The Multitalented W.A. Dwiggins
 Professionally, Hingham's William Addison Dwiggins
was a renowned type designer, calligrapher, illustrator, and writer. But these activities did not suffice to satisfy his creative instincts. A gentle, modest, and sensitive
person, with numerous whimsical talents, he designed and constructed furniture, painted murals, made lampshades and woodcarvings, stenciled draperies, and contrived a weathervane to register on an indoor
compass. He acted as architect for the remodeling of his home and construction of his studio. Furthermore, he experimented for many years with a small marionette theatre, serving as artist, craftsman, playwright and
director.
Born in Cambridge, Ohio in 1880, Dwiggins came to Hingham in 1904 to study with
Frederic Goudy, a type designer. Goudy left for New York the next year, but Dwiggins remained in Hingham, with his wife Mabel, the rest of his life, designing books and
typefaces, doing advertising layouts, and amassing an impressive series of professional honors. 1928 was called "The Year of Dwiggins" by Publisher's Weekly; the American
Institute of Graphic Arts gave him its Gold Medal that year; Harvard awarded him an honorary degree in 1947; and in 1948 he became a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Dwiggins legacy lives on, in Hingham and elsew here. He designed the 1935 book
"Hingham Old & New", set in "Goudy Old Style" typeface - as is this article - including such memorable graphics as "The Old Names" map. In the Dwiggins Room at the Boston Public Library is gathered together much of his professional work and examples of his wide-ranging avocational interests. On shelves
are the 400 books he designed – more than 300 of them for Knopf – with hand-lettering for the titles on the spines and his unique use of
stencils to create typographical ornaments. In addition, there are original drawings for the 17 typefaces he created, pieces of furniture, and, in special display cases, the
Dwiggins Marionettes, representing characters in plays he wrote, with heads carved by Dwiggins and costumes made by Mrs. Dwiggins working from his designs.  After his death on Christmas day, 1956, his longtime associate Dorothy Abbe (
in picture at left, with Dwiggins) continued to live in his home and studio on Irving Street, caring for his widow, maintaining extensive archives of his work and keeping his memory alive.
A great deal of what W.A. Dwiggins accomplished will last as long as there are books and readers. Of interest: Strings Attached – In the Shadow of W A Dwiggins: Dorothy Abbe by Anne Bromer, (privately printed) reviewed at
http://www.worldbookdealers.com/articles/br/br0000000455.asp
For an inventory of the Dwiggins Collection at the University of Maryland Library, see:
http://www.lib.umd.edu/RARE/SpecialCollection/dwiggins/annotatedinventory/index.ht ml For an article about Dwiggins type designs, see:
http://www.connare.com/essays.htm
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