Somewhere back around 1940, a young school teacher in Baltimore, Maryland made an observation¡­ The brass stencils she gave to her students to use in creative projects were giving them problems.

Their crayons and colored pencils were not fitting into the narrow serifs (the small cross strokes) of the letters. Ruth Libauer Hormats had an idea. What if there were some stencils made of cardboard? What if the letters and numbers were slightly fatter ¨C especially in the serifs ¨C to allow for easy coloring? What if there were small holes slightly above and between each letter, number or punctuation mark to allow for precise spacing?

After formulating her concept of such a stencil, Mrs. Hormats had two prototypes made up at a cost of ten dollars each ¨C a significant sum of money for the time.

Soliciting many of the major stores and store chains around the country, she eventually received a reply from the F.W. Woolworth Company. The five-and-ten cent store giant was interested in her product, but needed to see one first-hand. As she shipped one of the two prototypes off to New York, all she could envision was ten dollars going away. Ruth did not put much stock in the chance of receiving an initial order, but she had presumed wrong.

The Woolworth order had been the linchpin for launching the Stenso Lettering Company in the basement of her parents’ home at 2510 Elsinor Avenue in Baltimore. A small office was set up, and girls were hired to help stuff the stencils into their envelopes. Ruth Hormats once recalled to me during a telephone conversation that the whole family had even sat around the dinner table inserting the freshly die-cut stencils into their envelopes and packing them for resale. The Eugene B. Baer Company, a major super-wholesaler [who also sold to other wholesalers] became the first distributor of Stenso's product.

The Stenso Lettering Guide was so unique with its spacing holes (called “indicators” by Hormats) that she submitted her patent design in 1940 and was awarded a patent for her invention in 1942. In an unparalleled event, the prestigious Macy’s Department Store in Manhattan held a demonstration of this versatile new product.

Manufacturing the stencils was not always a perfect task. The first die provided by Accurate Steel Rule Die (of New York) was too much for an ordinary press to handle and the press broke. To overcome this problem, the die was cut in half, and the stencils were die-cut in two parts to produce the final result.

Morris Libauer (Ruth and Bob's father) was the unsung hero of the operation. While Ruth taught school and Robert solicited sales, the elder Libauer worked with the die makers and the printers in order to get their inventory produced. Morris Libauer was a retired furniture retailer and upholsterer whose business once took up a full city block in Baltimore.

After selling the furniture business and living on a lifetime annuity, Morris Libauer wanted to venture into other projects. He initially manufactured and sold a line of furniture polish called Colonial, but became enamored with his daughter's stencil invention.

In 1946, Robert Libauer traveled the country promoting the line. In 1947 Morris Libauer passed away, and it was then when Robert took full charge of the growing young company. His mother had been quite unhappy with the endless trucks pulling up to their modest home, so eventually Robert Libauer moved Stenso into an abandoned grocery store, and after that to Baltimore's Industrial Building, where he purchased presses and hired a die-cutter.

As sales grew, so did the diversity of the product line. The initial products included lettering guides in 1/2 inch, 3/4 inch, 1 inch and 1-1/2 inch Roman (serif) capital letters and numbers, a 1/2 inch Gothic (sans serif) card with capitals, lower case and numbers and a map of the United States. The 1/2 inch Gothic was discontinued and was replaced with a 3/4 inch offering, as there were problems at the time in having steel rule dies bent so precisely into small letter shapes.

The stencils were offered individually or as small and large assortments known as ¡°combination sets¡±. The average size of these stencil cards were approximately 8 inches by 10-1/2 inches. (Later products with letters larger than 3 inches were on stencil board stock of appropriately different sizes.)

For a while, a stencil toy (Product #401) called Stenso Circus Animals was produced as well as other ¡°educational¡± stencils during the 1940¡¯s. A special-run product in the early 1950¡¯s offered the Hebrew alphabet (Product #H-54).

A unique stencil design was issued toward the end of the 1940¡¯s which allowed users to create letters in three different styles. Called ¡°2 inch Solid Gothic¡±, the letters and numbers were atypical of most stencil letters which had ¡°breaks¡± within the letter forms. These letters were complete ¨C at least on their vertical sides ¨C and they were cut out as if resting on ¡°rails¡±. The user would trace the sides of the letters, then use a straight edge to close off the tops and bottoms. The user was then encouraged to either leave the letters in outline form, fill them in, or color in the background ¨C hence the ¡°three-way¡± application.

The company's growth prompted Bob to purchase his own building at 1101 East 25th Street and install two Miehle presses and facilities to make cardboard boxes for his company as well as other clients. Previously, the various components were subcontracted and simply assembled at one location.

The 1950¡¯s saw a large expansion of the product line to include different Roman and Gothic combination sets (with new sizes added) and Gothic sets ranging from 3 inches to 12 inches, as well as the addition of new lettering styles. Old English, Frontier (Western) and Modern Script (similar to the digital typeface ¡°Croissant¡±) bolstered the range of lettering available to the consumer. A decorative stencil line was introduced in the mid-1950¡¯s for home crafters. As Alaska and Hawaii became states, an additional card was included with the Stenso Map of the United States (Product #50).

In the 1950's, Libauer took a unique approach to marketing Stenso products... Using a Dun and Bradstreet directory, and seeking out retailers (such as 5 and 10 cent stores) with good credit ratings, he sent them a package containing an assortment of stencils worth $25.00 in wholesale value, a cover letter and a dollar bill pinned to the letter.

