angeles on July 11, 1941, eventually becoming a warrant officer. He later became a Western American bibliographer at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. He was interested in hand printing presses, especially in California and the western United States. This collection contains information collected about hand presses, primarily in California. The information appears to have been intended to create a census of hand presses in the West. It is unclear whether an official list was published, but handwritten and typed drafts are included in the collection. The work of inquiring about presses and their owners was undertaken by Edwin Carpenter and Roger Levenson. Carpenter did publish a book entitled "Printers and Publishers in Southern California 1850-1876" (La Siesta Press: 1964). He died in Los Angeles on January 12, 1995.

1.4 Linear Feet (2 boxes)

The Clark Library owns the property rights to its collections but does not hold the copyright to these materials and therefore cannot grant or deny permission to use them. Researchers are responsible for determining the copyright status of any materials they may wish to use, investigating the owner of the copyright, and obtaining permission for their intended publication or other use. In all cases, you must cite the Clark Library as the source with the following credit line: The William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, Los Angeles.

Collection is open for research.