Back before the internet sent us all the news straight to our phones, everyone relied on newspapers to keep us informed. A century ago, the newspaper industry was big business. Rival publishers fought each other to get the news out faster and to sell more newspapers. The technology of the time, however, severely limited the publication process.
Ottmar Mergenthaler a German-American linotype inventor. (Colorized-Enhanced) (en.wikipedia.org)
In 1886, Ottmar Mergenthaler, shown here in a colorized photograph, a German immigrant who resettled in Baltimore, debuted his revolutionary new invention, the Linotype machine. This machine radically transformed the newspaper industry, leading fellow inventor Thomas Edison to dub it the “8th Wonder of the World.” Let’s take a look at how the Linotype changed printing and why it was worthy of such praise.
The Old Way of Printing
Typesetting was done by hand, which took a long time and a large number of workers. (printmuseum.org)
Prior to 1886, newspapers required a staff of typesetters to arrange the letters by hand. All the letters. Typesetters had to pick out the correct letter, carved into a wooden block, of the correct size from a bin of letters to spell out every word of every sentence of every article. As you can imagine, this was a long and tedious job. It took so much time, in fact, that publishers found it necessary to limit the number of pages in the newspaper. The maximum number of pages a publisher could have typeset and printed in a timely manner was eight.
Ottmar Mergenthaler
Illustration of the New York Tribune Linotype machine in use at the newspaper. (immigrantentrepreneurship.org)
The German-born Ottmar Mergenthaler apprenticed as a clockmaker before he emigrated to the U.S. in 1872. Mechanically minded, Mergenthaler excelled in tinkering on the tiny, intricate workings of clocks and watches. In the U.S., Mergenthaler sought citizenship and went to work for his cousin. One of his clock customers, a court reporter named James O. Clephane, lamented to Mergenthaler that there was not a speedy way to print legal briefs. That got Mergenthaler thinking.
The Invention of the Linotype Machine
The keyboard of the Linotype machine was a precursor to the modern computer keyboard. (dreamstime.com)
Ottmar Mergenthaler puzzled over the current printing process and developed a new approach. It involved having someone type in a line of text, using a special keyboard that he also developed, then transferring that line onto a sheet. It made a “line o’ type”, hence the name. That line of words could be quickly printed on the newspaper pages through a system of matrices and molten hot metal. In 1884, he produced the first of his Linotype machines and demonstrated its feasibility. By 1886, all the bugs had been worked out and the machine was ready for its big debut.
The “New York Tribune”
The original black and white image of Ottmar Mergenthaler. (en.wikipedia.org)
Although Mergenthaler lived in Baltimore, the first newspaper to begin printing using his Linotype machine was the New York Tribune. In July of 1886, the newspaper ran its first edition using the new system and raved about the time that it saved. From that point on, newspaper publishers from around the country clamored for Mergenthaler’s labor-saving device. The Linotype was so revolutionary that it drastically changed the printing and typography industry. Praise was heaped on Mergenthaler. Folks began referring to him as the “Second Guttenberg”. His contemporary, Thomas Edison, whose own inventions revolutionized the world, called Mergenthaler’s Linotype machine the “8th Wonder of the World.”
A New Job Title … Linotypist
The lost Mergenthaler factory ca. 1890 Locust Point Baltimore. (Courtesy of RIT Press linotype-locust-point-563x255-Colorized-Enhanced)
Linotypists, a new job title to describe typists who programmed the lines of text into the machine, used a keyboard that Mergenthaler also designed. On it, there were 90 keys to correspond to letters, numbers, and punctuation marks. The Linotypist tapped out the line of text and let the machine do the rest. As the demand for fast and accurate Linotypists grew, Linotypists trade associations were formed. There was even a separate newspaper, or newsletter, for Linotypists that offered advice and suggestions and kept readers current on Linotype machine advances. Naturally, this newsletter was typed by a Linotypist. By the mid-1950s, approximately 100,000 Linotypists were employed in the U.S. It was considered a good job with decent wages.
The End of an Era
A man operating a Linotype machine, circa 1950s. (Bettmann-CORBIS-Bettmann archives)
By the 1970s and 1980s, the printing process had begun its next big evolution. Computers were changing all aspects of life and the newspaper industry was no exception. With advances in computerized type layout, the need for Linotypists dramatically decreased. Or evolved, depending on how you look at it. Rather than sitting at a Linotype machine to enter in text one line at a time, now a typist was needed to enter entire news stories into the computer and graphically arrange it onto the page that would eventually be printed. While Ottmar Mergenthaler’s innovative Linotype machine was the dominant typesetting system for more than 100 years, it had run its course by the 1970s. Today, few people remember Linotype machines and even fewer know the name Ottmar Mergenthaler, yet this German immigrant is credited with helping the newspaper business blossom and thrive.
