The American Printer: A Manual of Typography / Containing practical directions for managing all departments of a printing office, as well as complete instructions for apprentices; with several useful tables, numerous schemes for imposing forms in every variety, hints to authors, etc.

by Thomas MacKellar

HISTORY OF THE PRESS.

OLD COMMON PRESS.

While poets and orators have expatiated on the glory and power of the press, rulers have exhausted their cunning in attempts to curb and regulate the art of which it is the symbol. Hedged in by arbitrary restrictions, it is not wonderful that printing was long carried on with clumsy implements. The earliest press resembled a screw-press, with a contrivance for running the form of types under the point of pressure. After the impression was taken, the screw was relaxed, and the form withdrawn and the sheet removed.

This rude press continued in general use till 1620, when Willem Jansen Blaeu, at first a joiner and afterward a mathematical instrument maker of Amsterdam, contrived a press in which the bed or carriage was brought under the point of pressure by moving a handle attached to a screw hanging in a beam with a spring, the spring causing the screw to fly back as soon as the impression was given. This movement was afterward effected by means of a double strap or belt, two ends of which were attached to an axle, and the others to opposite ends of the bed. The platen was so small that two pulls were necessary to print one side of a sheet, and each sheet, therefore, required four pulls to produce a complete impression.

Adam Ramage, who came from Scotland to Philadelphia about 1790, and who for a long time was the chief press-builder in the United States, made some improvements in the old press, one of which was the substitution of an iron bed for the stone one before in use.

About the year 1800, Earl Stanhope contrived a press which obtained much notoriety. It was constructed of iron, and of a size sufficient to print the whole surface of a sheet, and such a combined action of levers was applied to the screw as to make the pull a great deal less laborious to the pressman.

COLUMBIAN PRESS.

The Stanhope press, however, was soon surpassed by the Columbian press, invented by George Clymer, of Philadelphia. Mr. Clymer, as early as 1797, endeavoured to improve the common wooden press. His next efforts were directed to the production of an iron press, till finally eminent success was the result of his labours. In beauty, durability, and power, as well as facility of pull, the Columbian press stands perhaps unsurpassed. The power in this press is procured by a long bar or handle acting upon a combination of exceedingly powerful levers above the platen; the return of the handle or levers being effected by means of counterpoises or weights. The powerful command which the leverage enables the workman to exercise is favourable to delicacy and exactness of printing,—his arm feeling, as it were, through the series of levers to the very face of the types. The inventor removed to England in 1817, and introduced the press there, where it has long been held in high estimation.

WASHINGTON PRESS.

In the United States, presses of simpler construction have displaced the imposing Columbian press,—the first of which was invented by Peter Smith, of New York, and the latest is Samuel Rust’s Washington press, which has secured general approbation and adoption, as being more simple and cheaper, if not more effective, than the Columbian press. Hand-presses are now restricted to country papers of small circulation, and to book-offices devoted to extra fine printing.

The bed-and-platen power-press invented by Isaac Adams, of Boston, was for a considerable time the only machine-press capable of producing fine work and exact register. It will give from six to eight thousand impressions per day. As the platen rolls off and leaves the bed entirely exposed, forms can be made ready with great facility. The sheets are taken from the feed-board by fingers, and, after being printed, are laid in a pile by a self-acting sheet-flyer.

The Cylinder press, which may be run at a much higher rate of speed than the bed-and-platen machine, was of earlier invention. Frederick König, a Saxon, early in the present century turned his attention to cylinder printing, and was so successful that on November 28, 1814, the London Times announced the fact that the number issued on that day had been printed by machinery propelled by steam. The earliest suggestion of a cylinder press is due, however, to William Nicholson, of England, who, in 1790 took out a patent for such a machine, but it was never perfected. According to Mr. Isaiah Thomas, a Dr. Kinsley, of Connecticut, afterward produced a press varying somewhat from Nicholson’s.

STOP CYLINDER PRESS.

In 1818, Applegath and Cowper made important improvements in König’s press, which greatly enlarged its field of usefulness. This machine, with various modifications and improvements, is in general use in Europe and America, for newspapers of moderate circulation, and even for fine job and book work, as entirely accurate register can now be secured on the new cylinder presses of the best makers, such as Hoe & Co.,[17] Cottrell & Babcock, Campbell, and others. The stop cylinder press (the latest improvement) is particularly well adapted for fine printing.

HOE’S TYPE-REVOLVING MACHINE—SIDE VIEW.

The invention of steam printing presses rendered books and periodicals so cheap that the progress of knowledge was amazingly accelerated; and soon the capacity of the cylinder press proved unequal to the work of printing the enormous editions of some of the leading newspapers of the world; and the first successful invention to meet the exigency was made by Col. Richard M. Hoe, of New York, in the Type-Revolving Printing Machine, of which we give an engraving. It is, as its name indicates, on the rotary principle; that is, the form of type is placed on the surface of a horizontal revolving cylinder of about four and a half feet in diameter. The form occupies a segment of only about one-fourth of the surface of the cylinder, and the remainder is used as an ink-distributing surface. Around this main cylinder, and parallel with it, are placed smaller impression cylinders, varying in number from four to ten, according to the size of the machine. The large cylinder being put in motion, the form of types is carried successively to all the impression cylinders, at each of which a sheet receives the impression of the types as the form passes. Thus, as many sheets are printed at each revolution of the main cylinder as there are impression cylinders around it. One person is required at each impression cylinder to supply the sheets of paper, which are taken at the proper moment by fingers or grippers, and after being printed are carried out by tapes and laid in heaps by means of self-acting flyers, thereby dispensing with the hands required in ordinary machines to receive and pile the sheets. The grippers hold the sheet securely, so that the thinnest newspaper may be printed without waste.

The ink is contained in a fountain placed beneath the main cylinder, and is conveyed by means of distributing rollers to the distributing surface on the main cylinder. This surface being lower, or less in diameter, than the form of types, passes by the impression cylinder without touching. For each impression there are two inking rollers, which receive their supply of ink from the distributing surface of the main cylinder: they rise and ink the form as it passes under them, after which they again fall to the distributing surface.

This press is capable of printing either from type or from stereotype plates bent to fit the curve of the cylinder. When type is used, each page of the paper is locked up on a detached segment of the large cylinder, which constitutes its bed and chase. The column-rules run parallel with the shaft of the cylinder, and are consequently straight; while the head, advertising, and dash rules are in the form of segments of a circle. The column-rules are in the form of a wedge, with the thin part directed toward the axis of the cylinder, so as to bind the type securely. These wedge-shaped column-rules are held down to the bed by tongues projecting at intervals along their length, which slide in rebated grooves cut crosswise in the face of the bed. The spaces in the grooves between the column-rules are accurately fitted with sliding blocks of metal even with the surface of the bed, the ends of which blocks are cut away underneath to receive a projection on the sides of the tongues of the column-rules. The form of type is locked up in the bed by means of screws at the foot and sides, by which the type is held as securely as in the ordinary manner upon a flat bed,—if not even more so. The speed of these machines is limited only by the ability of the feeders to supply the sheet.

This machine was first used by the Public Ledger of Philadelphia, and was afterward adopted by the leading newspapers of that city and New York, as well as of the chief cities of Great Britain and other countries.

To obtain the best results from the largest size of this press it was necessary to employ a dozen or more hands to feed and run it. This expensive feature was largely avoided in a new machine projected by Mr. William Bullock, whose press was the forerunner of several machines that may be classed under the general name of Self-feeding or Web Perfecting Presses.