Charles H. Pace was a gospel music composer and publisher based in Chicago until 1936 and then in Pittsburgh’s Hill District until his death in 1963. Most of his printed music has not been preserved, but his compositions survive in the materials he used in various stages of his printing process. These items were discarded from his store when new owners acquired it from his widow, Frankie Pace, in the 1980s. The University of Pittsburgh Library System purchased the materials at an auction in 1999.
To make sheet music covers, Pace drew from his collection of stock images and logos, taping them together on a page in a collage. The stock images seen here were used to create the cover for “Just Like Him.”
He notated his music by hand and with stencils. Then he photographed each completed page. You can see Pace’s original paste up (left) in the middle of the negative image (right).
Pace made his printing plates by placing a negative of each photographed page on a flat metal plate. The metal that was exposed to light that shone through the clear portions of the negative would harden, and he would wash away the softer metal with chemicals. This created a printing plate with raised images, text, and notation. Using a printing press, he could print thousands of pages relatively quickly.
Today, some pages survive only on plates, and others exist only in photographs. When they are all put together, about 140 of Pace’s lost songs can be recovered in full. Unfortunately, many of the plates are too fragile to print from in their current state.
In order to remove the music from the plates, the plates must be cleaned using a soft brush to remove excess debris and then an impression can be taken by placing paper over the plate and gently rubbing the surface. Once the music has been lifted from the plate, it can then be used to create a polymer copy of the original plate. Not much thicker than a piece of paper, this flexible plate (left) is durable and can be used to reproduce music on the printed page (right).
This is a collaboration between the Center for American Music, Theodore M. Finney Music Library, and Archives & Special Collections.