Commentary: Frank Romano Remains Most Valuable Treasure at Museum of Printing

Frank Romano stands with an Elektron version of the Linotype linecasting machine built by the Mergenthaler Linotype Co. This was the last Linotype manufactured.

Arguably among the most knowledgeable and revered stewards of technology developments within printing and typesetting through the ages, Frank Romano is a graphic arts industry treasure in his own right. 

It’s fitting, too, that he is now spending his golden years surrounded by what he loves — Linotype, Monotype, and Ludlow hot-metal typesetting machines, fonts, and ephemera; Hoe, Chandler & Price, and Cottrell letterpress platen and cylinder presses, to name a few; and a library filled with 6,000 antiquarian and printing-related books, magazines, and historical documents.

Hoe platen hand letterpresses became the workhorses of American printing back in their day.

Thanks in large part to the efforts of EFI, which was hosting an “Ignite” customer open house, I was among a group of industry journalists and analysts who recently toured the Museum of Printing in Haverhill, Massachusetts (less than an hour from Boston), where Romano serves as its president. Now in his early 80s, his eyes lit up as he discussed some of the nonprofit museum’s most prized possessions. 

The Lisa desktop computer — a forerunner to the Apple Macintosh computer — was released in January 1983. It was one of the first personal computers with a graphical user Interface (GUI). Even more rare, also housed at the museum, is a NeXT Cube by Steve Jobs.

It’s a fitting final legacy for a man who devoted his life to the printing industry — including early stints working at Mergenthaler Linotype and Compugraphic; 26 years serving as a professor at RIT; a former publisher and founder of Typeworld; and an author of 89 books, including updating the classic “Pocket Pal.”

As we approach the summer travel season, I highly encourage everyone to consider a Saturday visit to the Museum of Printing (museumofprinting.org). 

You might even be lucky enough to receive a personal guided tour from Romano himself. Of all the special collections and hundreds of antique printing, typesetting, and bindery machines on display — from my perspective — he is the attraction to celebrate the most.