September 8th is World Ampersand Day! Today honors the ampersand or “&” for its role in written language. The “&” symbol is a ligature for “et,” which is Latin for “and.” In this video, Howard letterpress prints several different wood type ampersands from a type case that we keep on display in our print shop. #WorldAmpersandDay #ampersand #typography #printmaking #printing #sacramento #sachistorymuseum | Sacramento History Museum

The ampersand (&) originated with Roman scribes around the 1st century AD who sought to write more efficiently. They created a ligature by combining the letters "e" and "t" from the Latin word "et," which means "and." This practice was a feature of evolving Roman cursive scripts. The symbol became particularly common in medieval monastic scriptoria, where monks copying manuscripts used it to streamline their laborious work on expensive parchment. The name itself is a more recent invention. In 19