Thesis Topic

As I discussed in my post from early September, I've been working with a team of mechanical engineers on the Uncommon Press project, which will culminate in the creation of an English common press for the Cary Graphic Arts Collection. I have decided that I will use my experience and participation in this project as a starting point for my senior thesis. More specifically, I plan to focus on the way in which the finished press can be utilized by individuals outside of the RIT and printing communities. The idea to hone in on this area arose through conversations with various individuals, including Dr. Decker; I've been asked multiple times, "what's the end goal for this project? Is it just to have a wooden press in the Cary's collection? Will it be accessible to the general public?" I think these are important question, which deserve to be answered.

One could certainly reason that creating the press just to say you have one is an expensive and largely unnecessary endeavor. Since wooden common presses, whether they're originals or reconstructions, are quite rare, I would counter that there certainly is value in creating it so that it can be placed alongside newer, cast iron presses in the Cary. Still, that might not seem like a sufficient reason, so I plan to dig deeper, and provide at least one answer to the question: "How can a reconstruction of an English Common Press be used to benefit the public?" Currently, my brief answer would be to say that the press could be used as an educational object for students, likely those in middle school. To support my answer to this question, I plan to utilize historical data & publications related to the subject of the English common press, current scholarly reports and articles relating to education, information gleaned from the curriculum of a local school & interviews with its teachers, and my own knowledge gained from personally working on the project. It's my hope that through researching & writing my thesis, I will be able to come up with a formula through which a variety of schools could utilize any reconstruction of a common press as a contextual device to better educate their students.