Early Printing Presses—Nicholson’s Rotary Press—The Columbian and Washington Presses—König Rotary Steam Press—The Hoe Type Revolving Machine—Color Printing—Stereotyping—Paper Making—Wood Pulp—The Linotype—Plate Printing—Lithography.
The art preservative of all arts it has been rightfully called. Before its birth generation after generation of the human family lived and died, and each was but little wiser, and but little better than its predecessor. Tradition was the misty, vague, and sometimes wholly false dependence of the living, and the experiences of mankind were, in the words of an eminent writer, but like the stern lights of a vessel, which only illumined the pathway over which each had passed. But printing gives to the present the cumulative wisdom of the past, and marks a great era of growth in civilization. It conserves and preserves man’s thoughts and makes them immortal, so that each generation comes into existence with a richer legacy of ideas, and is guaranteed a higher plane of existence, and a more exalted destiny.
Printing from letters engraved on blocks of wood is an ancient art, having had its origin in China many centuries before the Christian era. The Chinese method, which is still followed, was to write their characters with a brush on a sheet of paper, and while still wet, the piece of paper was laid face downward on a smooth piece of board to transfer the ink lines, and then all except the ink lines on the board was cut away. Thus they have one type plate for each book page. Printing with movable type, i. e., with a separate type for each letter, which may be repeatedly set up into forms of varying composition, is practically the beginning of the modern art of printing. This invention is usually ascribed to Johann Gutenberg, of Mentz, about 1436.
In the earliest printing presses the form was locked up in a tray, and placed upon a platform, and the platen was then brought down upon it by turning a screw in a cross bar above. The first printing press of this type was made by Blaew, of Amsterdam, in 1620, which had a spring to cause the screw to fly back after the impression was taken. The press upon which Benjamin Franklin worked in London in 1725 is of this pattern, and is to be seen in the National Museum at Washington. It is almost entirely of wood, and is shown in Fig. 122. About the beginning of the Nineteenth Century Lord Stanhope invented a press entirely of cast iron, in which the oscillating handle operated a toggle to force down the platen in taking the impression. The bed traveled on guide ways, and the tympan and frisket were hinged to fold back and lay in elevated position.
The “Columbian” press was the first important American improvement. It was invented by George Clymer, of Philadelphia, and is shown in his British Pat. No. 4,174 of 1817. A compound lever was employed for applying the power. The “Washington” press was patented in the United States by Samuel Rust, April 17, 1829. In this press (see Fig. 123) the platen is forced downwardly by a compound lever applied to a toggle joint and is raised by springs on each side. The bed is run in and out by turning a crank on a shaft which has a pulley and belt passing around it.
As so far described the presses were worked by hand power. An important step in the advancement of this art was made by the introduction of power presses worked by steam. These arranged the type on the surface of a cylinder. Probably the earliest form of rotary cylinder press is that invented by Nicholson, British Pat. No. 1,748 of 1790. Its main features are described as follows: ““The types, being rubbed or scraped narrower toward the foot, were to be fixed radially upon a cylinder. This cylinder with its type was to revolve in gear with another cylinder covered with soft leather (the impression cylinder), and the type received its ink from another cylinder, to which the inking apparatus was applied. The paper was impressed by passing between the type and the impression cylinder.””
The first practical success, however, in rotary steam presses was achieved by König, a German, who in 1814 set up for the London Times two machines, by which that newspaper was printed at the rate of 1,100 impressions per hour. He obtained British Pat. No. 3,321 of 1810, No. 3,496 of 1811, No. 3,725 of 1813, and No. 3,868 of 1814. König’s machine was in 1827 succeeded by that of Applegath and Cowper, which was simpler and more rapid.
