How rapidly we have advanced in this direction in the last half of the nineteenth century is thus shown. What will be done by our successors in the first half of the twentieth century, no man can at this time satisfactorily predict.
IV. TYPE-MAKING, STEREOTYPING, PICTURE-MAKING.
The manufacture of the small metal pieces called type has undergone little change in this nineteenth century. That which has been done has been in the way of producing artistic designs, so arranged that combinations can be formed pleasing to the eye, and an aid to rapid workmanship. The machinery in use has lost its crudity, the production has been increased, and the finish become more perfect. The setting of type by machinery has been a serious blow to this industry, and the time will come when it will be devoted entirely to the making of job or fancy types.
Benjamin Franklin attempted to make metal type in this country, but he did not succeed. It was not until 1796 that type-making was commenced here.
As in many other departures in the printing business, the city of Philadelphia took the lead. Binney and Ronaldson, of Edinburgh, Scotland, established the first foundry in this country, operating it in Philadelphia. After a severe struggle and with some aid from the State, a business was established by the two Scotchmen, which afterwards became known as the Johnson Foundry, under MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan, which is still in existence. They were followed by David Bruce, also a Scotchman, and by 1813 foundries had been established in New York and other large cities.
Since that time improvements have been introduced, but nothing has come forth which deserves to be ranked with the printing-press or the typesetting machine.
The type founder will tell you how much better are the machines used in 1899 than those which produced type in 1850. But he cannot point out any device connected with it which the mechanical world can designate as marvelous, or the people at large regard as a wonderful invention. Type once was rubbed into smoothness by boys. Now it is done automatically on the machine. By the hand process about four hundred types an hour were cast; by the present mechanism a speed of six thousand an hour has been acquired. Until about 1875, this output hardly met the demand; now it will do so. Before many years it will be far in excess of the requirements.
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Stereotyping is the art of making plates cast in one piece of type metal from the surface of one or more pages of type. In the beginning of the nineteenth century, stereotyping was used to an exceedingly limited extent. The printers were prejudiced against it for reasons purely selfish. It was not until 1813 that it was introduced into the United States, and only a few years previously Lord Stanhope introduced it into the English printing business. “The Larger Catechism of the Westminster Assembly” professes on its title-page to have been the first work stereotyped in America. It bears the date of June, 1813. Now the process is in general use—plaster, clay, and papier mâché being used.
The process of stereotyping originally was to preserve the pages, so that an entire edition of a work could be finished without requiring large numbers of type, and to have it ready for future editions. For newspaper work it came into vogue to save the rapid wearing out of the type by the impressions made.