Does anyone know what the old (1950s, 1960s) world book fonts were? For the text? The captions? The page headings? Thanks!
There's a good example of what I mean at http://explorer.lib.uiowa.edu/ch1/images/p019a.gif
Hard to tell from a small sample, but perhaps Baskerville?
Edit: There are a ton of Baskerville digitizations out there - I have Monotype Baskerville but I noticed this new one, called John Baskerville which seems very complete.
I agree that it looks like Baskerville, but the clincher would be to see a Q. I'd guess in that time period the Monotype might have been the model for most of them, but I think every foundry had their own versions. You are talking about metal type, remember, probably set by something like a Linotype or Monotype typesetting machine.
A look at McGrew might give a good idea what was in use.
Looks like Futura Bold.
Captured from web.archive.org on 16 May 2005. view this capture