THE HISTORY OF mistakes on the genuine copper plates. For this, he found a mixture of wax, soap, lamp- LITHOGRAPHY black, and rainwater were satisfactory. The two materials, limestone and the “cor- Alois Senefelder invented lithography in rection fluid” became the primary ingredients 1798. From its modest beginnings, it has of lithography. become one of the largest industries in the By experimenting, Senefelder found that an United States—a part of the Printing Industry, image drawn onto the limestone with his cor- which is the third largest manufacturing rection fluid would repel water, while the sur- industry in the U.S. face of the stone itself would hold it. He found For many years, indeed over a century and he could first wet the entire stone then apply a half, lithography was a very small segment ink, with a roller, to the entire stone to replen- of the printing industry, used mainly by artists ish the ink on the image. The stone, which to produce prints. However, during the late held water, repelled the greasy ink; the “cor- 1800’s and throughout the twentieth century, rection fluid,” which is greasy and thus repels great advancements in technology made water, accepted additional ink. The chemical lithography into the most popular form of process is known as the Principle of Litho- printing in the United States. graphy. The history of lithography occurred in four Because lithography is based on a chemical major steps: 1) The invention and early use of principle, Senefelder preferred to call the the process; 2) The introduction of photogra- process chemical printing. phy to the process; 3) The addition of the off- From the invention of lithography on, the set press to the process; 4) The revolution of entire life of Senefelder was devoted to the the lithographic plate. lithographic process. In 1817, he designed a press that featured automatic dampening and THE INVENTION OF inking of the plate. He was well recognized by LITHOGRAPHY his contemporaries, received many prizes and medals, and died very comfortably as the Alois Senefelder was the son of a German Bavarian Royal Inspector of Lithography. actor. During his early life, he was compelled Lithography was a very easy medium for by his father to study law, which he disliked. the artist. He simply drew one picture on the He had a love for the theatre, but, alas, he stone which was then used to reproduce many found he had little talent as an actor. He did, copies of the identical image on paper. however, become very successful at writing Because of this, the process became popular plays. Several of his works were published; throughout the world, including the United however, the profits were very slim and this States. prompted Senefelder to seek a less costly method of reproducing copies of his plays. In an attempt to reduce his publications costs, he tried to produce his own copperplate engravings. Making reverse images in copper was a very difficult process, a process that required much time and practice to master. Thus, Senefelder decided to practice his engraving on slabs of Bavarian limestone instead of the costly copper. In the mean time, Senefelder needed a liq- uid that could be used to correct his frequent Lithographic stones. The first lithograph appeared in the United the paper. Because of the abrasive action States in 1819. The most popular lithographic caused by the rubbing together of plate and product were prints depicting the contempo- paper, the image on the plate soon wore off. rary scene. Currier and Ives are the best- Because of this, the direct rotary presses never known American lithographic printmakers of became very popular. the day, but there were a host of others besides them. THE INTRODUCTION OF Demand for lithographic prints and other PHOTOGRAPHY products continued to grow, and by 1871, “there were at least 450 hand operated and The making of lithographic plates was a about 30 steam presses in the United States. long, tedious task requiring much hand labor. TRANSFER PROCESS: In another of A method of making plates easier and quicker Senefelder’s experiments, he found an addi- was needed. The transfer process, previously tional attribute of lithography: a drawing or described, had many technical difficulties, writing done in special ink on special paper and began to lose popularity. Lithography could be transferred from the paper to the lith- found a great partner in photography to pro- ographic stone where it became the printing duce printing plates. Thus, the marriage of image. This allowed the artist to draw the lithography and photography, PHOTOLITH- original reading right instead of backwards, OGRAPHY, took place. which was necessary when drawing directly Joseph Niepce, a French scientist, produced onto the stone. The same process could used the world first photograph in 1826. This to transfer an image printed by other printing development, and those that followed, made processes onto the stone. This allowed several possible the halftone process: i.e. the act of identical images to placed on the same stone, breaking down an original photograph into thus increasing productivity. It also helped dots and varying sizes suitable for press increase the popularity of lithography as a reproduction. copying process because previously printed Henry Talbot, of England, used the first images could be transferred to the stone to be halftone screen for the reproduction of photo- reproduced. graphs about 1852. About 33 years later, DIRECT ROTARY PRESSES: In the Frederick Ives, an American, designed and beginning of the twentieth century, the posi- made the first PRACTICAL halftone screen tion of lithography weakened within the print- that consisted of two exposed glass negatives ing industry due to great strides in the effi- with lines scribed equidistant on each of them. ciency of letterpress machines. Lithography They were cemented together so that the lines was a slow process due to the flat bed design would cross at right angles. (Max Levy, of of its presses. What was needed was a rotary Philadelphia, succeeded in 1890 in develop- method. But, the rotary method required a ing a precision manufacturing process for plate that could be bent