Ultimately, what impact did the Linotype machine have on the world? Since its creation in 1884, the Linotype took the world by storm, with 100,000 machines in use by 1954 (Hendel, 2011). Yet, what Thomas Edison called “the Eighth Wonder of the World” (Schlesinger, 1989, p. vii) did not last for even a hundred years;... Continue Reading →
The Mergenthaler Linotype Company was founded in 1890 in Brooklyn, NY, USA by Ottmar Mergenthaler. Similar companies were started in Manchester, England, and Berlin, Germany (Linotype.com, n.d.). Originally started with the objective to develop and sell Linotypes, the company quickly began developing new typefaces to be used. Between the years 1886 and 1972, almost 3,000... Continue Reading →
In 1947, Encyclopedia Britannica produced a ten-minute video titled “Making Books” that displayed how the Linotype machine (Figure 1) operated. An operator would type the text on a keyboard, causing matrices with letter imprints to fall from a storage magazine to form a line (the line width was adjustable according to what publication was working... Continue Reading →
In 1883, Ottmar Mergenthaler started his own business and continued to work on a design for a “writing machine”. J. O. Clephane had partnered with Mr. L. G. Hine to provide funding. Papier-maché had yielded unsatisfactory results, spurring Mergenthaler to conclude that he need to use a metal to secure the best results. He also… Continue Reading →
James Ogilvie (J.O.) Clephane was not having an easy time at his job. As a stenographer in Lincoln’s cabinet, he needed to produce multiple copies of his records in a quick, easy method—one that did not exist (Romano, 2014, p. 6). Clephane, always looking to the future, commissioned an inventor named Charles Moore to produce... Continue Reading →
It’s the standard story about the American Dream: a young immigrant lands in the land of opportunity with a couple of dollars in his pocket and works his way to fame and notoriety. Thus starts multiple stories of important historical figures, like Alexander Hamilton, the first secretary of the Treasury for America. In our case,... Continue Reading →
A Line of Type 