The Rydal Press, Santa Fe
A healthy climate and an invitation from a Santa Fe writers’ group drew Walter Goodwin and his press from Rydal, Pennsylvania to New Mexico in 1933. In the East, Goodwin was a production manager and book designer for the J.B. Lippincott Company. As an aside he operated his own press, where he printed the work of a cooperative publishing group under the Arrow Editions imprint and his own beautiful but affordable small books.
Goodwin’s work caught the attention of writers Alice Corbin and Haniel Long who urged him to move The Rydal Press to Santa Fe where they and others were planning a similar cooperative venture called Writers’ Editions. This invitation, along with a doctor’s recommendation to move his allergy-ridden son to a dry climate, led him to Tesuque, New Mexico. There he installed his equipment in a defunct TB sanatorium and printed the first three Writers’ Editions books before a year had passed.
While he produced his Rydal imprints and did commercial work, Goodwin continued to print for Writers’ Editions and for Arrow Editions. He sold his interest in the press and retired from printing in 1941.