Emily C. Pearson

The Hand-press.—Earl Stanhope’s Press.—Improvements.—Cylinder Presses.—Press-room.—Drying Room.—Sewing Room.—Elevator.—Books for the Blind.—Type, Press, and Paper invented.—Catalogue of Great Exhibition.—Estimate of Rapid Labor by Machinery.

We have already referred to the earliest modes of taking the impression from the types by friction, or the rubbing of some hard smooth substance over the paper when laid upon the face of the types.

The hand-press invented by Gutenberg is the only machine absolutely necessary for printers. A specimen of these rude wooden machines is the press used by Benjamin Franklin, now in the Patent Office at Washington. A hand-press has been illustrated and sketched in this volume; it was operated by two men, one attending to the inking, the other placing the paper, and pulling on the lever to make the impression. The first improvement on this press was made by Earl Stanhope in 1815. He built the whole of iron, and, substituting for the screw an obtuse-angled jointed lever, greatly lessened the labor of the pressman. He also enlarged the platen to the size of the bed, so that a full sheet could be printed by one pressure of the platen, instead of two, as in the old press. A second improvement was soon made by G. Clymer of Philadelphia, who in his elegant iron press, the Columbian, used a combination of levers; in some points it is still unsurpassed. For country papers of limited circulation, the hand-press is still in use; it is also a favorite in book offices for work of delicate execution. It is now common to print by hand two hundred and fifty impressions per hour, or one hundred and twenty-five perfected sheets.

Near the end of the eighteenth century, the hand-press proving too slow for the demands of speed and economy, the ready intellect of inventors began upon the problem of moving presses by power. William Nicholson patented in England, in 1790, a plan for a press in which the types were adjusted upon a revolving cylinder, and were inked by contact with another cylinder having rotary motion. The ink was distributed by means of several inking rollers, the last of which was fed by the ink fountain. A large cylinder covered with felt, revolving in contact with the first, produced the impression, which was thus made by rolling the sheets of paper between the cylinders. Nicholson failed in fixing the types to the cylinder; but had he been able to do this, his plan of inking would not have been practicable, as the gelatine rollers were not then invented. Frederick Hoenig, a Saxon, so improved this press of Nicholson as to make it a mighty engine. Himself and another machinist, A.F. Bauer, found that the way to make a bed of type work rapidly was to effect the pressure with a cylinder instead of a flat surface. A machine was secretly built; and on the morning of November 28, 1814, the “London Times” informed its readers that they were reading a sheet printed by steam, in these glowing words:—

“Our journal of this day presents to the public the practical result of the greatest improvement connected with the practice of printing since the discovery of the art itself. The reader of this paragraph now holds in his hand one of the many thousand impressions of the ‘Times’ newspaper which were taken off last night by a mechanical apparatus. A system of machinery almost organic has been devised and arranged, which, while it relieves the human mind and frame of its most laborious efforts in printing, far exceeds all human powers in rapidity and dispatch. That the magnitude of the invention may be justly estimated by its results, we shall inform the public, that after the letters are placed by the compositor, and inclosed in what is called the form, little remains for man to do save to attend upon and watch this unconscious agent in its operations. The machine is then merely supplied with paper; itself places the form, inks it, adjusts the paper to the form newly inked, stamps the sheet, and gives it forth to the hands of the attendant; at the same time withdrawing the form for a fresh coat of ink, which itself again distributes, to meet the ensuing sheet now advancing for impression; and the whole of these complicated acts is performed with such a velocity and simultaneousness of movement, that no less than 1,100 sheets are impressed in one hour.”

The line of success was inaugurated; and ten years later, the same paper says, “In consequence of successive improvements suggested and planned by Mr. Hoenig, the inventor, our machines now print 2,000 per hour with more ease than 1,100 in their original state.”

By successive improvements made in this machine by Messrs. Applegath & Cowper, at length, in 1852, it could produce 11,000 impressions per hour.

