The Inland Printer

The earliest notices of the P&C that I have come across were in the Inland Printer of June 1896 and in an unknown number (as of yet) of the same magazine from 1897.

The Inland Printer was a highly influential publication, not only in Chicago but elsewhere. It is reputed to have been the first American magazine to change its cover with every issue. Although it began in 1883 as a trade journal for the printing industry, by 1900 it had become "a two-hundred-page monthly packed with the latest news from the technological front and the art-world gossip of two continents." That would explain why a fledgling arts club with few members would receive notice in the magazine--that and the fact that a number of the founding members were designers, illustrators or printers.


The Inland Printer's covers are highly prized for their art nouveau style. The ink advertisements inside the magazine were something special, too. Will Bradley was an early designer, typographer and cover artist for the magazine.


So it is a treat to read in the March 1915 issue of the club newsletter: "The following artists are scheduled to design Inland Printer cover-pages for the coming five months: Hake, Saint Claire, Jensen, Timmins and Kleboe."

I have not yet tracked down the covers that these P&C men designed, but the covers above, from May and June 1902 and September 1903, give you an idea of what the magazine looked like.