Beatrice Warde

Who was Beatrice Warde?

Beatrice Warde, was a communicator on typography. She was the only daughter of May Lamberton Becker, a journalist on the staff of the New York Herald Tribune, and Gustave Becker, composer and teacher.

Beatrice was educated at Barnard College at Columbia University. At the age of eleven she had developed a love of calligraphy, and this grew in her college years to an interest in the history of letter forms. She became acquainted with Bruce Rogers, the typographer, and, on his recommendation, on graduation was appointed to the post, under Henry Lewis Bullen of assistant librarian to the American Type Founders Company, in Jersey City, where she concentrated on self-education and research. While there she became acquainted with eminent typographers including Daniel Berkeley Updike and Stanley Morison, who later played a highly influential part in her professional life.

She remained there from 1921–1925, and in 1922 married Frederic Warde, printer to Princeton University, a gifted typographic designer, and fully familiar with the possibilities of mechanical typesetting. The Wardes moved to Europe in 1925, but their marriage ended in separation in November 1926, soon followed by an amicable divorce.