Isaac Adams, of Boston, succeeded in making hand-presses work by power, and issued patents of different machines in 1830 and in 1836. The capacity of working slow for fine work, or rapidly for newspaper printing, characterized these presses, and made them favorites with printers. It was reserved for an American, Richard M. Hoe, of New York, to make the first successful type-revolving press. After several costly unsuccessful attempts, in 1847 he produced a perfect machine, on the cylinder of which the types are held by friction, between beveled column-rules. This is styled the Lightning Press, and is in use throughout the world, where rapid printing is required.

Recently a new press, the Bullock, is spoken of as entering the lists with the Lightning Press. “It feeds itself from a roll of paper, cutting it into sheets, which are printed on both sides, and delivered in an even pile.” Its future success or failure must decide its place in history.

It will be kept in mind that there are four things necessary in printing,—the page of type, or the stereotype or electrotype plate, to print from; the paper, to receive the impression; the ink, to exhibit this impression; and lastly the printing-press to press the paper upon the inked plate.

In our walk over the printing-house, let us step into the Press-room where book-work is done.

On the left, in the foreground, is a large cylinder press used for printing newspapers; there is another in the distance, and between can be seen parts of a number of hand-presses. On the right are great “platen” presses, that are kept in motion by steam-power. They are used for the nice execution of book-work, and print only from six hundred to one thousand impressions an hour.

Let us watch the operation of one of these platen presses on the right. The paper, having been dampened and pressed, is laid on an inclined table on the press, from which the “feeder,” as the girl by the second press in the picture is called, takes one sheet at a time, and places it upon an opposite inclined table, where it is clutched by the iron fingers of the press, and carried into the machine. If we stood near the press, we should see the bed of type adjusted with the face up, and long rollers brought quickly back and forth, evenly smearing it with ink. The iron fingers before mentioned as having grasped the edge of the sheet, lay it on the inked bed of type, where it comes under the platen, when the bed is raised up against the paper; the bed falling again, the force of the machine slides out the paper over rollers upon a light frame, which throws it over upon a board where the pile of sheets collects. This process prints the paper on one side only; turning the paper, the sheets are put through the press the second time, and the printing is completed.

But this and other departments of the art here pursued, give employment to hundreds of operatives of both sexes, throwing off annually many millions of impressions. Here rumbles the thunder of the modern steam-propelled printing-presses. What a clangor is made by the simultaneous revolutions of so much complicated machinery! Broad leather straps, rapidly revolving in every direction, cause you to start back, fearful lest you be caught in their toils. And yet how docile, how easily managed, how orderly, how almost human in intelligence,—and with what lightning swiftness the monster steam-presses throw off their work, so that the eye can scarcely follow the successively printed sheets!

In the adjoining Stock-room, some two days before being printed, the paper is “wet down,” or dampened with water, and then put under powerful screw pressure of many tons’ weight, that the sheets in the process of printing may take a clear impression from the inked type. The paper, damp from the printing-press, is then taken on trucks and by an elevator to the Drying-room, and dried, that it may not tear or the printing be defaced. In the ceiling are immense frames with cross-bars, and hanging on the latter are the printed sheets drying. There is also a steam closet to be used during damp weather, and when it is required to dry the sheets quickly. Steam-pipes circulate in the closet, by means of which a high temperature is attained, and “no postponement on account of the weather.” Workmen are busy bringing in the printed sheets, and hanging them to dry, and removing those that are dried. The thorough drying of the printed sheets is most important.

The three work-people seen in the corner of the Dry-press room, are engaged in laying the paper in piles, with a piece of stiff, highly polished pasteboard, of the size of the sheet, placed between them. The pressure upon this pasteboard flat-iron is to be given by the hydraulic press. The sheets are placed in piles on trucks, that move upon a little railroad, by which they are conducted to the hydraulic presses, some of which are seen at the right of the picture, packed with sheets. Here they are put under powerful screw pressure of from one hundred to four hundred tons, and come out not only much dryer, but ironed smooth of wrinkles, and the indentations made by the type. Next, the pasteboard is removed, and the piles of sheets sent into the Folding-room to be folded.

