NEWS WHEN CLEPHANE MET MERGENTHALER

September 2007 ames Clephane was a famous court reporter. In SPECIAL EDITION the 1870s, he was in demand to record trials and TREASURES OF THE MUSEUM reproduce testimony for lawyers and the Court. JHe used many methods, including lithography. DEAR FRIENDS When he acquired one of the first of the Sholes’ his special edition of our newsletter attempts typewriters from Remington, he had a brainstorm. to provide a window into the scope of the Could the ribbon be impregnated with printer’s Museum’s collections. The Museum’s artifacts ink and then typed on paper and later transferred to a areT not a random collection; rather, they are a time- litho stone? He said “I want to line for printing history. Many of the machines have bridge the gap between the type- been specifically targeted for collection. I personally writer and the printed age.” He hunted for years for one of ATF’s phototypesetters, found a machine shop in Balti- eventually finding one in Chicopee, Mass. more and met Ottmar Mergen- This timeline is supported by ongoing efforts to thaler. By 1876 they had a typing be almost the sole repository for manuals, technical machine that printed characters data, and manufacturing specifications for machines with lithographic ink onto paper that are long gone. The Museum welcomes old and strips and the words transferred new instruction manuals and parts books for bindery, to a lithographic stone, but it did mailing, , presses, current and ancient. not work well. In 1878, Clephane Clean out your desks and files. Don’t throw away proposed a process to these books, even if you have long discarded the impress characters into papier- equipment. Records with serial nos., installation dates, maché strips for which Mergen- previous owner, etc. are also helpful. This supports thaler received his first patent. scholarly research in this century to understand the Clephane backed the inven- last. The machines and papers are also important be- tor’s efforts. In 1879, Mergen- cause they are linked to progress with language. Print- thaler’s first band machine used ing gives life and longevity to language and is the key long, tapered metal bands with advancing an often frustrated social agenda. raised characters that made im- The ongoing success of the Museum is related to pressions of character lines in papier-maché strips. In the growth of our membership and its support. Hun- 1884 he developed the second band machine; this de- dreds of students visit the Museum every year as a vice used bands of indented characters that were posi- part of their curriculum. Please visit our website tioned in the machine so that actual lines of type where you can contribute and join us. could be cast from molten lead. This was Mergen- One of the events to look forward to this Fall is thaler’s first primitive Linotype. Clephane formed the our Annual Meeting on September 27th which will National Typographic Company with a capitalization take place at the Museum. Carl Schlesinger, noted of $1 million and named Mergenthaler manager of its writer and historian, will be our speaker that evening. Baltimore factory. Both Band machines were not quite right for the typesetting task, but they led to the Blower Linotype of 1886 and the mechanization of typesetting. The Second Band Machine is at the MOP. After the invention of the Linotype in 1886, other de- foundry type contained in verti- velopments arose. In 1887, Joseph Thorne marketed cal channels of the cylindrical typesetting machines under the names: Thorne, magazine. The type was assem- Simplex, and Unitype. The American Type bled in a galley and justified by Founders Company owned Unitype, un- hand. Distribution was effected doubtedly to support their declining by key-notches cut or cast into foundry type market from 1894 until its the type. Although advertised as demise around 1906, The Thorne, a “one-man typesetter,” it was Simplex, and Unitype were typesetting more efficiently operated by two machines that actually set and distrib- operators—one operating the ute foundry type and they achieved a keyboard and the other justifying. Competition from the large measure of popularity. Around 1900 Linotype and Linotype Junior (created to compete with these machines competed with Linotype and the Unitype) finally killed the Unitype. The machine is Monotype with an estimated 2,000 machines in rare today because units taken in trade by competitors operation in the U.S and Canada. were destroyed. Only four machines remain and one of Operation of the keyboard released individual them is at the Museum of Printing. A rare Washington hand press and a rarer Unitype typesetting machine Treasures of the Museum of Printing n 1803, Charles Earl of Stanhope of England was of 1821 (now lost) probably covered the toggle mecha- the first to modify hand design, aug- nism, an arrangement which provided greater leverage menting the power of the screw with a system of than the simple elbow toggle of the Wells and the Smith Ilevers. An iron frame was required to withstand the im- presses. Rust’s second patent of 1829 covered a new proved force. The first American iron hand press was the frame. Its hollow columns made the press much lighter Columbian of 1813. Its inventor, George Clymer, later and easier to transport, a major factor in its success as moved his press and business to England. In 1819, John America moved west. The earliest Washington presses, Wells of Connecticut replaced the screw and a com- which had acorn frames, were manufactured by Rust and pound lever/toggle mechanism that delivered the pres- his partner Turney. Later, presses with the patent vertical sure to print up to four newspaper pages with one pull of frames were made by Rust alone. the handle with less effort. During the mid-1800s, there In 1834 Rust’s rival, R. Hoe & Company, succeeded were dozens of iron press manufacturers in the U.S. by a ruse in getting Rust to sell out to John Colby, a Hoe The Washington press differs from the Columbian employee. Colby passed the business and patent rights and Albion in that a very back to Hoe, which manufactured the press alongside its simple toggle joint provides own Smith press, building the toggles of the latter into pressure to the and the upright frame of the Washington. By 1870, serial on each side of the platen number 5,400 was produced. At the expiration of the are coil springs which raise it patents, other American companies began producing to open position. The Wash- their own versions of the Washington—F.Wesel Mfg.Co., ington hand press was the Cincinnati Type Foundry, A.B. Taylor Mfg. Co., Franklin invention of American Sam - Type Foundry, Palmer & Rey type foundry, and the uel Rust in 1821. It was the Marder, Luse type foundry. last style of hand press made The MOP press has a nameplate, not on any known in the U.S Washington press—“RUST’S PATENT Manufactured It was also the most at 33 ELDRIDGE ST New York.” popular iron hand press, a position it held from the 1820s until the end of the hand press era. Rust’s patent A 1740 and the entire Linotype typeface library

