American

In metal type foundry work of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the American was a body size of 1 point, making it one of the smallest practical type sizes for hand composition. It sat between the Pearl (5-point) and the German (2-point) in the descending scale of diminished faces. The name reflects the commercial conventions of European type makers, who designated sizes by geography rather than precise measurement, a practice that persisted even as standardization efforts were underway.

The 1-point American saw limited use in specialized printing: small annotations in legal documents, condensed footnotes, and miniature reference works where space was at a premium. Its extreme smallness made it difficult to set by hand and prone to damage during impression. Printers who worked with such minute type required magnification and steady hands; the reward was compressed information density rather than readability.

Why the term disappeared

The American and its sister size names (German, Pearl, Diamond) fell out of use as the point system became standardized across English-speaking foundries in the mid-twentieth century. Modern type measurement, based on precise point increments where 72 points equal 1 inch, made the old geographic nomenclature redundant. By the 1960s, these names had vanished from trade catalogs and compositor's references.

Today the American exists only in historical type specimen books and in the memory of printers who trained before phototype and digital composition. Its disappearance marks the boundary between craft naming conventions and industrial standardization. No foundry produces a 1-point metal type anymore; digital typography renders such sizes impractical for most work, though name-only echoes survive in specialized historical typesetting.