As the City of Gardner web site states, “By the mid 1800’s, Gardner’s major industry was the manufacture of chairs and other wooden furniture” and it soon became known as the “Chair City of the World” (quite a claim).  That’s about all I knew about Gardner, other than the fact that it has a general aviation airport with an instrument approach.  So when I received an email from Mass Humanities describing an oral history project in Gardner, I said to myself, “I can help with that, for three hours anyway, and maybe learn something else about the place.”

At 2 pm, I parked at a meter on Central Street and walked across to number 306, the Chair City Community Art Center.  There I met Tracie Pouliot, who is the mastermind behind the project to interview furniture workers and turn their first-hand accounts into hand-printed, hand-bound books using old fashioned methods of bookmaking.  The idea seems simple: find people who worked in the furniture industry, listen to their stories and transcribe them, typeset them, and publish each person’s story in a hand-made booklet.  Tracie showed me around the center: she was able to purchase a proof press, a typesetting machine, and an industrial-scale paper cutter for this project.  She is now training volunteers to help with all phases of the book making process.

Today I started learning how to work a Challenge proof press; our task was to print the background of the booklet covers, which is a wood grain pattern.  We had to mix the ink, carefully dab it on the roller and distribute it, position the blank paper, and crank the wheel to move the paper over the block.  Then as each sheet came off the press, we laid it out to dry.  The wood grain design is elegant and subdued, and the hardest part was probably getting the color right.  This is the machine I worked on:

(I found this image on Flickr, but I don’t know who owns it; I hope it’s available in Creative Commons for one-time non-commercial use.)

Midway through the afternoon, I switched to a different task and joined a group of volunteers who were folding printed pages.  This task was a bit easier, as we could sit at a work table instead of standing, but it required a careful eye to line up the edges exactly.  The booklet we worked on today is Guy Savoie’s story; Guy was employed at Nichols & Stone for many years.

Finally, at the end of the day, I learned how to clean the proof press using mineral oil on the rollers.  The solvent has a strong odor, so we opened the door to the street for more ventilation.  The cleaning step is particularly important because this press is not in continuous use, and leaving old ink on the rollers would affect the quality of the next print run.

Volunteers will be helping with all aspects of the book making process, including creating woodcut illustrations, printing, setting type, and binding.  Drop-in hours are posted on the Center’s door, and you can ask to be on the mailing list.  All volunteers who contribute at least three hours can take home a book.  The book I received for helping this afternoon is Dale Lucier’s story; she was a Nichols & Stone employee for 33 years.  I was particularly struck by her observations on the craftsmanship involved in furniture making:

You take for granted you have a chair.  You never realize how much goes into that product to make the chair.  I never thought about where the wood came from, how you have to dry it out in the kiln.  When you see the whole process, it’s amazing all the steps that you have to go through to make one piece of furniture, so you appreciate it a little bit more.