ne of the world’s most unique graphic arts 1940s by the Intertype Corporation in Brooklyn, NY in collections is the Mergenthaler Font Library. response to the steadfast march of printing technology About 300,000 drawings arrived in North as it changed from to offset lithog- OAndover in one and a half trailer truck loads, 37 skids, raphy. When it became obvious to Intertype that offset 7 feet high. This collection came to the Museum from lithography would eventually displace most letterpress Heidelberg through the good efforts of The Smith- printing and accordingly displace the necessity to set sonian Institution. The collec- lead type, the company re- tion contains all of the intricate designed its linecaster to output letter drawings made by The . They did this by Mergenthaler Linotype Com- mounting film alphabets into tra- pany in Brooklyn, NY. These ditional linecaster matrices. The drawings were the starting point machine was 10 years in develop- for manufacturing Linotype ma- ment, introduced in trices, enabling users to set type 1950. The alphabets for on linecasting machines in 800 this machine were film languages and dialects. There is positive masters, strik- a sheet for ingly different from the every Linotype letter or symbol in pencil drawings used for earlier systems. This every point size of every font in alphabet collection was given to the Museum most of the languages of the by the Rochester Institute of Technology. world. The letter R in Cloister Bold The Museum of Printing also owns the remains was modified on 5/19/1925 “as of the Photon Library. The Cambridge, Mass. company per Mr. Gage.” Linotype executive was the first manufacturer of true phototypesetting. Harry Gage’s library is also in the MOP’s collection. These machines used film masters and light, creating Much smaller than the Mergenthaler Library and typographic images on photosensitive paper. Much of yet a very large body of this collection was de- work is the Harris-Inter- stroyed, but the Museum type phototypesetter font has an extensive set of ex- library represent a differ- amples. Phototype and off- ent typesetting medium. set together were the keys The Intertype Fotosetter to ending the dominance of was developed during the relief printing.

he oldest book in the Museum’s extensive library is the 1740 Histoire de l'Origine et des Premiers Pro- gres de l'Imprimerie by Prosper Marchand, with two parts in one volume. He was a bookseller and editor, to whom the printing world is greatly in- debted.T He was probably a native of Paris and died in 1765, leaving his library and manuscripts to the University of Leyden. His extensive footnotes supply a mine of information. Plus, our copy has many handwritten notes. On pp. 54-90 of the first part there is a list of 187 incunables (1465-1500) which represent prototy- pography in the respective places in Europe. The second part of the book con- tains ten testimonies (by Thrithemius, Chevillier and Mattaire) quoted in full detail. They serve to support Marchand’s conviction that Johann Gutenberg was the inventor of printing. The engraved frontispiece by Schley is dated 1739 and represents printing de- scending from heaven. Female figures hold medaillons of Caxton, Aldus Manu- tius, Robert Stephens, and Laurent Koster represent respectively the countries of England, Italy, France, and Holland, that are stated to be the four first coun- tries in which the art was practiced. Interspersed throughout the treatises are wood-cut representations of the devices of some of the earliest printers. AT THE FAIR ver 500 visitors at- tended our 4th Printing Arts Fair Osponsored by the Letterpress Guild, on Father’s Day, Sun- day, June 17, 2007, featuring paper artists, printing hard- ware vendors, and printing demonstrations. We are indebted to the many volunteers who made the event a success. Doreen Morse took the photos you see, all showing young and old learning about print. The Apollo 11 mission was the first manned mis- Visitors were able to sion to land on the Moon. It was the fifth human have type set for personal- spaceflight of the Apollo programs, and the third ized station ery on a Linotype human voyage to the moon. Launched on July 16, (Dick Pattison is at the Lino- 1969, it carried Commander Neil Armstrong, type above left. He used to Command Module Pilot Michael Collins, and run Foley Composition, and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin. On July was joined by Messers Pytlak 20, 1969 Armstrong and Aldrin became the first and Dufrane who also humans to land on the Moon, while Collins or- helped). Each person then bited above. The metal forms that printed the New carried the type to James York Times edition of that day—“MEN WALK Shanley running a Heidel- ON MOON”— are at the Museum, both the flat berg Windmill who printed and curved castings used by the Times’ presses. their letterhead. Howard Hot metal is gone, as are the old NYT presses. Hansen, MOP president is in the orange apron at left, THE FRIENDS OF THE below. His Kelly B press MUSEUM OF PRINTING came from Cape Ann Ticket GARDNER J. LEPOER and Label in Gloucester. One Executive Director of the most popular ex- hibitors was Carolyn Muskat B OARD OF DIRECTORS AND TRUSTEES JOHN ADAMS (at the bottom of this col- JOHN BARRETT umn) who was printing from MURRAY FRANKLIN BRIAN FRYKENBERG, Secretary stones on a circa 1860 litho- HOWARD HANSEN, President graphic press. She produced JOHN IVAS, Vice President a lithographic print of a litho- REBECCA KRZYZANIAK THEODORE LEIGH, Treasurer graphic press. The print is WILLIAM V. LIVOLSI available from The Muskat LARRY OPPENBERG ALSTON PURVIS Studio in Sommerville, Mass. JOHN ROGERS FRANK ROMANO LOUIS ROSENBLUM THOMAS THOMSON JEFFREY UPTON

WILLIAM E. BONSER, DIRECTOR EMERITUS

800 MASSACHUSETTS AVE. NORTH ANDOVER, MA 01845 978-686-0450 WWW.MUSEUMOFPRINTING.ORG