Formerly called the Mackenzie Heritage Printery Museum, it was renamed to include the history of newspapers in Canada. The museum welcomed its latest corporate sponsor, the Canadian Newspaper Association (CNA), a non-profit organization of 84 English and French dailies dedicated to ensuring a free national press.
The museum’s featured exhibit, “Canada’s Newspaper Story,” traces the evolution of the nation’s newspapers since 1762. Among other things, the exhibit outlines the heroic struggle of Canada’s earliest printers to best serve the public’s interest rather than only the self-serving notices of government.
The limestone building housing the museum – once home to rebel editor, William Lyon Mackenzie – is itself a monument to freedom of the press. Mackenzie first published The Colonial Advocate from this building, a newspaper that began his career of activism to reform the government, leading to his ill-fated Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837.
In the photo of the Printery, there is a pillar-style monument to General Isaac Brock that was erected on the Niagara Escarpment during Mackenzie’s time. When the monument’s cornerstone was laid, a bottle containing a copy of Mackenzie’s Colonial Advocate was placed inside. But when Sir Peregrine Maitland, Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, heard of this, he stopped the monument’s construction and removed what he called a “colonial rag.”
Much later, when the tide turned in favour of a free press, the Niagara Historical Society proclaimed Mackenzie’s former home “the birthplace of responsible government.” Eventually the building became Canada’s only working printing museum, owned and operated by the Niagara Parks. Since 1993 the museum has held annual exhibits to highlight the contribution of printing to Canada’s economy and culture.
The gem of the Printery’s permanent collection is an English Common Press, built in the 1760s, and used by Louis Roy to print Upper Canada’s first newspaper. The museum also boasts eight working historic presses, such hot-type technology as an operating Linotype and Ludlow type casters, and the restored lithography studio of Canadian artist Frederick Hagan. On any day you visit the Printery, you can try your hand at typesetting using their vintage equipment.
August Fair Celebrates Book Arts
Once a year you can witness the production of a book from start to finish, when the museum hosts its yearly, Bartholomew-Tide Book Arts Fair. The eighth annual fair takes place on Saturday, August 16, 2003 with printmakers, bookbinders, papermakers and related artisans on site to demonstrate their crafts. Private and small press publishing houses will also be represented.
The Printery holds its annual Book Arts Fair to commemorate the feast day of St. Bartholomew, the patron saint of printers. For early printers, the 24th of August Bartholomew-Tide celebration was a festival of lights, marking the time when printers and compositors went back to working long hours by candlelight.
For information, contact the Mackenzie Heritage Printery & Newspaper Museum at: http://www.mackenzieprintery.ca or call: 905-262-5676.