The letter contained text somewhat similar to the following: Dear ___________, I cannot afford to have a salesman call on your personally. If you put these items on your counter, your customers will buy them. Should you accept this merchandise, your payment of $25.00 is due in return. In the event you do not accept this merchandise, the enclosed dollar bill will more than adequately cover the cost of returning them.

Incredibly, over 40% of the unsolicited mailings were accepted, and Bob had one more marketing trick up his sleeve for those who hadn't either paid for or returned the unsolicited stencils. There was a series of twelve monthly letters sent to these retailers as reminders. The twelfth one would be addressed to the merchant, and the page left blank until you reached near the bottom of the page. One line was typed: I have said all I can say in the previous eleven letters.

Over the years, stencil board was bought from any available source, and on one occasion Libauer had come across a warehouse full of the product, so he purchased it. This gave him enough raw material to supply the company's needs for a few years.

By the early 1960¡¯s a ¡°Modern Gothic¡± stencil was introduced with three alphabets ¨C all in Art Deco style ¨C available on one stencil card. This unique stencil [despite earlier problems with small steel rule dies] offered alphabets and numbers in 1/4 inch, 3/8 inch and 1/2 inch sizes. The 1/2 inch and 3/4 inch Roman stencils were re-tooled to provide both solid and stencil versions of the letters. Many intermediate sizes, previously available only in combination sets of their respective type style were now being sold as individual units.

Around 1962, Robert Libauer merged his company with Ottenheimer Publishers of Owings Mills, Maryland; famous for their Vest Pocket Dictionaries. Although manufacturing was still done at the plant on East 25th Street for a time, by 1964 the operation of Stenso was moved into the Ottenheimer facilities and new packaging was then designed and introduced. Libauer's original plan was to merge the two companies and then sell them to a larger company, and publisher McGraw-Hill showed an interest in such an acquisition. However, some third-generation members of the Ottenheimer family didn't want this sale to go through.

Ottenheimer Publishers ran into some financial problems, and subsequently sold Stenso to the Dennison Manufacturing Company of Framingham, Massachusetts.

Dennison took over Stenso in 1965. A ¡°20¡± prefix was added to all product numbers to fit into Dennison¡¯s product identification system.

From 1965 until the early 1980¡¯s, the Stenso line was nothing more than an ¡°addendum¡± to Dennison¡¯s vast product line. Stencil board was replaced with file folder stock, and the dies ¨C which needed re-knifing periodically in order to maintain cutting quality ¨C were often left in disrepair.

Finally, during the beginning years of the 1980¡¯s, the line was thoroughly overhauled. All of the old dies were scrapped, and new ones were manufactured. The largest size in the line was a 3¡± stencil, and the ¡°Gothic¡± stencil was actually a version of Helvetica. The Roman products were actually fashioned after a stencil font designed originally in metal type, and later as a digital font.

Stencil ¡°cards¡± were now approximately 3-1/2 inches high by 8-1/2 inches wide, and were die cut and folded into plastic-wrapped packaging so that they were better suited to ¡°pegboard sales¡± in small spaces.

As the fortunes of Dennison faltered in the 1990¡¯s (no doubt due to over-expansion and fiscal irresponsibility), the one-time largest supplier of office products globally was forced to merge with the Avery Corporation (the originators of self-adhesive labels) in order to survive.

The Stenso name was later dropped for the Avery name, and eventually discontinued. Part of the demise of the line can be attributed to the era of dry transfer lettering, and the digital revolution brought on by affordable home computers (where thousands of type faces are available).

Ironically, the “crafting and scrapbooking” craze has been steadily growing around the country, and various types of stencils have enjoyed steady sales due to a resurgence of interest and popularity in this type of medium, but it comes too late for a line which [for over sixty years] helped millions of school children, business owners, home hobbyists and just about anyone who needed legible lettering (but lacked the talent) “letter like a pro”.

SOME AFTERTHOUGHTS:

Christmas stencils were produced in the late 1950's, and sold fairly well seasonally, but Mr. Libauer recalled that if he had produced enough stock prior to the "holiday buying season" of around March and April, he could have increased sales greatly by soliciting them at trade shows for toy merchants.

One idea Robert Libauer never got around to marketing was a puzzle toy similar to a jigsaw puzzle, but utilizing a pressure-sensitive material so the parts could be repositioned.

Libauer's one regret was not moving into the line of pressure-sensitive (stick-on) lettering, which eventually became a large retail market.

Although he said he made a decent living from the stencil company, Bob felt he had lost money with the merger of the line to Ottenheimer Publishers, but he had more than made up for this by going to New York, joining a Park Avenue brokerage firm and getting into investment banking and other interests. At 86 [of this writing], Libauer is still working and not looking back to the past.

Ruth Libauer Hormats passed away in 2004 at the age of 95. She had been living with her daughter in Ft. Lauderdale, FL and had been in poor health for some time.

The images contained on this web page are from the author¡¯s collection of vintage stencils, as well as photographs provided by Ruth Libauer Hormats. These images are for illustrative purposes only on this site, and may not be reproduced or reused in any fashion whatsoever.

If you have any vintage Stenso stencils you are willing to supply to the author for his collection, please contact him at jnl1952@juno.com with your information. Duplicate stencil sets are always welcome.