around a cylinder. these screens.) An original photograph would Obviously, litho stones could not be bent be rephotographed while the halftone screen around a cylinder! Senefelder had foreseen was placed in front of the new film. The the use of chemically treated metals as the squares created by the crossing of lines on the base material for lithography. By experimen- glass plates would focus the light coming tation in the late nineteenth century, it was from the original photograph into dots. The found that zinc and aluminum could be effec- lighter areas of the original, reflecting more tively used as lithographic plates, thus allow- light to the film, would be represented by ing the use of rotary presses. large dots; the darker areas of the original The first rotary lithographic presses printed reflected less light, resulting in smaller dots. directly from the metal plate to the surface of Thus, a halftone negative was produced. The halftone process made possible the quality produced pictures in magenta, cyan, and yel- reproduction of original photographs without low. He also experimented, in 1870, with the need to engrave or draw them onto the process color lithography using three colors of printing plate. Soon after the invention, major ink instead of three continuous tone photo- newspapers began using more and more illus- graphically-produced pictures. Rather, du trations in their article, although the average Hauron used three overlapping halftone “man on the street” never knew what was hap- images, one each in magenta, cyan, and yel- pening. low. He also emphasized the importance of PHOTOLITHOGRAPHY: is the act of adjusting exposure time for each image so that making a lithographic printing plate by photo- no excess of any color would appear. graphic means. A French chemist, Alphonse Although halftone photography, photoli- Louis Poitevin, invented it in August 1855. thography, and process color printing were Poitevin coated the stone (grained for very important steps in the history of lithogra- halftone picture) with a solution of potassi- phy, they were, at that time, unable to be put um bichromate and albumin, equalizing the to much practical use due to the limitation of coating with a towel. Dried, exposed under a negative, washed with water, rolled up the lithographic press. Both the flat bed litho with greasy ink which only adhered to the stone press and the rotary direct press had to parts which had become insoluble by expo- many limitations, so lithography lay dormant sure to light, but did not adhere to the moist waiting for new impetus parts. The stone was then etched and print- ed by the usual lithographic manner. THE ADDITION OF THE It became clear that it was impractical to OFFSET PRESS coat the stone directly and expose it to light. As a result, experiments were conducted into The image area on a photolithographic the use of the transfer process, previously plate is delicate. For this reason, the abrasive described, to transfer a photolithographic action cause by direct contact with the paper image from a support base to the stone. Other surface on flat bed or direct rotary presses experiments were carried out to transfer the caused the image to quickly wear away from photolithographic images to a metal (zinc) the plate. The offset press removes t h e direct plate. These processes worked, but had the contract between plate and paper by the addi- inherent problems of any transfer process. tion of a rubber blanket surface. The plate PROCESS COLOR PRINTING refers to image is transferred to the rubber blanket the full color reproduction of a color original which, in turn, transfers the image to the paper using only three color of ink: yellow, magen- or other substrate. Therefore, the offset is a ta, and cyan. James Le Blon first conceived it method of “indirect” printing. The press in the late 1600’s. He based his work on design is shown below. Newton’s theory of color, made his first color separation by eye, and printed it by engraving process. The prints were beautiful, but the process failed to become popular Three-color printing, in the modern sense, is closely related to the development of color photography. Probably the most important man in the his- tory of process color printing is Louis Ducos du Hauron. He outlined, in 1868, the idea of reproducing objects in their natural colors by the superimposition of three photographically A model of a three-cylinder offset-lithographic press. The lithographic offset press had its origin top of the machine, where both ink and water in England about 1875. The press was a litho- rollers could touch the plate. Directly below graphic stone flat bed press designed for metal the plate cylinder, and in contact with it, was decorating (printing on metal). An intermedi- the blanket cylinder around which a blanket ate cylinder, covered with a specially treated wrapped was wrapped. Finally, the bottom cardboard, transferred the printed image from cylinder was the impression cylinder that gave the litho stone to the sheet metal. About five pressure to the paper passing between it and years later, the cardboard covering was the blanket in order to transfer the image to changed to rubber. the sheet. At this point, the machine was still Credit for the first use of the offset process hand fed. But, in a few years, automatic feed- in the printing of paper goes to Ira Rubel, a ers would be added to the machine resulting in paper manufacturer from Nutley, New Jersey. presses very similar to the ones now in use. He produced sulphite bond, then lithographi- The offset lithographic press had six systems: cally converted it into bank deposit slips. It is feeder, feed board/register, dampening, ink- generally agreed that Mr. Rubel discovered ing, printing, and delivery. the use of the offset press for paper printing in The success of the offset press was a strong about 1904 or 1905. stimulus for other manufacturers to enter the The press Mr. Rubel used was a flat bed field. Many adaptations of the process stone machine. The particular machine he had appeared including perfecting (prints on both was equipped with a rubber covered impres- sides of the sheet at once) and web fed (feeds sion cylinder to help in the transferring of the from rolls rather than sheets of paper) designs. images from stone to paper. Whenever the Now, the offset lithographic press is a marvel feeder (a person, not a machine) missed feed- of efficiency and perfection, utilizing many ing a sheet while the press was in operation, electronic and computer controls. the stone printed its image to the rubber cov- Because the offset press removes the direct ered impression cylinder. The next impression contact between plate and paper, the plate thus had an image on both sides: direct litho lasts many times longer than on direct litho on the front as well as an image transferred presses. Also, because the offset press is from the rubber on the back. Mr. Rubel rotary rather than a flat bed design, production noticed that the image produced on the back speeds can be greatly improved. For these rea- of the sheet was much sharper and clearer than sons, the offset press allowed the photograph- was the direct litho image. This was due to the ic inventions of halftone photography, photo- fact that the rubber, being soft, was able to lithography. and process color to become very press the image onto the paper better than the popular within the lithographic field. At the stone, which was hard. He decided to design a present time, when one thinks of color, he press which printed every image from the automatically thinks of lithography and offset plate to the blanket and then to the paper. printing. Thus, its is generally agreed that the Mr. Rubel and another lithographer, A.B. offset press brought lithography from a rela- Sherwood, joined forces and produced 12 off- tively unimportant part of commercial print- set machines. However, Rubel’s death in 1908 ing into the number one spot in the industry ended his experimentation. The next major force in the development of THE EVOLUTION OF THE the offset lithographic press was Charles LITHOGRAPHIC PLATE Harris of the Harris Automatic Press Com- pany. He designed an offset press around a One of the most important elements of rotary letterpress machine. He thus needed a quality lithographic printing is the quality of metal plate so that it could be bent around a the plate. It, more than anything else, deter- cylinder. This metal plate was situated at the mines how the image will print as well as the number of problems to be solved in order to commercial printer in the production of good maintain good print quality. quality work. The original litho plates were limestone, as Since the 1950’s, much work has been done previously discussed. As the industry grew, to improve the pre-sensitized plate. Plates are two major problems occurred with the stones: now available in which no image developer 1) They were heavy, difficult to store, and need be applied: the entire image is pre-coat- expensive; 2) They could not be bent around ed and the non-exposed area is removed after the cylinder of a rotary press. exposure. This type is called subtractive while Metal plates were introduced to help solve the former type is called additive. this problem. At first, the image was trans- In the late 1970’s, a further advancement ferred from a master image to the metal plate. was introduced in plate making. Plates were Later, Poitevin’s work with sensitizing litho made that required no special developing stones was applied to metal plates. Bare metal agents after exposure: the unexposed subtrac- plates were coated with potassium bichromate tive coating was removed with water. This and albumin, placed in a special whirling product was called the “Aqualith” plate and machine which rotated the plate at high was also developed by the 3M Company. speeds to equalize the coating across the In the 1990’s, Toray, a Japanese firm, intro- entire surface of the plate, exposed to light duced the first effective waterless lithograph- under a negative, washed with water to ic plate. Instead of the non-image area attract- remove the unexposed coating, and inked. ing water, the Toray plate’s background area The ink adhered only to the exposed sections. repels ink while its image area attracts ink. Every step of the above process was carried The process requires modifications of the off- on in the lithographer’s own shop. Due to the set press to keep the ink rollers cold. fact that the process was very complicated and Otherwise, ink will stick to the non-image that the chemistry of the solutions had to be areas. just right, there were many problems in the making of plates. The unexposed plate coating SUMMARY had little shelf life; therefore, plates could not be coated in advance. Like any other industry, the lithographic In the 1940’s work was done by many sci- printing industry has had a history with major entists to invent a method for pre-coating events, each event interdependent upon the plates in a factory to assure uniformity and others. The major events in the history of consistency. Most of these plates were paper lithography included the invention of the based, and thus, not suitable to long runs. process in 1798; the introduction of photogra- The first practical pre-coated (or pre sensi- phy to the process in the early and mid 1800’s; tized) aluminum plate was developed by the the introduction of the offset press in the early 3M company in 1951. The plates had a coat- 1900’s; and the evolution of the lithographic ing with a longer shelf life, had a uniform sur- plate which had been ongoing since the begin- face, and were easy to develop. The plate ning of the process but saw its greatest required four steps: 1) exposure of the pre- improvement in 1951 with the successful sensitized plate to high intensity blue carbon development of the 3M pre-sensitized plate. arc light; 2) removal of the unexposed coating The major events listed above have with Gum Arabic; 3) application of a special increased the popularity of the lithographic image developer; and 4) a reapplication of process. This is evidenced by the increase in Gum Arabic to act as a protective layer. The the number of lithographic printing firms process was immediately approved by lithog- (3000% increase from 1900 to 1970). raphers and removed the worst obstacle of the