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![sunset.jpg][1]Sunset Bindery, inc.Bookbinders, Paper Rulers417 E. Pico St.Los AngelesCaliforniaPrinting Trades Blue Book, Western Edition, A. F. Lewis & Co 1926, pg. 124 [1]: /media/attachments/bbdir_entry/932/sunset.jpg (sunset.jpg)

![sacbind.jpg][1]Folke J. SvenssonBookbinderSacramentoCalifornia![svensen4.jpg][2]Folke Jonatan Svensson was born in Lysekil, Sweden on Jan 1, 1914. He grew upin Molndal, a small city south of Gothenburg. His father was a very skilledstonemason.Folke was the youngest of seven children. His siblings went into nursing,baking and tailoring. Folke chose bookbinding. For two years, starting at age18, he trained at Slöjdföreningen, Gothenberg, a well-known school forartisans. He became very skilled in all aspects of bookbinding.Folke continued his education by taking evening classes in math, managementand English. For five years he worked in Gothenburg doing hand binding, thenwent into industrial bookbinding. He became an employee of Oberg and Son inEskiltuna, where he became a foreman in the loose-leaf binders department.Later he moved to the big Esselte Company in Norrkoping, where he was made atime-study engineer.In 1950 Folke took a leave of absence from Esselte and traveled to Montreal,Canada, at the invitation of two German immigrants who wanted to start abookbinding business and needed help learning how to use machines that Folkewas familiar with. For nine months he trained the owners and workers untilthey were off to a good start in their enterprise.Before returning to Sweden Folke wanted to have seen really big binderies,which meant going to the U.S. He was given a visa and hired by Burkhardt andCo. in Detroit, starting July 1951. He joined the union, the InternationalBrotherhood of Bookbinders. For the first time in his life he experiencedtension between the black and white workers.Folke wanted to see a bit more of the U.S. and he did not want to experiencethe Detroit winter, known to be harsher than Sweden’s, so in early December heheaded south in his Dodge. He came to the Gulf Coast, but his goal was toreach California. The sightseeing was interesting, and American apple pie andcoffee was a “given” at every rest stop. By Christmas he basked on the warmbeaches of Los Angeles.In a Swedish church he found new friends, and he felt at home. At the unionoffice he was referred to the Silverlake Bindery, which also owned WardRitchie Press. Anderson, Ritchie and Simon was well known for special orderwork. The Limited Edition Club was one of the customers. Folke fit right in.He soon knew that he would stay in California and wrote his resignation letterto Esselte. Folke went to night school. He became an American citizen. Thingswere going well. Folke was ready to marry, settle down, and have a family. Hehad kept in touch with his Swedish friend, Sara. Here the story changes from”he” to “we”: Folke and I were married in Sweden July 10, 1954.In August we were in Los Angeles. Folke returned to his job. We bought a home.I went to UCLA and got a B.S. degree. Our first child, Lisbet, was born in1958. The smog was a big problem and we moved to Sacramento. Folke firstworked at Ray White and Son, later at the State Printing Office (S.P.O.). Webought a big residential lot in the South Land Park area.Because of the layoffs at S.P.O. we had to leave and return to Los Angeles in1961, this time to live and work near the ocean. Folke was hired by the UCLAbindery and did special work for UCLA Library’s Special Collections. We boughta home in Mar Vista, five minutes from the beach. In March 1963 our twins,Kristina and Maria, were born.We stayed in Mar Vista long enough to become part of an intricate thirty-threefamily carpool. That made it possible for our three girls to attend UCLAelementary and preschool, which was a much sought after privilege. Even so, wesaw Sacramento as a better city in which to bring up children. We returned toSacramento in what would be our last move. Folke designed a home for the biglot, hired a good builder, and in Jan 1967 we moved into 4608 Sunset Drive.A big workshop was part of the home. Folke gathered bookbinding equipment andmachinery until he had a complete bindery at home. In the meantime he workedat the S.P.O. from which he retired in Jan 1, 1974. He now opened his ownbusiness under the name Sacramento Bindery. Mr. Herb Caplan had a bookstorefor old and rare California books. Folke became invaluable to him for repairsand restoration. Theirs was a very special friendship. Others came to Folkewith theses, professional journals, and special collections. His specialty wasrestoring old family bibles.Folke never sought recognition for himself or his work. What he made spoke foritself. He counted it a privilege to have worked with the best in the field ofbook production.Merle Armitage was a book designer of far reaching influence. The MerleArmitage Bibliography by Robert Marks was published in 1956. In his boldhandwriting Mr. Armitage write in a copy he gave to Folke: for Swensson, thefine craftsman.In 1984 Ward Ritchie was recognized for his fifty year contribution to the artof making fine books. A reception in his honor was held at the CaliforniaState Library, Sacramento. Folke was invited as a guest. He was greeted by Mr.Ritchie with a joyous, “O Folke, my bookbinder!” Photos were taken and latersent to Folke’s home. Theirs was a mutual respect for highest quality work butalso a personal friendship.Folke was a quality man in all he did and he bound books to last. He was alsovery generous. As a gift he rebound sixty hymnals for a Sunday school in hischurch in 1983. Those books have been in use every Sunday for twenty-fiveyears. They are still in good shape because he used highest grade materials.Folke’s greatest gift was to the First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley in1991. Our daughter Maria had graduated from UC Berkeley and was married inthat church. Folke offered to rebind all their hymnals. They had over 600! Hegave them choice of buckram, and they chose a lavender cloth at $15 per yardto match the sanctuary carpet. It was a huge task that became a family affair.Our daughter Liz Leighton helped, doing an outstanding job. Folke did all thegoldstamping. Every book had “Hymnal” on the spine and on the front cover atthe top: “Hymns for the Family of God;” at the bottom: “First PresbyterianChurch of Berkeley.” The church used those hymnals for many years until theychanged to a new type of songbook, which is used only in the sanctuary (seepostscript below).The last three years of his life, Folke did no bookbinding. His back hadbecome very bent. His height had gone from 6’1″ to 5′. He died on Nov. 18,2005 at the age of 91. Folke is very much missed by his family and hisfriends. He left us good memories. He also left us his own very fine libraryof forty Swedish books. He was an avid reader. While in his twenties he boughtpaperback versions of mostly classic books and bound them exquisitely. Mostare bound in leather of various kinds, full leather, or a combination ofleather and his own marbled paper. All are goldstamped, most also have goldedges on the top of the pages. Sara SvenssonSacramento, May 19, 2008 P.S. This last week I had a sunshine experience. I wanted to know what hadhappened to the hymnals Folke had rebound for the church in Berkeley. So Icalled “First Pres” and talked toPat Nicholson, who said she remembers well when Folke’s gift came. She told methat the church now has new hymnals only in the sanctuary. In all the otherrooms, and there are many that are used for Sunday schools, youth work, music,clubs, etc., the lavender hymnals remain: “and they are in very good shape.”She promised to send me two copies, which arrived on May 17. One is in the boxto the bookbinder’s museum. It makes me grateful and proud of Folke’s legacyas a quality man. The American Bookbinders Museum2736 16th StreetSan Francisco, CA 94103 www.bookbindersmuseum.com July 3, 2008 Dear Mrs, Svensson,Thank you so much for your informative and engaging biography of your husbandFolke Swensson. With your permission, we would like to post this biography onour website and have enclosed a transcript of the letter that you sent us.Please let us know if this is in keeping with your wishes, and if it is so, ifthe transcript meets your approval.As you know, The American Bookbinders Museum is interested in preserving thememory and work of bookbinders of the 19th and 20th century in the UnitedStates. Our goal is not only to preserve artifacts of that craft but toprovide a catalog of biographies of bookbinders working in the trade duringthe that time period.Please visit us at our site to watch the progress of the museum’s growth andcelebrate with us the richness and diversity of bookbinding and the people whopractice it. Best regards, Tim JamesPresidentThe American Bookbinders Museum![svensen6.jpg][3] [1]: /media/attachments/bbdir_entry/911/sacbind.jpg (sacbind.jpg) [2]: /media/attachments/bbdir_entry/911/svensen4.jpg (svensen4.jpg) [3]: /media/attachments/bbdir_entry/911/svensen6.jpg (svensen6.jpg)

