The Print Shop

The Carillon Historical Park Print Shop is the nation’s only fully operational 1930s letterpress job shop in a museum. With authentic 1930s printing equipment and furnishings, the Print Shop harkens to a time when Dayton had 77 printing companies, ranging from one-person operations to McCall’s, which produced 4 million magazines daily, including Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, Reader’s Digest, Redbook, and Popular Science.

By 1937, printing was the second largest industry in the United States. Due to the abundant water supply available, Dayton was heavily involved in the printing industry. In fact, as it was more cost-effective to print near the location of the paper mills, 25 of Ohio’s 36 paper mills were located right here in the Miami Valley.