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A type foundry is a company that designs and distributes typefaces.

In 1796 Binny & Ronaldson established the first permanent type foundry in the United States. The foundry was also known as The Philadelphia Type Foundry. In 1812 the foundry is supposed to have issued the first type specimen book ever produced in the United States. In 1833—after Binny and Ronaldson had retired—the foundry was purchased by Lawrence Johnson and George F. Smith. It was combined with Lawrence Johnson’s existing stereotype foundry and greatly expanded. In 1845 Johnson brought in three junior partners: Thomas MacKellar, John F. Smith and Richard Smith and in 1897 the foundry took on the name MacKellar, Smiths and Jordon, upon the addition of Peter A. Jordon as a partner. In 1896—100 years after Binny & Ronaldson had founded the company—MacKellar, Smiths and Jordon published a book which celebrated the history of the company. The following images are taken from that book and show how type was made at the end of the 19th century. Metal-mixing Department Making the Matrix Making Type-Moulds Fire-proof Vault for storing Matrices and Moulds Hand Type-casting Department Automatic Type-casting Department Electrotyping The Foundry Stock Room Financial and Commercial Departments Sales and Shipping Bookkeeping and Correspondence Department Printing Department (Original scans by Villanova University published under Creative Commons, BY-SA 3.0)

The Klingspor-Museum Offenbach is a museum for Modern International Book Art, Typography and Calligraphy. On 7. November 1953 the Klingspor-Museum opened its doors to visitors the first time. During the post-war years the City of Offenbach am Main founded a small museum for the art of modern book production and typography. The basis of the museum was the valuable collection of books of Dr. h.c. Karl Klingspor (1868–1950), who together with his brother Wilhelm operated a typefoundry in the first half of the 20th century in Offenbach am Main. Notable artists like Otto Eckmann, Peter Behrens, Rudolf Koch, Walter Tiemann, Rudo Spemann, Imre Reiner, Hans Bohn and Karlgeorg Hoefer designed typefaces for the company. The firm’s high artistic typesettings were exported to printers around the globe from its location in the Offenbacher Ludwigstrasse; the Gebrüder Klingspor type foundry was world reknowned. In 1927 at the International Book Art Fair in Leipzig, the private book collection of Dr. Karl Klingspor was exhibited as the “Room of a bibliophile” and much admired. To this day his collection of 100 books bound in leather by the bookbinder Ignatz Wiemeler is an invaluable gem of the Klingspor-Museum. Shortly after establishment of the museum, the first important donations arrived. The families of Rudolf Koch (1876–1934) and Rudo Spemann (1905–1947) gave entire collections inherited from their estates, and the young museum soon became the central collecting point for modern typographic art. The expressive calligraphy, tapestries with types and book production of Rudolf Koch and his former students are evidence of a lively Offenbach School of Calligraphy of the 20th century. The Klingspor-Museum owns a large part of the work of Ernst Schneidler (1882–1956), who founded the Stuttgart School. His students are also present, with works of Rudo Spemann, Werner Bunz, Georg Trump and Eva Aschoff. Vienna is represented by the unique collection of Rudolf von Larisch. The Klingspor Museum in Offenbach holds the largest collection outside of the Netherlands of work of the greatest Dutch printer and typographer Hendrik Nikolaas Werkman (1882–1945); with his experimental periodical “The Next Call” from 1923 to 1926 he was one of the most influential avant-garde typographer of the century. Permanent and changing exhibitions with valuable items from the museum's own collections, as well as loans from artists and collectors, show the variety of the 20th century book and printing art on an international level Visitors from all over the world come to Offenbach to see the exhibitions and the extensive collections of the modern book and typographical art. The library of the museum also boasts a number of tables where the collections can be worked with.