About Us

North American Hand Papermakers (formerly Friends of Dard Hunter) is an organization that brings together people interested in hand papermaking, to encourage sharing of practical, historical, and artistic knowledge about the craft. It was founded in 1981 as Friends of the Dard Hunter Paper Museum to preserve the collection of books, papers, equipment, and artifacts collected from around the world by Dard Hunter in his many years of research on hand papermaking. The collection contained materials that escaped destruction in World War II, and  subsequently constituted itself as the Dard Hunter Paper Museum in Appleton, Wisconsin. In 1993, the Museum, now called the Dard Hunter Collection as part of the American Museum of Papermaking (today the Robert C. Williams Museum of Papermaking), opened in Atlanta in 1993, on the Georgia Tech campus, where it finds a permanent home. Financial support for this unique collection remains one of the primary goals of NAHP. NAHP honors the work of Hunter and other practitioner-scholars, encouraging contemporary members of the papermaking community by holding annual meetings to exchange findings and research; exhibitions to advance the field of hand papermaking; and publications to share more widely on topics relevant to papermaking. NAHP’s activities focus on North America, but we welcome members from around the world.