Hess Old Style is an old style serif

Serif

In typography, serifs are semi-structural details on the ends of some of the strokes that make up letters and symbols. A typeface with serifs is called a serif typeface . A typeface without serifs is called sans serif or sans-serif, from the French sans, meaning “without”...

 font

Font

In typography, a font is traditionally defined as a quantity of sorts composing a complete character set of a single size and style of a particular typeface...

, designed by Sol Hess

Sol Hess

Sol Hess was an American typeface designer. After a three-year scholarship course at Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Design, he began at Lanston Monotype in 1902, rising to typographic manager in 1922. He was a close friend and collaborator with Monotype art director Frederic Goudy,...

 for Lanston Monotype based on designs of Nicolas Janson from 1479. It was released in 1920 with a companion italic made available in 1923. It was intended by Monotype to compete with ATF's

American Type Founders

American Type Founders was a business trust created in 1892 by the merger of 23 type foundries, representing about 85% of all type manufactured in the United States...

 popular Cloister series, but it is both neater and heavier, making it more suitable for hard-finish papers..

Copies

As far as is known, this face was not copied by other foundries, nor was it emulated by any producer of cold type

Phototypesetting

Phototypesetting was a method of setting type, rendered obsolete with the popularity of the personal computer and desktop publishing software, that uses a photographic process to generate columns of type on a scroll of photographic paper...

. A digital copy, including bold and extra-bold weights by Steve Jackaman, is part of the International TypeFounders "Red Rooster Collection".