It is interesting to mark some of the avenues of employment that printing has opened to women. The working force in this room is composed almost entirely of girls. Standing by the one at the right hand in the foreground, let us watch her rapid motions! With her simple paper-folder she skillfully folds each sheet once, and smooths the fold, then with like expertness folds this doubled sheet again, and firmly smooths the thicker fold with the ever-in-hand paper-folder; and once more she folds the compact sheet into one having eight thicknesses, or sixteen pages. This is book folding, and she is guided by the numbers at the corners of the pages, or folios—if these numbers meet, the folding is sure to be exact. In an adjacent room is that ingenious aid of modern printing—a rapid and dexterous folding-machine, which, had it been discovered at work in Gutenberg’s office at Strasbourg, would have been proof additional that he dealt in witchcraft.

But to return to our lady folders and their work. The sheets, as fast as they are folded, are arranged in piles upon the table, the girl who gathers the sheets together into separate books following the order of the signatures, or figures on the first page of each sheet.

At the left of our picture, near the middle of the room, is seen a gatherer, who is engaged in making up “Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary.” She is in a narrow isle between two tables, joined at the foot by a short one. On these three tables one half of the Dictionary is spread out at a time, in one hundred and fifteen piles of sheets. She walks down this isle picking a sheet off each pile, and when she has gone the entire round she has gathered one half of the book. When these piles are all gathered, the other half of the book is arranged, and gathered in the same way.

Next, the sheets of the book are put into the stabbing-machine, that three holes may be made at the inner edge, when the sheets are stitched together by hand.

The backs of magazines are covered with a strong paste, and the covers are then put on.

The elevator machinery connecting with each story, of a capacity for lifting two tons, worthily facilitates the immense work of the establishment, as with colossal strength it lifts great burdens of paper, type, machinery, and deposits them on just the floor where they are needed.

If the first printers could revisit the earth, with what interest would they make the tour of a modern printing-office! How would they call to mind their own narrow quarters, poor facilities, and creeping progress, contrasting them with the convenience, system, swiftness, finish, and grand results of to-day, in the now beautifully moulded and polished metal types, the success seemingly gained in setting type by machinery, and the comprehensive arrangements, of various perfected departments, all brought under the easy control of human skill! How unlike their own embryotic efforts “which gave to themselves fame, their art an existence, and civilization its motive power!” The first introduction of printing into America was in Mexico, by the Jesuits, who issued a “Manual for Adults,” in 1540. The first printing-office in America was established in Cambridge, Mass., in 1638; the first book printed was the “Bay Psalm-Book,” in 1640; the first newspaper was the “Boston News Letter,” published April 24, 1704.

The first attempt made to print books for the blind was made by the Abbe Hauy, at Paris, in 1785. The letters were so large, however, the paper so thick, and the books so bulky and expensive, that they were of little practical use. No improvement had been made upon this system, so late as 1830, when the Paris press was still lumbering on in the old method. A few years later a French author, a teacher of the Paris school for the blind, writes, “The Americans have effected a revolution in the art of printing for the blind.”

It was Mr. S.P. Ruggles, the well-known inventor, who, by his genius and untiring industry, wrought this great change. He first turned his attention to the education of the blind in 1835 at the Perkins Institute, in Boston. For years he closely studied their wants and capabilities by constant daily observation of the pupils. Books were the first thing required; the few made being so cumbersome and costly as scarcely to be available. In the emergency which calls for a hero, one is provided; and it is worthy of record that this man, to supply the famishing intellect of the blind, clambered up step by step the rugged height which Gutenberg had scaled, to give light to the seeing world.

After many experiments, he became convinced that he could produce a type of less size, and less height of face, which the blind could read with the greatest facility; providing the raised impression was hard and sharp, and the angles of the type adapted to the touch of the fingers. He finally succeeded in reducing the size of the type and the height of its face so as to place books, of comparatively small dimensions, in the hands of blind students and pupils. The size of the type now in use, the height, and peculiar bevel of its face, are his invention.

He next devised and built the first press ever made for printing for the blind. This was a very powerful machine, giving an impression of about three hundred tons to each sheet impressed, yet so contrived that the blind could do their own printing.