Many improvements upon the methods for handling the paper were subsequently devised, and double cylinder presses were made which were able to print 4,000 sheets an hour. In 1845 the firm of R. Hoe & Co., which had already been for years engaged in the manufacture of printing presses, brought out the Hoe Type Revolving Machine. The first one of these was placed in the office of the Philadelphia Ledger in 1846, and had four impression cylinders, printing 8,000 papers per hour. The constantly increasing circulation of newspapers, however, continued to make insatiable demands for more rapid work, and to meet this demand the Hoe company in 1871 brought out their continuous web press, in which the paper was furnished to the machine in the form of a roll, and after being printed was separated into sheets. This principle of action gave promise of unlimited speed, and required important reorganization in all parts of the machine. To meet these conditions of increased speed more rapid drying ink had to be produced to prevent blurring, paper of uniform quality and strength had to be made, means had to be devised for printing the opposite side of the web, and severing devices for cutting the web into sheets were needed, but perhaps the most important feature was the device called a gathering and delivering cylinder, whereby the papers could be gathered and disposed of as fast as they could be printed, and much faster than human hands could work. This was the invention of Stephen D. Tucker, and it is the mechanism upon which the speed of the modern press depends, for it would obviously be useless to print papers faster than they could be taken from the machine in proper condition. Many patents were taken by Messrs. Hoe & Tucker covering various improvements, prominent among which were No. 18,640, Nov. 17, 1857; No. 25,199, Aug. 23, 1859 (re-issue No. 4,429); No. 84,627, Dec. 1, 1868 (re-issue No. 4,400); No. 113,769, April 18, 1871; No. 124,460, March 12, 1872; No. 131,217, Sept. 10, 1872. The first rapid printing press of the Hoe Company was set up in the office of the New York Tribune in 1871, and its maximum output was 18,000 an hour. This marked the great era of rapid newspaper printing, and following it many further improvements, such as devices for folding and counting the papers automatically, have been added, until to-day the great Hoe Octuple Press, shown in Fig. 124, is the wonder of the Nineteenth Century. It prints 96,000 papers of four, six, or eight pages in an hour, or at the rate of 1,600 a minute, and these papers are not only printed, but in the same operation and by the same machine are cut, pasted, folded, and counted automatically. Fifty miles of paper of the width of an ordinary newspaper pass through it each hour from its several rolls. The machine weighs over 60 tons, and is composed of about 16,000 parts, and yet its touch is so deft, and its members so delicately and accurately adjusted that it does not tear the tender sheet as it flies through the machine—so fast that one-fifth of a second only is required to print a page.
FIG. 124.—HOE OCTUPLE PRESS. PRINTS, CUTS, PASTES, FOLDS AND COUNTS NEWSPAPERS AT RATE OF 1,600 A MINUTE.
The latest development in the printing press has been in color printing, which has recently been introduced in the illustration of some of the largest daily newspapers. Such a press contains from 50,000 to 60,000 parts, and its cost is from $35,000 to $45,000.
Collateral with the development of the printing press are three important branches of the art—stereotyping, paper making, and type setting.
Stereotyping was the invention of William Ged, of Edinburgh, in 1731, and was introduced into the United States by David Bruce, of New York, in 1813. The stereotype is simply a moulded duplicate of the type face as set up, the duplicate being cast in the form of a single block of metal, by first taking an impression in plastic material from the faces of the type, after being set up, to form the mould, and then casting, in an easily fusible metal, an exact duplicate of this type face in this mould. This art prevents the wear on the movable type involved in printing, and also avoids the locking up into permanent forms of a large body of valuable type, since a form may be set up, stereotyped, and the type then distributed and set up into another form. Stereotyping, although used in book printing, was not thought practical for newspaper work until about 1861, because of the length of time required for the formation and drying of the mould and the casting of the plate; but about this time great expedition in the formation of the plate was attained by the employment of a steam bed to dry the mould, and a novel form of papier maché matrix, or mould, which could be conveniently disposed around the cylinders of type. The dampened and plastic papier maché sheets are beaten into the face of the type form by means of brushes, are then removed, dried, and used as moulds to cast the stereotype plate from. A stereotype plate can now be made in about seven minutes.
Paper Making is an important adjunct of the printing art, and its formation cheaply into long rolls of uniform strength is an essential condition of success in the rapid web-perfecting printing press. A Frenchman named Louis Robert about 1799 was the first to make a continuous web of paper, and in 1800 he received from the French Government a reward of 8,000 francs for his discovery. His invention was subsequently taken up and carried to a success by the great English paper makers, the Fourdrinier Brothers, whose name has been given to the machine. In the Fourdrinier process rags are ground to a pulp by a revolving beater (Fig. 125) working in a tank of water. The pulp, duly beaten, refined, screened, and diluted with water, is then piped into the “flow-box” of the Fourdrinier machine. The “flow-box,” shown on right of Fig. 126, is a deep rectangular chamber extending across the full width of the machine, from which the pulp flows out in a thin stream onto an endless belt of 70-mesh wire cloth which runs over end rollers. To prevent the stream of pulp from flowing laterally over the edges of the belt, two endless rubber guides or bands, two inches square in cross section, travel with the belt over the first twenty feet of its length, and run over two pulleys above the wire cloth. The upper half of the wire cloth belt is supported by and runs over a series of closely juxtaposed rollers. As the pulp passes from the “flow-box” the particles of fibre float in it just as an innumerable multitude of particles of cotton fibre would float in a stream of water. To unite and interlace the fibres the wire cloth belt is given a lateral oscillating or shaking movement, which serves to interlock the fibres. Meanwhile the water strains through the wire cloth, leaving a thin layer of moist interlaced fibre spread in a white sheet over the surface of the belt. The separation of the water is further assisted by suction boxes which extend across close beneath the upper run of the belt and are connected to suction pumps.
