Joseph W. Phinney

Who was Joseph W. Phinney?

Joseph Warren Phinney was an American printer, type designer, and business executive. Phinney began his career at the Dickinson Type Foundry in Boston where he designed type and worked in management, eventually becoming owner. He was a key player in arranging the merger of twenty-six large foundries to for the American Type Founders Company in 1892, becoming both manager of the Boston branch and head of the design department, where he oversaw the consolidation of type faces following the merger. Though his own designs were largely derivative, Phinney took a great interest in type and its history and throughout his tenure at A.T.F. he sought to preserve and protect that company's legacy, as for instance, when he over saw the re-introduction of Binny & Ronaldson's 1796 type design, Roman No. 1, as Oxford in 1892, or when he purchased Frederick W. Goudy's first type design, Camelot, in 1896. He stayed with A.T.F. for the rest of his career, eventually becoming senior vice-president, retiring shortly before the company fell upon hard times during the Great Depression.