After succeeding in the making of the new kind of type, and in the construction of the ponderous press for printing, he was met by an unexpected difficulty. There was no paper in the market adapted to this kind of printing or embossing. That which was hard enough would crack and break through when printed; and that which was flexible enough not to crack, would flatten down when pressed upon by the fingers of the pupils when reading. His reduced type required a new kind of paper. The peculiar and definite bevel, and height of face of the type, and the texture of the paper printed on, were most intimately connected, and it took a long series of trials, in the manufacture of paper, to get them so harmonized as to work well together. But at last, after many experiments with gums and gelatine, he produced the article required.

His new method of making books being perfected, Mr. Ruggles next invented an entirely new map for the blind. It was made with a raised character, similar to his type; but arranged with such combinations that, at a trifling cost, he could produce a succession of maps of any size. Maps made in this way were never before known, and the Perkins Institute immediately issued, from this plan, an “Atlas” of the United States, and also a “General Atlas.” It would, by most persons, be thought impossible that separate type could be so contrived as to admit of their being arranged in such a manner as to produce a map of any country and then to use the same type to make a map of any other country. Yet all this was perfectly accomplished by this new invention—every piece of type matching its neighbor with miraculous cunning, while following the crooked lines and angles, or graceful curves of rivers, coasts, and islands, with which such works abound.

He next produced the plates for a book on geometry, on a plan similar to his maps. These works proved very valuable and interesting to the blind—for with them they could pursue their studies without the assistance from seeing persons, which, before this, was necessary.

In 1838 this gentleman went to Philadelphia, and established one of his powerful presses for printing for the blind in the Institution in that city; and a year or two later placed another press in the Institution for the Blind in the State of Virginia. The perfect success of his method for reducing the size and expense of books for the blind, inaugurated a new era in the history of this kind of work, and the books were rapidly multiplied throughout this country and Europe.

On the opposite page is given a specimen of the types referred to, and which are now used for printing for the blind: the face, or white part of these letters, being raised in their books about one fortieth part of an inch above the surface of the paper.

Steel-plate and copper-plate printing, together with the lithographic process, are modern inventions; but our limits confine us to glance only at a part of the processes used in the preparation of books.

An illustration of the perfection to which the art of printing has been brought, was given in the printing of the catalogues of the great Exhibition of 1851. The Exhibition opened on the first of May; yet with all the speed that could be made, it was not till midnight of the 30th that the catalogue, a closely printed volume, was ready to go to press. By the next morning, however, a bound copy was presented to Queen Victoria. Twelve trades were necessary for the production of this catalogue. And so large an edition was issued that thirty-seven tons of new type were employed, of which amount twelve tons were manufactured in the short space of six weeks! Twenty-seven thousand reams of paper were used, while the ink required for the small catalogue alone amounted to 4,000 pounds. Specimens of typography were also exhibited from the imperial printing-house of Vienna at this Exhibition. About 500,000 sheets, or 1,000 reams, of paper per day are required for the consumption of that establishment.

A French paper makes a calculation to show how marvelously human labor is outrivaled by the mechanical arrangements of the steam press. The paper, “La Patrie,” contains about 4,230 lines: 8,000 copies make 34,560,000 lines. A clerk could write about three lines in a minute; therefore it would require 11,520,000 minutes, or 192,000 hours, for a single clerk to supply 8,000 copies of “La Patrie;” in other words, it would require 192,000 men to supply, by copying, the same amount of paper which the cylinder printing-press supplies in one hour.

What great armies of compositors are at work in the printing-houses of Christendom! What numberless presses by night and by day throw off multitudinous papers, pamphlets, and books, which are scattered to every home, business mart, and travelling conveyance in the land.

At the Great Exhibition one Bible Society alone had specimens of the Word of God printed in one hundred and twenty different languages. And a single religious publishing society of London, as early as 1862, had issued five hundred and seventy-six millions of copies of its publications. But that is only one of many societies of similar character, and moreover, every enlightened nation abounds in book and periodical publishers and booksellers.