After training as a mechanic in Hartford, Connecticut, Pierpont began employment in 1886 with a patent office where he worked on a typesetting machine. Leaving for Europe in 1894, by 1896 he became a director of Typograph Setzmachinen-Fabrik, a German manufacturer of typesetting machines.
Beginning in 1899 and continuing until 1936, a year before his death, Pierpont first helped to establish and then act as factory manager and later board member of the British branch of Lanston Monotype in Salfords, Surrey, England.[6][7][8] While working for Monotype he supervised the reproduction of revivals of classic type designs and new designs such as Times New Roman.[9][10] He reportedly had doubts about the artistic ambitions of Monotype's artistic adviser Stanley Morison and publicity manager Beatrice Warde, complaining in one 1920s memo of the Gill Sans typeface, then in development, that "I see nothing in this design to recommend it and much that is objectionable."[11][12][13][14]
In his spare time Pierpont enjoyed growing roses. He retired as Works Manager in 1936 and became Consulting Engineer with a seat on the board, an occasion marked by a dinner at the Savoy Hotel, but died the following year.[15]
^Slinn, Judy; Carter, Sebastian; Southall, Richard. History of the Monotype Corporation. pp. 202–3 etc.
^Wallis, Lawrence. "Frank Hinman Pierpont (1860-1937): An Unsung Pioneer of Mechanical Typesetting". Bulletin of the Printing Historical Society (32): 8–14.
^Mosley, James (2001). "Review: A Tally of Types". Journal of the Printing Historical Society. 3, new series: 63–67. That it was Pierpont himself who was central to this drive for quality is made abundantly clear by the abrupt changes that are seen after his retirement in 1937. All the types produced during the brief period before the Second World War, although they naturally have many fine features, are more or less flawed.
^Dreyfus, John (1995). Into Print: Selected writings on printing history, typography and book production (1st hardcover ed.). Boston: David R. Godine. pp. 116–7. ISBN9781567920451.
^Friedl, Frederich, Nicholas Ott and Bernard Stein. Typography: An Encyclopedic Survey of Type Design and Techniques Through History. Black Dog & Leventhal: 1998. ISBN1-57912-023-7.
^Dreyfus, John (1973). "The Evolution of Times New Roman". The Penrose Annual. 66: 165–174. [In developing Times New Roman, Stanley] Morison was fortunate in being able to produce a new type for the newspaper at great speed and with a high degree of technical excellance...an exceptionally able team had been built up by Frank Hinman Pierpont, an American martinet of wide experience.
