Stencils?

[Forty Rod]

I see old boxes and crates with names of companies and products printed on them.  They don't look like stencils (No breaks in the lettering where the stencil would have been held together,), but I can't find any reference to how they were done.

Did they have some sort of silk screening process back then?

[Delmonico]

From a site that does custom T-Shirts:

SILK SCREEN PRINTING has its origins in japanese stencilling, but the screen printing process that we know today probably stems from the patents taken out by Samuel Simon of Manchester, England at the turn of the century. He used silk stretched on frames to support hand painted stencils, a process also used by William Morris. In 1914 John Pilsworth of San Francisco also took out a patent for multi-color printing, using the screen process . During the First World War in America screen printing took off as an industrial printing process; it was mainly used at first for flags and banners but also for 'point of sale' advertising in the chain stores in America, which were appearing around that time. Around this time the invention of the photographic stencil revolutionised the process; in the following years, obviously improvements were made in the presses, inks and chemicals used, but apart from the introduction of computer technology in the 1980's - in the pre-press side of screenprinting - very little else has changed since. Walk down any street and you will see examples of SCREEN PRINTING everywhere: in shops you will see displays and posters advertising their products; you will see buses with ads on their sides; on computers and CD's you will notice labels and control panels; all these have been screen printed. In the home you will find that many textiles and items of clothing, sports bags and T-shirts have been screenprinted, as well as the stickers that you have on the rear window of your car. Artists have also used SILK SCREEN PRINTING, especially since the days of POP ART in the sixties - Andy Warhol , Peter Max are a few notorius examples. These artists opened up a whole new vista in the use of the screen process.

Beyond that, I don't know, perhaps they had folks that were really good at free handing?

[JimBob]

Some place,don't remember where at the moment,showed wood blocks like  big ink stamps they used for stamping the boxes with paint instead of ink.I know the government used them as I've seen old manuals describing there use,later on they used rubber printing mats with the letters protruding out for stamping ammo cans.

[Cliff Fendley]

The big stamp sounds logical.