The Paris Commune is known for many things, but typography isn’t one of them. Despite the many posters, tracts, and the extensive archive of a daily newspaper that remain, these printed documents do not stand out from the mass of nineteenth-century typography. After all, the Commune governed Paris for only a little over two months in the spring of 1871. Any distinct visual culture that it might have developed was cut short by violent counterrevolution. However, even in its short existence, the Paris Commune managed to provide an example of a more just, democratic, and equal society for generations to come. And while many typographers who sided with the Commune took up arms to defend its principles, there were those who saw their trade as a more important tool of the revolutionary regime. They typeset, printed, and disseminated thousands of posters and tracts at the most prestigious printing facility in France, the National Printing House, while also changing it from within.
The National Printing House was not always called that. Throughout its history, it changed names to reflect the ruling regimes. Founded as a Royal Printing House in 1640, it was briefly renamed the Printing House of the Republic following the 1789 French Revolution. It took two more revolutions before it finally became the National Printing House in 1848, only to be renamed the Imperial Printing House under Napoleon III and to regain the title “National Printing House” after the collapse of the Second Empire in 1870. But it was during the Commune that, for the first time in its history, the National Printing House was supervised by a worker-typographer. During this brief period, the historic institution was restructured to introduce self-management, the abolition of penalties, the replacement of piecework wages with weekly wages, and a simplification of hierarchy.
While most administrative workers chose to leave when…
Auteur: Polina Godz
