In 1948, Hammer settled in Lexington, Kentucky and was artist-in-residence at Transylvania University, a post he held until retirement in 1953.
Hammer built his wooden press in 1927 with the help of local Florentine craftsmen based on a press in the Laurentian Library; in 1960, the Laurentian's press was discovered to be a copy constructed in 1818 [REF].