The horrors of war inspired Koch to seek religion for himself and then preach the benefits of a religious life to his countrymen. Upon returning from the war, he commented to his close friend Siegfried Guggenheim that he was “profoundly stirred” by his experiences (10). Rudolf Koch was born in 1876 and had a career that was both uninteresting and undistinguished until he enlisted in the German Army in 1907 to fight in World War I. The Question can be put simply: How did these two typefaces come to signify Africans and African-Americans, regardless of how a designer uses them, and regardless of the purpose for which their creators originally intended them? The investigation of this question has four parts: first, an examination of the environments in which Koch and Twombly created the original typefaces second, an examination of the graphic culture that surrounded African-Americans prior to the creation of Neuland through a close viewing of tobacco ephemera third, an examination of the Art Deco (French Modern) style, the graphic culture most prevalent in the United States at the time of Neuland’s release and finally, an examination of the ways designers use Neuland and Lithos today. The “Neuland Question” to which Jonathan Hoefler refers involves not just Neuland, a “display” typeface hand-carved in 1923 by Rudolf Koch ( Plate 1), but also Lithos, another “display” typeface digitally created in 1989 by Carol Twombly ( Plate 2). “The Neuland Question comes up regularly, and alas without much resolution….” –Jonathan Hoefler
New Black Face: Neuland and Lithos as Stereotypography
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