James Walter Phillips (1860-1938) was an engineer who worked more than 40 years for the Bureau of Surveys in Philadelphia’s Department of Public Works. He ultimately rose to head the Grade Crossing Removal Division, in charge of removing dangerous street-level railroad crossings, which was usually accomplished by building bridges over the streets to carry the trains. These letters include some of his reports on grade crossings and bridge inspections, as well as personal correspondence regarding coal deliveries, his son’s school, family property in New Jersey and New Hampshire, his rental property in Oak Lane, and even a tentative search for a new job.
The typed pages, newspaper clipping, and blueprint at the beginning of this PDF were simply tucked into the volume. The letter copies begin on the page numbered 2. The copies may have been made with a letter copying press, sometimes called a letterpress. A simple description comes from the online Merriam-Webster Dictionary: “An obsolescent device in which an original (as a letter) in copying ink is transferred in reverse by being pressed against an absorbent translucent sheet which is read from the reverse side.” Other more elaborate explanations, along with photos of the devices, can be found on various websites. One, from the Canada Science and Technology Museum, describes the history and process as follows:
“James Watt, better known for his revolutionary steam engines, patented the letter copying press in 1780. The press features a fixed frame and a movable horizontal plate (the platen) raised and lowered by a large screw. To copy a handmade letter or drawing, an office clerk laid a sheet of dampened tissue paper over the original and placed them together in the press. Under pressure from the lowered platen, ink would transfer from the original to the tissue, creating a reverse copy that could be read through the thin paper. By placing waterproof oiled paper between multiple layers of tissue and originals, copies of several documents could be made at the same time.
“As industry and commerce boomed in the nineteenth century, trade developed at a rapid pace, and business documents had to be reproduced equally fast. The copying press facilitated this process by eliminating the need for copy clerks to produce handwritten or hand-drawn copies. Copying presses were fixtures in offices until at least 1900, although in the second half of the nineteenth century, they were gradually replaced by two newer inventions: the typewriter and carbon paper.”
The mimeograph machine was also a successor to the letterpress, as is the photocopying machine. Now we can even bypass the hands-on reality of paper for a digital copy—as with this Phillips book of letters. This PDF was made by scanning each page and combining the images into a single PDF file that mimics the original with none of the mold, mildew or mess. Most of the books of letterpress copies that PWD staff found in an unheated garage in the 1980s were damaged beyond salvation, the thin paper almost rotted into dust. But this book survived, the remnant of an antiquated process that may have been time-saving in its day, but seems archaic and quaint to us now.