The wire cloth with its layer of moist pulp now passes below a roll which compresses the fibre, and then leaving the machine seen in Fig. 126 it passes below a second and larger roll covered with felt, which presses out more of the water. The fibre next passes to the “first press,” where it is caught up on an endless belt and passed between two rollers where more water is pressed out of the sheet. Then it passes through a “second press,” and finally the sheet commences a long journey up and down over a series of steam-heated drying rolls, by which the sheet is dried.
Wood-Pulp.—When a purchaser of one of the New York dailies reads the morning’s voluminous edition, he little realizes that he holds in his hands the remains of a billet of wood as large as a good-sized club, yet such is the case. Originally made from the fibres of the papyrus plant, and later from rags beaten into a pulp, paper for the printing of books and newspapers is now made almost entirely of wood. In the formation of paper pulp from wood two processes are employed, one known as the soda process, and the other the sulphite process. In both cases the wood is cut into fine chips, and then digested in great drums with chemicals to extract the resinous matter and leave the pure fibrous cellulose, which resembles raw cotton in texture. This industry was developed by Watt and Burgess in 1853 (U. S. Pat. No. 11,343, July 18, 1854), who invented the soda process; by Voelter (U. S. Pat. No. 21,161, Aug. 10, 1858), who devised means for comminuting or shredding the wood; and by Tilghman (U. S. Pat. No. 70,485, Nov. 5, 1867), who invented the sulphite process.
The logs, usually of spruce or poplar, are first split, as seen at the bottom of Fig. 127, then placed in the chipper, where a revolving disc with knives cuts them into small chips, which are fed to an elevator and raised to a screening device, seen at the top, to remove saw-dust, dirt and knots. In the sulphite process the chips are then delivered into the digesters shown in Fig. 128, which are supplied with sulphurous acid generated in a plant shown in Fig. 129. In the digesters the gummy and resinous matters are dissolved by the heat and chemicals, and the woolly fibre left behind is bleached, washed, and dried, and afterwards made into paper upon the Fourdrinier machine.
It was stated by the Paper Trade Journal in 1897 that the increase in paper making in the United States during the 15 years preceding amounted to 352 per cent., due chiefly to the growth of the wood pulp industry. The Androscoggin Pulp Mill, established in Maine in 1870, was one of the pioneers in this field. In that State the industry had grown in 1897 to over $13,000,000 and gave employment to more than 5,000 men, but the State of Maine is excelled by both New York and Wisconsin in this industry, for in the same year New York mills had a daily capacity of 1,800,000 pounds; Wisconsin, 670,000; Maine, 665,000, and other States a less capacity. There are over 1,000 paper mills in the United States, and their combined daily capacity amounts to over 13,000 tons. In 1898 the United States exported over five million dollars’ worth of paper, and over fifty million pounds of wood pulp. Of the total amount of paper produced in the world Mulhall estimated it in 1890 to be 2,620,000,000 tons annually. This amount is greatly increased at the present time, and by far the larger part of it is manufactured from wood.
In 1891 the Philadelphia Record in an experimental test as to speed, cut trees from the forest, converted them into paper, and then into printed newspapers, all within the space of 22 hours. At a later period in Germany, where the wood pulp art began, even this expeditious work has been excelled. The trees were felled in the morning at 7:35, converted into paper, and presented at 10 A. M. in the form of printed newspapers, with a record of the news of the forenoon. The great naval edition of the Scientific American of April 30, 1898, consumed a hundred tons of wood pulp paper, and was therefore built upon a material foundation of 125 cords of wood, which cleared off over six acres of well-set spruce timber land. It is mainly wood pulp that has enabled books and newspapers to be made so cheaply, for they are now furnished at a less price than the cost of the paper made in the old way from rags.
