"Today we're going to look at Joint Resolution No. 25, from June 23, 1860, signed by President Buchanan," said the public printer, Robert C. Tapella, "Bob" to everyone in the Tahoe, who besides the driver and me included Bob's special assistant, his public relations manager, a still photographer and a videographer. This would be a well-documented field trip.
But then again, if federal documents are your thing, this was a big deal. Joint Resolution No. 25 created the Government Printing Office.
[Snip]
We rounded Pennsylvania Avenue, and there waiting for us, like a party host eager to greet his first guest, was Archivist David S. Ferriero, most recently of the New York Public Libraries but before that the head of Duke University's libraries.
[Snip]
"I thought it would be in handset type," Bob said. But instead, the seven pages of parchment were covered in a clear cursive hand describing the first public printer's job in considerable detail, including what sort of stock he had to use to print congressional documents (paper weighing "no less than fifty pounds to the ream of five hundred sheets of twenty-four by thirty-eight inches") and how he would be punished if he ran a printing, binding or engraving business on the side ("imprisonment in the penitentiary for a term of not less than one nor more than five years").
Note: The article also contains a couple of paragraphs about a skill Public Printer Tapella has.
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