Triumphs and Wonders of the 19th Century: The True Mirror of a Phenomenal Era / A volume of original, entertaining and instructive historic and descriptive writings, showing the many and marvellous achievements which distinguish an hundred years of material, intellectual, social and moral progress

by James P. Boyd

II. THE SETTING OF TYPE.

In the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the little metal pieces of type were picked up one at a time and placed in the composing “stick” by hand, there was attached to the work an importance which elevated it almost to the ranks of the trained professions. In England, as late as 1817, compositors arrogated to themselves the dignity of carrying swords. At the close of the nineteenth century, the art is seen to be passing into the sphere of mechanics,—the methods in vogue making it entirely a mechanical operation. Before many years of the twentieth century have passed, there will have been attained a degree of advancement which will dispense with the hand of man in guiding the movements of the machine. The inventive skill which brought the printing press to such a high point of excellence and speed has been turned toward the work of type-composing, and the forward march is likely to be as rapid.

Outside of the actual learned professions, no occupation has contributed so many prominent figures to the history and progress of this country as the composing-room. They have filled important places in journalism, politics, Congress, state legislatures, the army and navy, and the world of literature.

Horace Greeley, the founder of the New York “Tribune,”—writer, statesman, and man of affairs,—is one of the notable figures of the present century, who laid the foundation of his career at a case of type.

Schuyler Colfax, who became Vice-President of the United States in 1869, passed the early years of his life setting type.

And, strange to say, these two men, when the presidential chair seemed a possible realization of their ambition, were opposed by men of their craft simply because they had seemed to run so far above the “stick” and “rule.”

Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania, once Secretary of War, United States senator, representative of the United States abroad, and for many years political master of his great State, was proud to say that he had begun his career as a type-setter in a country printing-office. It is worth while noticing that this printer-politician’s life covered nearly a century of existence. His life spanned every president from John Adams in 1799 to Benjamin Harrison in 1889, while his active political control of Pennsylvania covered a period of sixty-five years,—a record made by only one man within the history of the United States.

Every state in the Union has contributed to history its quota of printer-statesmen, printer-authors, and printer-journalists. How many of such there have been in this nineteenth century would be beyond ordinary research to ascertain. But printers—compositors—can refer with just pride to the fact that in all the advanced walks of life are to be found men who have been members of the guild.

The setting of type by hand prevailed universally until as late as 1880. That may be put down as the period when there came into anything like general use the machines for type composition, although experiments in that direction had been going on for sixty years.

As early as 1820, printers realized that machinery eventually must be brought into play for composing type. But how to do it was the scientific as well as mechanical problem. It was argued that the machine must be so constructed as to pick up the type, uniformly distribute the space between the words, and “justify” the lines, that is, make them the exact width.

“It is beyond the range of possibility,” suggested the printer. “Mechanism never can be applied to art. The great Benjamin Franklin would have discovered the way to make such a thing possible, if it were possible—which is impossible.”

And the scientific electric discovery made by Benjamin Franklin in the eighteenth century is, at the close of the nineteenth, the motive-power used for driving the machines for type composition,—the seemingly impossible has reached the stage of possibility.

OCTUPLE STEREOTYPE PERFECTING PRESS AND FOLDER.

(Capacity, 96,000 impressions per hour.)

Dr. William Church, of Connecticut, produced a machine looking to machine type-composition in 1820. It did not come into use, although he spent large sums of money on it, and devoted a vast amount of energy toward having it taken up both in this country and in England. At the Paris Exhibition in 1835 there were exhibited several machines of this sort, one of which—the patent of Christian Sörensen, of Copenhagen—was used upon a daily paper issued during the exhibition. In 1871, at the International Exhibition in London, there was shown a machine possessing peculiar features. It used a perforated ribbon, through the medium of which types were worked into position. The machine was cumbersome, complicated, and expensive, and could not be brought into anything like general usage. In 1875 M. Delcambre, of Paris, after twenty years’ work produced a machine in New York. It had the same objections as the others. While this machine could do as much as the labor of three men by hand, it required a man to operate, another man to place the set type in lines, steam to keep it in motion, and a big cost to construct.

LINOTYPE (TYPE-SETTING) MACHINE (FRONT VIEW).

Up to this period, all the experiments had shown the want of something which would obviate the presence of a man to make the lines of the proper length and with equal spacing between the words. All the machines which were anything near available picked up and placed in position separate types. At the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, in Philadelphia, there were shown machines which used brass dies and cast a line of type. These seemed to possess the element for successful use, and the outcome was the production of the machine which is now in use in all the big newspaper offices in this country—the “Mergenthaler Linotype.” Practically it has driven all the other machines out of use, but how long it will hold sway is a question. Already men of genius are experimenting with two objects in view,—increase of speed, decrease of cost,—and it is fair to presume that before the twentieth century has gone very far into history these two objects will have been attained.

The linotype, as here shown, has the appearance of a heavy and cumbersome piece of machinery. It actually is so only when there are several of them placed in line—then they give to a composing-room the appearance of a machine shop. This machine, instead of producing single type of the ordinary character, casts type-metal bars or slugs, each complete in one piece, and having on the upper edge, properly justified, the type characters to print a line.

These slugs present the appearance of composed lines of type, and serve the same purpose, and for this reason are called “linotypes.” The linotypes are produced and assembled automatically in a galley, side by side, in proper order, so that they constitute a “form,” answering the same purposes and used in the same manner as the ordinary “forms” consisting of single types.

After being used, the linotypes instead of being, like type forms, distributed, are thrown into a metal pot of the machine to be recast into new forms.