The Linotype.—The most revolutionary and perhaps the most important development in the printing art of this century has been the linotype machine. The laborious, painstaking, and expensive feature of printing has always been the setting and redistribution of the types, since each little piece had to be separately selected and placed in the composing stick, and the line afterwards “justified,” which means an apportionment of the space between the words so as to make each line of type about the same length in the column. The same separate handling of each piece was again involved in restoring the type to the case. Machines for thus setting and distributing the type had been devised, but the operation was so involved, and required so nearly the discretion of the thinking mind, that all automatic machinery proved too complicated and impracticable. In 1886, however, a machine was placed in the office of the New York Tribune whose performances astonished and alarmed the old-time compositor. It rendered it unnecessary to handle the type, or even to have any separate type at all. It was the Mergenthaler Linotype machine, which automatically formed its own type by casting a whole line of it at a time. The first machine was invented in 1884, and patented in 1885, but it was subsequently reorganized and greatly improved in Pats. No. 425,140, April 8, 1890; Nos. 436,531 and 436,532, Sept. 16, 1890, and No. 438,354, Oct. 14, 1890. It is shown in the accompanying illustration (Fig. 130). By manipulating the keyboard, which resembles that of a typewriter, each lettered key is made to bring down from an inclined elevated magazine a little brass plate of the shape shown in Fig. 131, and which plate is called a matrix, because it bears on its edge at x a mould of the type letter. There is a matrix plate for every letter and character used. These little matrices are spaced by wedges, as seen in Fig. 132, and are assembled, as in Fig. 133, along the side of a mould wheel having a slot in it which forms a channel between the aligned type-moulds or matrices on one side and the discharge mouth of a melting pot, in which molten type metal is maintained in a fluid state by a subjacent gas-burner. In the melting pot there is a cylinder and plunger, and when the plunger descends, it forces the molten metal up through the discharge spout into the slot of the mould wheel, and against the letter mould x of each one of the composed or aligned matrices. The wheel is then turned with the matrices, and the metal in its slot is afterwards discharged in the form of a linotype slug, seen in Fig. 134, which is a metal plate bearing on its edge a completely moulded line of type ready for setting up in the form for printing. The jagged notches in the tops of the matrices (Fig. 131) are for co-operation with a distributer bar (not easily explained) for restoring the matrices to their appropriate magazines after being used. There are altogether about 1,500 of the little brass matrices. The machine is about five feet square, weighs 1,750 pounds, and costs $3,000 each. Notwithstanding this expense these Linotype machines have to-day made their way into nearly all the daily newspaper offices of the civilized world, even to Australia and the Hawaiian Islands. In the composing rooms of the daily newspapers and the larger book printing offices we find great rows of these Linotype machines, each doing the work of from four to five men. There are now in use in America something over 5,000 Linotype machines; and in other countries about 2,000, making 7,000 in all. Each machine may be adjusted in five minutes to produce any size or style of type, and it gives new, clean faces for each day’s issue, with none of the ordinary troubles of distributing type. The cheapness of composition, due to the machine, has led to an enormous increase in the size of papers, in the frequency of the editions, and has correspondingly increased the demand for labor in all the attendant lines, such as paper-making, press-making, the attendants on presses, stereotyping, etc. In the Boston Library, which keeps its catalogues printed up to within 24 hours of date, the Linotypes print in 23 languages.
When the Linotype machine was first patented it was not regarded by printers generally as a practical machine, but only one of the many complicated, theoretical, but impracticable organizations which the Patent Office has to deal with. Its history, however, has been unique. It is practically the product of the brain of a single man, Ottmar Mergenthaler, a most ingenious and indefatigable inventor living in Baltimore. It was exploited under the powerful patronage of a syndicate of newspaper men, and hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent in perfecting it before any practical results were obtained. To-day it stands a triumph of human ingenuity, ranking in importance with the rotary web-perfecting press, and is probably the most ingenious piece of practical mechanism in existence.
Of the three forms of printing attention has been given thus far only to the leading branch of the art, which is type printing, or “letter press,” as it is called, in which the characters are raised in relief and receive ink on their raised surfaces only. A second branch of the art is plate printing, in which the lines and characters are engraved in intaglio in a plate, and which, being covered with ink, and the surface of the plate wiped clean, leaves the ink in the undercuts, which is taken up by the paper when pressure is applied through a roller. Plate printing is a very old art, the plate printing press having been ascribed to Tomasso Finiguerra, of Florence, in 1460. The reciprocating table bearing the engraved plate, and the superposed pressure roller turned by hand through its long radial arms, is an ancient and familiar form of press which has been in use for many years. This method of printing finds application in fine line engraving in works of art, card invitations, and bank note engraving. Very ingenious automatic machines have been invented and were in use a few years ago by the United States Government for printing its bank notes, but have since been displaced by the old hand machines. To the credit of the machine, it should be said, that it was from no fault in the machine that this retrograde step was taken, but rather the disfavor of the labor organizations.
