Typesetting
A prevailing theme of the Second Printing Revolution is how fast hands can move compared to machines. Because typesetting was the most complex, most labor-intensive, and therefore the most expensive process in book production, many nineteenth-century inventors attempted to mechanize the setting and distribution of lead type—altogether there were about two hundred mostly imperfect attempts. By the end of the century, Linotype and Monotype typecasting machines, which eliminated the need for type distribution by melting down used type instead of redistributing it to the case, became the first widely used machine methods of setting lead type.
Stereotype reversed. “New Arrangement. Daily Accommodation Line of Stages from North Castle to Port Chester in Connection with the New York and New Haven R.R.” c. 1850
This is a stereotype plate with the type set backward for printing.
Invented in the early eighteenth century, stereotypes are printing plates made from typesetting created from individual pieces of handset type. They enabled typesetting to be stored for later reprinting. They could also be duplicated.
Scientific American, Vol. 88, No. 7. 14 February 1903
The cover of this issue provides one of the clearest images of the first mechanical typesetting machine, patented by the American inventor William Church in 1822. Church probably never built his machine, but in the 1840s his gravity-driven concept of typesetting, described in his British patent, inspired the inventors of the first commercial typesetting machines.
Edward Binns. The Anatomy of Sleep. London, 1842.
Binns’s book, with its elaborately hand-colored lithographed frontispiece, was the first book typeset by a typesetting machine—the Young and Delcambre Pianotyp—a detail mentioned on the verso of the title page and in Binns’s introduction. Young and Delcambre promoted employing women to operate typesetting machines because their lower salaries offset the cost of the machines. For the second, 1845 edition, the publisher John Churchill opted for manual typesetting. He offered no explanation, but he probably faced opposition from men who opposed the employment of women typesetters. Women typesetters were paid half to one-third what men were paid, which men claimed drove down their wages.
William C. Barnes, Joseph McCann, and Alexander Duguid. A Collation of Facts Related to Fast Typesetting […]. New York, 1887.
The verbose title states that the book includes “portraits and biographies of the more famous swift compositors, and an authentic record of the several public tournaments and matches at type-setting,” just before manual typesetting began to be superseded by cost-effective Linotype and Monotype hot metal casting machines. Because manual typesetters were typically paid by piecework, depending on how many pieces of type they could set per hour, champion typesetters like those honored in this book made a very good living. Most manual typesetters could not work as quickly, however, and struggled to earn a good wage.
Théotiste Lefevre. Guide pratique du compositeur d’imprimerie. Paris, 1873.
Because manual typesetting exploited the typesetter’s precise sense of touch, gloves were not recommended. This image from Lefevre’s book illustrates the precise way to hold type and the composing stick with bare hands. Even though numerous typesetting machines were available from the 1840s onward, most typesetters continued to set type by hand throughout the nineteenth century. Continuously holding type for many hours per day raised the risk of absorbing lead through the hands or absorbing lead in food unless typesetters were careful to wash their hands before meals. Heating the type case to make the type more pleasant to hold on cold days further increased the risk of lead absorption.
"Making the Magazine.” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 32. No. 187. December 1865.
Typesetting with lead type involved two processes: setting the type before printing and distributing the type back into the case after printing. When the processes are described, emphasis is normally on the work involved in typesetting rather than on the significant amount of work involved in distributing the type. This unusual diagram shows the track of a compositor’s hand distributing the letters of the single word jealousy back to the type case, showing the complexity of that less-discussed aspect of manual typesetting.
This Typographic Specimen to the Memory of William Caxton, Wynken de Worde, Richard Pynson, and their Successors […]. London: Apollo Press, 1826.
The art of setting lead type manually may have reached its peak in the 1820s, just as the first typesetting machines were being conceived. John Johnson of the Apollo Press in London published this poster honoring the first English printer, William Caxton, and his successors. At the foot of the poster Johnson boasts that the design was “composed of type and brass rule, containing upwards of 60,000 movable pieces of metal, and above 150 different patterns of [printer’s] flowers.” It is doubtful that any more complex design was ever set in lead type, by hand or by typesetting machine.
Etienne Robert Gaubert Rénovation de l’Imprimerie. Nouvelle Puissance de la Mécanique, Notice sur le Gérotype ou Machine à distribuer et à Composer en Typographie […]. Paris, 1843.
Gaubert’s small brochure describing his typesetting machinery is one of the few surviving copies of one of the earliest advertisements for any method of mechanical typesetting. Oddly, Gaubert does not cite a single instance of his machine being used to typeset a specific publication. He does not even confirm that this pamphlet had been typeset using his machine.
Illustrirte Zeitung, Vol. 2. No. 45. Leipzig, 4 May 1844.
Like the Young and Delcambre machines developed at about the same time, the typesetting and type-distribution machines invented by John Clay and Frederick Rosenborg were designed to be operated by women. Because women were paid half to one-third the wages of men, inventors of early typesetting machines promoted women as operators to offset the increased costs of the machines. This inevitably created conflicts with male typesetters. The two early typesetting and distributing systems were frequently compared.
“Mackie’s Steam Type-Composing Machine.” Every Saturday: An Illustrated Weekly Journal, Vol. 3. No. 105. 18 November 1871.
Alexander Mackie, publisher of the Warrington Guardian newspaper, demonstrates the Mackie steam-composing machine, also known as the “Pickpocket.” Mackie is shown holding a roll of punched paper tape, which drove the machine. The magazine wrote:
“Type-setting is still done by the hand, picking up one piece of type at a time, although many elaborate keyed instruments have been tried as substitutes. Mr. Mackie’s invention, however, seems likely to share a better fate than its predecessors, as it is made fit for every-day hard work in a printing office. It is perfectly anatomical, sets type as fast as eight or ten men, and governed its movements on the Jacquard principle, by perforated paper, which may be perforated anywhere, and used again and again for the same size, or any other size of type.” As with other inventions in printing during the 19th century, the advent of an effective typesetting machine would have been of interest to the magazine’s readers.
Invoice. Burr Printing House. New York, 1882.
This invoice from the Burr Printing House in New York City, dated 9 March 1882, is the only nineteenth-century invoice from a mechanized typesetter that curator Jeremy Norman has found in more than twenty years of collecting. The New-York Tribune used Burr typesetters before the development of Mergenthaler’s Linotype.
Certificate. The Alden Type Setting & Distribution Machine Co.
This is a blank engraved certificate for shares in the typesetting and type-distributing machine company formed to sell the machine invented by Timothy Alden. At the bottom center of the certificate is a small image of a Hoe Type-Revolving Printing Machine. The certificate values the Alden shares at $1000 each—a huge price at the time.
Henry Hall, Ed. The Tribune Book of Open- Air Sports. New York, 1887.
The notice printed at the foot of the copyright page states that “This Book is Printed Without Type, being the First Product in Book Form of the Mergenthaler Machine which wholly Supersedes the Use of Movable Type.” When the book was copyrighted in 1886, the name Linotype had not yet been given to what was previously called the “Mergenthaler Machine.” The expression “without type” refers to the Linotype’s casting of slugs with lines of type, rather than with individual letters of type.
This large poster offers The Tribune Book of Open-Air Sports as a premium for anyone subscribing to the newspaper in 1887.
“The Linotype at Work.” Library of Tribune Extras, Vol. 1, No. 7. New York, July 1889.
Brass product label for a Linotype machine.
A major factor in the success of the Linotype was its typecasting —casting a “line of type” or a slug, which was melted down after it was used in printing. Eliminating the type-distribution process altogether represented a very significant savings in time and cost.