The machine contains, as its fundamental elements, several hundred brass matrices. Each matrix consists of a flat plate having in one edge a female letter, or matrix proper, and in the upper end a series of teeth, which are used for distributing to their proper places in the magazine matrices containing different letters. There are in the machine a number of matrices of each letter, and also matrices representing special characters, and spaces or quads of definite thickness for use in tabular and other work of a complicated nature.

The machine is so organized that on manipulating the finger-keys it will select matrices in the order in which their characters are to appear in print, and assemble them side by side with wedge-shaped spaces at suitable points in the line.

This composed line forms a line matrix, or in other words a line of female type, adapted to produce a line of raised printing type on a slug, which may be forced into or against the matrix characters. After the matrix line is composed it is automatically transferred to the face of the mold, into which molten metal is delivered to produce the slug or linotype, after which the matrices are distributed or returned to the magazine to be again composed in new relations for succeeding lines.

These operations are performed by mechanism, as shown in the outline here presented.

A is an inclined fixed magazine, containing channels in which the assorted matrices are stored, and through which they slide, entering at the top and escaping at the foot, one at a time. Each channel is provided at the lower end with an escapement device, B, connected by a rod, C, with a finger character of the matrices in the corresponding channel. There is a key for each character, and also keys for quads stored in the magazine. The keys are actuated by the operator in the order in which their letters are to appear in print. As a key is depressed, it operates the corresponding escapement, B, which allows a matrix to fall out of the magazine through one of the channels, E, to the inclined traveling belt, F, which serves to carry the matrices down in succession into the assembler stick, G, in which they are stored side by side. A box, H, contains a number of elongated spaces, I, and a discharging device connecting with a finger-key bar, J, by which the spaces are permitted to fall into the line of matrices at the proper points during composition. It will be perceived that the operation of the various keys results in the selection of the matrices and spaces, and their collection in assembler, G, until it contains all the characters to be represented by one line of print. After the matrix line is thus composed it is transferred, as indicated by the dotted lines, to the front of a mold or slot extending through a mold wheel, K, from front to rear. This mold is of the exact size and shape of the slug required. The matrix line is pressed tightly against, and closed in front of, the mold for the time being, and the characters, or matrices proper, face the mold cell or space. While the line is in place in front of the mold, the wedge spaces are pushed up through the line, and in this manner exact and instantaneous “justification” is secured. Behind the mold there is a melting pot, M, heated by a flame from a gas burner, and containing a quantity of molten metal. The pot has a perforated mouth arranged to fit against and close the rear side of the mold, and contains a jump plunger, mechanically actuated.

OUTLINE OF TYPE-SETTING MACHINE.

After the matrix line is in place, the plunger falls and forces metal through the pot mouth into the mold, against and into the characters of the matrix line. The metal instantly solidifies in the mold, forming the slug or linotype, having on its edge raised type characters formed by the matrices. The mold wheel next makes a partial revolution, turning the mold from the original horizontal to a vertical position in front of the ejector, which then advances from the rear through the mold, pushing the slug out of the latter into the receiving galley, at the front.

A vibrating arm advances the slugs laterally in the galley, and thus assembles them side by side in column or page-form ready for use. In order to insure absolute accuracy in the height and thickness of the slugs, knives are arranged to act upon them during their course to the galley.

After the matrices in the line have served their purpose in front of the mold, they are returned to the magazine to be again discharged and used in the following manner. The line is lifted from the mold and shifted laterally until the teeth at the top engage the teeth of bar, R. This bar then rises as shown by dotted lines, lifting the matrices to the distributor at the top of the machine, but leaving the spaces, I, behind to be shifted laterally to the magazine or holder, H, from which they were discharged. Each matrix has distributor teeth in its top, arranged in a special order or number, according to the character it contains. In other words, a matrix containing any given character differs in the number or relation of its teeth from a matrix containing any other character. This difference is relied upon to secure proper distribution. A distributor-bar, T, in a single piece, is fixed horizontally over the upper end of the magazine, and is formed with longitudinal ribs or teeth, adapted to engage the teeth of the matrices and hold the latter in suspension as they are carried along the bar over the mouths or entrances of the channels.

The teeth of the bar are cut away to vary their number or arrangement at different points in its length, so that there is a special arrangement over the mouth of each channel. The matrices are pushed upon the bar at the end, and made to slide slowly along it while suspended therefrom. Each matrix remains in engagement, and travels over the mouth of the channels, until it arrives at the required point, where, for the first time, its teeth bear such relation to those of the bar that it is permitted to disengage and fall into its channel.

The travel of the matrices is secured by longitudinal screws, which lie below the bar in position to engage the edges of the matrices. The matrices pursue a circulatory course through the machine, starting from the bottom of the magazine and passing thence to the line being composed, thence to the mold, and finally back to the top of the magazine. This circulation permits the operations of composing one line, casting a second, and distributing a third, to be carried on concurrently, and enables the machine to run at a speed exceeding that at which any operator can finger the keys.

One half horse power is generally used in driving a machine. About five square feet is the space occupied by the machine; it weighs 1925 pounds, and consumes about fifteen feet of illuminating gas each hour to heat the metal pot. Each machine will do complete work equal to that of five men by hand. The simplicity of the machine bears a striking resemblance to the typewriter, and this is operated successfully by young girls. When the matter set by the machine is placed together, the page presents a surface equal to an entire new set of type, or, as the printers say, “We take on an entire new dress every day.”

That is a production of the nineteenth century. How commonplace it will appear when the achievements of the twentieth century are placed on record.