In an age of Kindles, Harcourt Bindery sticks to tried-and-true book methods

What is a traditional paper-and-ink book fan going to do in the age of Kindles, Nooks, and iPads? The percentage of readers who have made the switch to e-readers is growing quickly: Over the winter holidays, the number of adults in the United States who own e-book readers nearly doubled from 10 to 19 percent, according to a study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

But readers who prefer a turn of the page to a swipe of a finger should not despair yet. Instead, they should make the acquaintance of Samuel B. Ellenport, who not only loves paper-and-ink books, but also earns a living making them – the old-fashioned way.

Ellenport is the president of Harcourt Bindery, a hand bindery business in Charlestown, Mass., that is the largest for-profit hand-bookbindery in the United States
and the last one in the country to operate on the 19th-century production model. Books produced here have landed in the halls of Ivy League universities and major museums. A custom case was once made here at Harcourt to hold the sleeping cap of Charles Dickens and Ronald and Nancy Reagan commissioned work from this bindery when they were in the Oval Office.

The operation runs much as it would have at the height of manual bookbinding in the US, when each person in the shop was highly skilled in one area of the process.

“The beauty of it is that the sum is bigger than all the parts, because you have expertise in different areas,” said Ellenport in an interview at the bindery. “The downside is, whether you get bored or not.”

Bookbinding is a repetitive process. While we tend to glamorize the trade as it becomes rarer, Ellenport says it has never been a romantic practice.

“It’s like going into a bakery where the wedding cake looks so pretty, and it smells so good, but the baker’s been up since 4 am making rolls.”

Ellenport himself has been in the book binding trade for nearly 40 years. A former history professor who taught at Brown University, Ellenport found a job at Harcourt in the early 1970s when academia was rife with young professors and teaching jobs were scarce. At the bindery, he bridged the gap between a mostly blue-collar workforce and an elite clientele.

He became the office frontman and bought the business when the previous owner, who had been there since 1918, offered to sell.

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