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"A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE MODERN LETTERING STENCIL"

As the 1930’s drew to a close, a young schoolteacher in Baltimore, Maryland made an observation… The brass stencils she gave to her students to use in creative projects were giving them problems.

Their crayons and colored pencils were not fitting into the narrow serifs (the small cross strokes) of the letters. Ruth Libauer Hormats had an idea. What if there were some stencils made of cardboard? What if the letters and numbers were slightly fatter – especially in the serifs – to allow for easy coloring? What if there were small holes slightly above and between each letter, number or punctuation mark to allow for precise spacing?

After formulating her concept of such a stencil, Mrs. Hormats had two prototypes made up at a cost of ten dollars each – a significant sum of money for the time, what with America just coming out of the Depression years.

Soliciting many of the major stores and retail chains around the country, she eventually received a reply from the F.W. Woolworth Company®. The five-and-ten cent store giant was interested in her product, but needed to see one first-hand. As she shipped one of the two prototypes off to New York, all she could envision was ten dollars going away. Ruth did not put much stock in the chance of receiving an initial order, but she had presumed wrong.

The Woolworth® order had been the linchpin for launching the Stenso® Lettering Company in the basement of her parents’ home at 2510 Elsinor Avenue in Baltimore around 1940. She recalled [during a telephone conversation with the author] that the whole family sat around the dinner table inserting the freshly die-cut stencils into their envelopes and packing them for resale.

Her design was so unique with its spacing holes (called “indicators” by Hormats) that she was awarded a patent for her invention. In an unparalleled event, the prestigious Macy’s® Department Store in Manhattan held a demonstration of this versatile new product.

As sales grew, so did the diversity of the product line. The initial products included lettering guides in 1/2 inch, 3/4 inch, 1 inch and 1-1/2 inch Roman (serif) capital letters and numbers, a 1/2 inch Gothic (sans serif) card with capitals, lower case and numbers and a map of the United States. The 1/2 inch Gothic was discontinued and was replaced with a 3/4 inch offering, as there were problems at the time in having steel rule dies bent so precisely into small letter shapes.

The stencils were offered individually or as small and large assortments known as “combination sets”. The average size of the stencil cards were approximately 8 inches by 10-1/2 inches. (Later products with letters larger than 3 inches were on stencil board stock of appropriately different sizes.)

For a while, a stencil toy of circus animals was produced as well as other “educational” stencils during the 1940’s. A special-run product [requested by the New York Rabbinical Association] in the early 1950’s offered the Hebrew alphabet, but was discontinued due to poor sales.

A unique stencil design was issued toward the end of the 1940’s, allowing users to create letters in three different styles. Called “2 inch Solid Gothic”, the letters and numbers were atypical of most stencil letters that had “breaks” within the letterforms. These letters were complete – at least on their vertical sides – and they were cut out as if resting on “rails”. The user would trace the sides of the letters, then use a straight edge to close off the tops and bottoms. Then one could leave the letters in outline form, fill them in, or color in the background – hence the “three-way” application.

Robert Libauer (Ruth’s younger brother) handled the day-to-day operations of the fledgling company, while Ruth remained a schoolteacher. The company was later relocated to Baltimore’s Industrial Building, then expanding to its own manufacturing facility at 1101 East 25th Street.

The 1950’s saw a larger expansion of the product line to include different Roman and Gothic combination sets with new sizes added. The larger Gothic sets now ranged from 3 inches 12 inches, and there was the addition of new lettering styles. Old English, Frontier® (Western) and Modern Script® (similar to the digital typeface “Croissant®”) bolstered the range of lettering available to the consumer. A decorative stencil line was introduced in the late 1950’s for home crafters. As Alaska and Hawaii became states, an additional card was included with the map of the United States.

By the early 1960’s a “Modern Gothic®” lettering stencil was introduced with three alphabets – all in Art Deco style – available on one stencil card. This unusual stencil [despite earlier problems with small steel rule dies] offered alphabets and numbers in 1/4 inch, 3/8 inch and 1/2 inch sizes. The 1/2 inch and 3/4 inch Roman stencils were re-tooled to provide both solid and stencil versions of the letters. Many intermediate sizes, previously available only in combination sets of their respective type style were now being sold as individual units.

Around 1963-1964, a lucrative offer was made to Robert Libauer to purchase the company. Ottenheimer Publishers® of Owings Mills, Maryland soon became the new owner of the company, and new packaging was introduced. Just a year later, the Dennison Manufacturing Company® of Framingham, Massachusetts wanted to purchase a line of maps being manufactured by Ottenheimer®.

The publisher countered that the map line was only for sale if the stencil line was purchased as well (leading one to believe the line either didn’t meet financial projections for the company or didn’t fit well into its corporate plan).

Dennison® took over stencil manufacture in 1965. A “20” prefix was added to all product numbers to fit into their standardized product identification system.

From 1965 until the early 1980’s, it seemed stencils were nothing more than an “addendum” to the company’s vast product line. Stencil board was replaced with file folder stock, and the dies – which needed re-knifing periodically in order to maintain cutting quality – were often left in varying degrees of disrepair.

