Here are two student typography projects done in 1919 and 1920, including a poster for a game between Princeton High School and Hopewell High School. These were done by Royal Carroll, who was in 9th grade at the time at Princeton High School.
Royal lived on the family farm east of Rocky Hill, and married Lou Etta Laning of Hopewell. These signs and images are kindly shared by their daughter, long-time Hopewell resident Hope Sudlow.
But why was Royal doing these kinds of projects? What class was he taking in school?
These days we might think this kind of lettering and layout work would be part of a graphics art course, and would expect to use software design and page layout tools like Illustrator and Quark. This specific work is best described as typography – arranging letters and text to be legible, readable and appealing. It’s not really calligraphy, which is more focused on the actual letter forms.
But what about back in the early 1900s? We can get a glimpse of the time from the 1917 Blue and Gold yearbook from Hopewell High School. The curriculum was focused on English, Latin and German, History, Math (up to Geometry), and Science (up to Physics). It also had a major “Commercial” component, including classes on Typewriting, Bookkeeping, Commercial Arithmetic, and Commerce & Industry. Plus it included Drawing, both Freehand and Mechanical.
- See post on the 1917 Hopewell High School Blue and Gold Yearbook
So we assume that this work is from a Mechanical Drawing class, since Royal also did layouts of advertisements, plus more traditional detailed engineering type drawings of mechanical equipment (since lost, unfortunately).
At the time, the new Hopewell High School had been built in 1910 on Columbia Avenue at South Greenwood Avenue (later Borough Hall and now the Firehouse). The Princeton High School was at 185 Nassau Street (now the buildings set back beyond Thomas Sweets).
- See post on the Confusing Hopewell Firehouse
- See more on the Princeton High School from the Historical Society of Princeton
Royal Carroll
Royal James Carroll (1904 -1973) was the son of Michael Carroll, who came from Ireland and established the family farm east of Rocky Hill. The family lived on the farm from 1872 to 1999. The farmhouse was later demolished, but there still is a Carroll Place there in their memory.
Royal (“Roy”) was one of nine children. The photo shows the Princeton High 1922 football team – He’s third from left in the top row, with the stripes on the shirt sleeve.
Roy graduated from Princeton High School in 1923, and immediately started working for the New Jersey Bell Telephone Company in the installation department. He retired in 1969 as an installation foreman after more than 45 years of service. His job helped support the family and farm after the deaths of his parents and during the difficulties of the Great Depression and World War II.
- See post on Early Telephone Service in the area
Roy loved nature, was an avid sportsman and traveler, and was active in the Trinity Episcopal Church Rocky Hill. He also was an enthusiastic photographer, with his own enlarging equipment. We have a fun photo of him holding a raccoon – plus his brother Dick behind with another raccoon.
Royal Carroll married Lou Etta Laning (c1916-2018) of Hopewell in 1941. Her family had built a home on West Prospect in 1915, where she was born and raised. Like Royal, she also worked for N. J. Bell Telephone, as an operator in what was then the telephone company building at 13 East Broad Street in Hopewell (now the Hopewell Public Library). We can imagine they came to know each other when he visited the telephone office to maintain the switchboards.
- See post on the Hopewell Public Library
Lou Etta was on duty the night of the Orsen Wells “The War of the Works” broadcast in 1938, and stayed at the post the entire night to reassure callers. But that’s another story…
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