William Swaim*Bookbinder241 Pearl StreetNew York  1.* New York bookbinder who would move to Philadelphia to market his patent medicine (1820). Griffenhagen and Bogard,  History of drug containers and their labels. Swaim’s Panacea a nationally sold medicine  for the cure of just about everything. Pontil Medicine Encyclopedia 2007. Estate was worth $500,000 in 1846 Memoirs and Auto-Biography of some of the Wealthy Citizens of Philadelphia. Guard, Ridgeway and Coleman, 1846, pg.60.1.(1810)New York City Directory .pg 354. (1813) Wanted Immediately three journeymen bookbinders. (NY) Evening Post, April, 7, 1813.(1820 Stephen Smith, The Art of Printing Shall Endure. A Thesis University ofMissouri-Columbia, 2007.2. (1846) Swaim died “leaving a princely fortune” article states that “hefound the recipe of his panacea on the fly-leaf of an old book he wasrebinding” Aug. 11. 1846.

William SwainBookbinder17 Henry StreetNew YorkNew York ( 1820)  2.1.(1805) William Swain, of New York, is awarded the gold medal, for binding inAmerican leather, from the American Company of Book-sellers. Dodd, Mead andCo.,The Bookman,  vol XVI, Aug. 1902- Feb.1903, pg.170.2.  Hannah French, “Early American Bookbinding by Hand” from: “Bookbinding inAmerica” Lehmann-Haupt ed. 1967. pg.109

Joseph C. SwanBookseller, Stationer and Blank Book ManufacturerSycamore StreetPetersburgVirginia 1.1, No date cir. 18th century. “Books faint lined, Ruled and Bound to pattern;and lettered without any charge, Book-binding in all its branches carried onin the most approved stile”(sic). Book label in the collection of the VirginiaHistorical Society, (1997.191.6.2) prov. John & Suse Field