Finally, during the beginning years of the 1980’s, the line was thoroughly overhauled. All of the old dies were scrapped, and new ones were manufactured. The largest size in the line was a 3” stencil, and the “Gothic” stencil was now patterned after the popular typeface “Helvetica®”. Roman stencils were modeled after a stencil font originally designed in metal type (and later available as a digital font).

Stencil “cards” were now approximately 4 inches high by 8 inches wide, and were die cut and folded into plastic-wrapped packaging so that they were better suited to “pegboard sales” in small spaces.

As the fortunes of Dennison® faltered in the 1990’s, the one-time largest supplier of office products globally was forced to merge with Avery® (the originators of self-adhesive labels) in order to survive.

The Stenso® brand name was dropped, and eventually Avery’s® own line of stencils was discontinued. Part of the demise of the stencil lettering guide can be attributed to the era of dry transfer lettering, and the digital revolution brought on by affordable home computers (where thousands of type faces are available).

Robert Libauer’s only rival for the greater part of his company’s existence got its start in 1955 under the name “Stencil·It®”. Formed by Bernie Aaronson, [a relative of the Libauers who once worked for them] along with a “silent” financial partner (Sidney Levyne). The company was soon put out of existence by a court action brought on by Robert Libauer.

The two partners reformed the company as E-Z Letter® around 1956 and Libauer [in a phone conversation to me some years ago] told me he decided to no longer fight the competition. E-Z Letter® disposed of its remaining stock of “Stencil-It®” product by using a hole punch to eliminate the word "It" printed on the stencil boards; selling them in new E-Z Letter® envelopes.

Originally, Sidney Levyne was only an investment partner, having had a successful career in advertising. To note, Levyne had designed the logo for the Cat’s Paw® line of soles and heels used at most shoe repair shops.

Around 1964, Bernie Aaronson and his wife (Adele) both passed away from leukemia. It was suspected that they somehow acquired the disease from their cat [feline leukemia]. Sidney Levyne purchased the remaining interest in the company from the Aaronson heirs and his son (David) came on board in 1965 to help run the company. Along with E-Z Letter®, David eventually forayed into other lettering products under the banner “Quik·Stik®”.

The Quik·Stik Company® carried their own line of dry transfer lettering (manufactured for them by Chartpak®) along with vinyl self-adhesive letters (Super Stik®) and a line of movable self-adhesive cardboard letters (Quik Stik®). Quik·Stik® was a dismal failure due to the combination of the weight of the cardboard letters and the type of adhesive used. It was discontinued, while the Super·Stik® vinyl line thrived.

Eventually David Levyne bought out his family’s interest in E-Z Letter® and merged the two companies into the E-Z Letter/Quik·Stik Company®. The “Super Stik®” name was dropped in the 1980’s due to litigation brought on by another company claiming prior ownership of the name. All products eventually carried the E-Z Letter® name. The stencil line was expanded to include Quik·Set®, an interlocking paper stencil and a line of "painting" type stencils – both which could be used for repetitive stenciling (such as marking shipping boxes).

In the 1970’s, E-Z Letter was the first manufacturer of lettering guides to die cut their products out of plastic rather than stencil board, but eventually returned to the original stencil board format.

E-Z Letter® evolved into E-Z Industries®, which carried an expanded catalog line of lettering and sign devices, personal planners, calendars and other scheduling products. The company eventually sold its stencil line to Geotype® in the 1990’s, as the sale of lettering stencils diminished. Many competing products (dry transfer lettering, self-adhesive vinyl lettering and the introduction of the personal computer) had changed the market forever.

As the outlet for his other products shrank due to the disappearance of small “mom and pop” stationers, David Levyne sold E·Z Industries® and went into the printing brokerage business.

Ironically, where Stencil-It/E-Z Letter® had been created [in part] by a former employee of Stenso®, Joe Kyle had left E·-Z Letter® to form his own line of stencils, dry transfer and self-adhesive vinyl lettering called Presto® – sold through his Visu-Com® company.

Geotype® went through a bankruptcy and the restructured company, along with Visu-Com® were acquired by another company, but neither of their original stencil lines survive.

Imitation, they say, is the sincerest form of flattery… and during the mid-1960’s the Duro Decal Company® of Chicago, Illinois (now known as Duro Art Industries®) introduced its own expanded line of stencils. For years a manufacturer of water-applied decal letters and numbers for signage, decorative decals, brushes and supplies for artists and many other fine items, Duro® had carried sets of painting stencils – letters and numbers on small, individual cards for putting identifying marks on houses, mail boxes, boats, etc.

In overall design, lettering guides Duro® marketed were clones of many of the original products sold by Robert Libauer.

The lettering guide, as first introduced by the Libauers are no longer marketed… although stencil alphabets can be found in a variety of brands and formats to cover most signage, craft and hobby needs.

It was a simple idea set forth by a young school teacher in Baltimore so long ago which gave millions of school children, small business owners, church groups and others a chance to create attractive lettering with a minimum of cost or experience.

Thanks and appreciation is given to the late Ruth Libauer Hormats, Robert Libauer - former owner of the Stenso Lettering Company® and David Levyne - former owner of E-Z Letter/Quik Stik® in helping to fill in much of the missing information in this research project.