Linotype History
The Linotype machine revolutionized printing and enabled newspapers to more efficiently offer the news to the masses. Before the the creation of the Linotype, which is short for "Line of type," newspapers were limited to only eight pages per paper. The Linotype machine was the first linecasting machine created and used in the United States.
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Beginnings
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The Linotype machine was developed by Ottmar Mergenthaler, a German immigrant. But the idea came from an earlier design. James Ogilvie Clephane, the private secretary to U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward, sought a way to more quickly transcribe his notes. The typewriter, which was patented in 1867, helped with this process. But the problem of makings copies remained, so Clephane sought assistance from a man named Charles Moore. Moore held the patent for a newspaper typewriter which would eliminate type-setting by hand. Moore asked Mergenthaler if he could construct a better model and the development of the Linotype began.
Redesigning
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Mergenthaler soon saw the flaw in Moore's design and began redesigning the machine. In two years' time he had developed a machine that could stamp words on cardboard, but this was not his goal. During his designing process there were many struggles, including a fire at his shop that destroyed all of his prototypes and design documents.
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Struggles
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Despite the struggles, Mergenthaler continued his work, hoping to make printing more affordable and less time consuming. Coming from a past of poverty he was driven by the desire to help make education possible for even the poor. He had an epiphany on a train one day and realized he could build one machine to do two jobs---the casting and the stamping. Fifty patents were required along the way, but finally in July of 1886 he was able to present a fairly usable model to the New York Tribune.
Global Impact
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After the Linotype's debut in 1886, it took the world by storm. In 1889 the machine was awarded a "Grand Prix" award at the World Expo in Paris. The first Linotype machine in Europe was owned by a newspaper in Amsterdam. Mergenthaler started his own company in Berlin. In 1898, the Linotype had arrived in France, and this first French machine was used for a newspaper in Paris. By 1904, there were 10,000 Linotypes in use. Arabic text was used in a Linotype machine for the first time in 1911.
Further Developments
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In 1925, Linotype introduced the ionic typeface, meant for newspaper typesetting. From this, a family of typefaces grew that became known as the "Legibility Group." Linotype GmbH of Berlin opened a branch in Frankfurt which quickly became the company's office headquarters in 1948. That year, production of Linotype machines resumed after a hiatus due to war. By 1954, the centennial year of Mergenthaler's birth, there were more than 100,000 Linotype machines in use around the world.
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References
- Photo Credit newspaper image by Christopher Hall from Fotolia.com
