If you search the Global-Type database (http://www.global-type.org/Searching.743.0.html), you'll find that 15 weights of various typefaces were released in 1949. Not sure which of these you can get in digital, though…

Are you looking for something related to the Beat culture and jazz era ?

Not especially -- client has stipulated all caps, sans and bold. Which doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room, so we were looking for more ways to tie the choice in.

Thanks for the GT-d link - didn't know it existed. I'll have a squizz.

That's a seriously way kewl website, Dan: thanks for posting the link!

Any edition of An A-Z of Type Designers is a good resource for this... Following the name of each type designer is a list of his or her typefaces, followed by the year(s) of development or release.

On page 58 of the latest edition: Trade Gothic, 1948-60 (Jackson Burke)
On page 59: Normandia, 1946-9 (Alessandro Butti, with Aldo Novarese)
On page 74: Diethelm-Antiqua, 1948-50 (Walter J. Diethelm)
On page 76: Electra, 1935-49 (William Addison Dwiggins)
On page 101: Emergo, 1948-53 (Sem L. Hartz)

Ah, check this out, on page 111: Savoie, 1949 (Marcel Jacno)

The book has 200 pages, I'm sure there's some more typefaces to be found! :-)

Another good resource might be Sebastian Carter's Twentieth Century Type Designers.

Wasn't there that WWII thing a few years prior to 49? Do you think that might have something to do with a scarcity of types released in 49?

What would type designers have done during the war. I suppose a few would have served, but I can't think of a "war effort" field they could have entered en masse.

Unless they were the ones writing "Kilroy was here" on everything that moved.

The foundries that manufactured their designs would have certainly been preoccupied with casting all sorts of war material. And in that era type design was one aspect of a complex manufacturing process, I would think that the war would have curtailed or slowed down many types being released in the few years after it ended.

Many factories (Monotype UK, D. Stempel AG Germany, etc.) were converted over to war industry production for a time. Many older type designers stayed in their posts during the war. Younger ones, like Zapf, were drafted, although his lettering skills lead to his being assigned to a cartography office in occupied France. Some other designers were not as lucky; Klingspor's Rudo Spemann died in action. And Vojtěch Preissig was interned in the concentration camp at Dachau, where he died.

By 1949, many English and German foundries (select foundries in both countries were bombed) seem to have back in business, at least that is what their period promotional materials seem to suggest.

And in that era type design was one aspect of a complex manufacturing process, I would think that the war would have curtailed or slowed down many types being released in the few years after it ended.

I'm sure the war effort required rounding up every scrap of metal that could be put to use.