Six Thousand Years of Writing & Printing
The Crandall Historic Printing Museum is a unique one-of-a-kind museum in all the world! It offers more than a printing museum of methods and how-was-it-done exhibits. It is a living documentary of the role the written and printed word has had on history.
The story begins with the first implements of writing and carries the patron through the time tunnel of significant events and documents to the period of the invention of printing as it is known today. These time travelers learn of the lives and works of many of the early writers to the period of the Reformation, the Incunabula, the founding of America, the Restoration, and, finally, the world of mass communications today.
Other museums offer a tour of what printing was like or how historical documents were made. As visitors to the Crandall Museum learn through hands-on experience the methods of invention and printing, they also are taught by expert docents the significant impact printing has had on world history. This story is seldom told or preserved, even in the school systems. The process of re-discovery of these printing methods at the museum has also helped to uncover new understandings of the past and develop greater insights and appreciations of the inventors, philosophers and printers that have so shaped our current events. Research, publication and academic support are part of the museum's educational mission.
The historic presses in the Crandall Historical Printing Museum have been used commercially and demonstrate the actual printing live with the patrons assisting in the pulling of the press. Currently, no other museum in the world has a fully working authentic Gutenberg Press with a complete set of the actual movable type made in the same manner as in the 15th Century Gutenberg Print Shop and still used to create identical copies of that first printed Vulgate edition called today the Gutenberg Bible.
The museum's working replica Benjamin Franklin Press is currently printing the U.S. Constitution with metal type cast in molds made from the original punches that created the type used to produce the first print of the U.S. Constitution in 1787. This is also true of the Declaration of Independence which is printed on an authentic working replica of the Ramage Press. The Ramage Press, after crossing the Plains by wagon, was the first press of the state of Deseret (early Utah) in 1850 and became the first newspaper press in the Utah Territory.
The museum exhibits and prints on a replica 19th century printing press exactly like the press used by E. B. Grandin to print the first edition Book of Mormon. In the museum's 1930 print shop, visitors watch as professional printers labor on actual printing jobs commissioned by non-profit organizations using type created on an operating Monotype or a Linotype machine. During their visit patrons may view permanently exhibited first edition Bibles, historic books, and rare documents, including an original page of the Gutenberg Bible.
If the offering of the museum ended with these, it is unique in all the world, however, its message and presentation go far beyond. The museum sponsors outreach programs, special events (such as the popular Colonial Days venue of America's Freedom Festival, the Annual Constitutional Convention, etc.), credit and non-credit courses, ,and symposiums that bring inspiration, learning, fun family educational activities, and educational media to the community.
Without help from others this knowledge and history may once again be lost to the general public. The museum constantly appeals to the community for donations, sponsorships, and volunteers who will support its ongoing mission.