Memphis was sold in the U.S. through Melbert Cary, Jr’s Continental Typefounders Association under the name Girder. According to type historian Alexander Lawson, the name was “an inspired choice for a period when in most American cities the steelwork of the new skyscrapers was very much in evidence.” Girder was among the genre of geometric square serif faces that were frequently found in advertisements of the 1930s. The specimens here highlight that streamlined, early modernistic style.
