Linn boyd benton biography of william

American typographer

Linn Boyd Benton (1844 in Little Falls, New York – 1932 in Plainfield, New Jersey) was an American typeface designer and inventor of technology for producing metal type.^[1][2][3][4]

The son of Congressman Charles S.

Benton, he was named for his father's friend Linn Boyd.^[5] After starting a career as a book-keeper and working at two newspapers, he became joint owner of Benton, Waldo & Co. Type Foundry and rapidly developed a thorough understanding of typefounding methods that led him to develop new technologies.

An 1886 profile described him as "an intelligent, entertaining, unostentatious gentleman, a mechanical genius".^[5] Benton's company was one of the original group of companies that merged to form the American Type Founders Company (ATF) in 1892, after which he was a director and chief consultant to ATF.

Benton invented many of the most important type founding