The Franklin Journal, and American Mechanics’ Magazine; Devoted to the Useful Arts, Internal Improvements and General Science. Vol. 4, no. 1 (July 1827).

 

By the 1820s several treatises about the process of lithography had been issued in Europe, while periodicals served as the only mode of dissemination in the United States. Between 1827 and 1830, the Franklin Institute published the most complete American description of the lithographic process to date. The proper equipment, tools, and print process were detailed through a series of over a dozen articles, primarily translated from the work of the first Parisian commercial lithographer Charles Philibert De Lasteyrie (1759-1849). They included recipes for crayons and inks; the steps needed to prepare the stones; descriptions of how to make marks; notes on “important improvements” to the process, such as a new method for making corrections; and the announcement that a “lithographic establishment will soon be established in this city.”

 

Click image for larger view.