Lithography is another and quite important branch of the printing art, in which the lines and characters are drawn upon stone with a kind of oily ink to which printers’ ink will adhere, while it is repelled from the other moistened surfaces of the stone. Lithography was invented in 1798 by Alois Senefelder, of Munich. It finds its greatest application in artistic and fanciful work in inks of various colors, and its development into chromo-lithography in the Nineteenth Century has grown into a fine art. Our beautifully colored chromos, prints, labels, maps, etc., are made by this process. A more recent and quite important development of this art is photo-lithography, which will be more fully considered under photography.
Many collateral branches of the printing art are interesting in their development, such as calico printing, the printing of wall papers, of oil cloth, printing for the blind, book binding, type founding, and folding and addressing machines, but lack of space forbids more than a casual mention.
Printing is perhaps the greatest of all the arts of civilization, and the libraries and newspapers of the Nineteenth Century attest its value. If Benjamin Franklin could wake from his long sleep and enter the composing rooms of our great dailies, and witness the imposing array of linotype machines, more resembling a machine shop than a printing office, and then visit the press room and see the avalanche of finished papers flying at the rate of 1,600 a minute, neatly folded, and counted for delivery, he would doubtless be overwhelmed with emotions of wonder and incredulity, for broad-minded man as he was, he could have no conception of such progress.
Old English Typewriter of 1714—The Burt Typewriter of 1829—Progin’s French Machine of 1833—Thurber’s Printing Machine of 1843—The Beach Typewriter—The Sholes Typewriter, the First of the Modern Form, Commercially Developed Into the Remington—The Caligraph—Smith-Premier—The Book Typewriter and Others.
Occupying an intermediate place between the old-fashioned scribe and the printer, the typewriter has in the latter part of the Nineteenth Century established a distinct and important avocation, and has become a necessary factor in modern business life. Chirography, or hand writing, reflecting, as it did, the idiosyncrasies of each writer, was not only slow, but when employed was, in most cases, in the haste and press of active business reduced to an illegible scrawl. For the use of reporters and others requiring extra speed, stenography, or short hand, was resorted to, but there was a distinct need for some easy, quick, legible, and uniform record of the busy man’s correspondence and copy work, and this the modern typewriter has supplied.
Like most other important inventions, the typewriter did not spring into existence all at once, for while the practical embodiment in really useful machines has only taken place since about 1868, there had been many experiments and some success attained at a much earlier date. The British patent to Henry Mills. No. 395 of 1714, is the earliest record of efforts in this direction. At this early date no drawings were attached to patents, and the specification dwells more on the function of the machine than the instrumentalities employed. No record of the construction of this machine remains in existence, and it may fairly be considered a lost art. In quaint and old-fashioned English, the patent specification proceeds as follows:
““ANNE, by the grace of God, &c., to all whom these presents shall come, greeting: WHEREAS, our trusty and well-beloved subject, Henry Mills, hath by his humble peticon represented vnto vs, that he has by his greate study, paines, and expence, lately invented, and brought to perfection “An Artificial Machine or Method for the Impressing or Transcribing Letters Singly or Progressively one after another as in Writing, whereby all Writing whatever may be Engrossed in Paper or Parchment so Neat and Exact as not to be Distinguished from Print, that the said Machine or Method, may be of greate vse in Settlements and Publick Recors, the Impression being deeper and more Lasting that any other Writing, and not to be erased, or Counterfeited without Manifest Discovery, and having therefore humbly prayed vs to grant him our Royall Letters Patents, for the sole vse of his said Invention for the term of fourteen yeares.””
““Know Yee, that wee,” etc.”
The first American typewriter of which any record remains is that described in the patent granted to W. A. Burt, July 23, 1829. It was called a “Typographer.” It had a segment bearing the letters of the alphabet and corresponding notches acting as an index. A superposed lever, which could be worked up and down, and also moved laterally, was provided with a series of type, arranged in a segmental curve, so that any type could be brought into place on the subjacent paper by swinging the lever over to and down into the proper notch in the index segment below. A restored model of this is to be found in the U. S. Patent Office.
The first organized typewriter in which separate key levers were provided for each type is a French invention. It is to be found in the French patent to M. Progin (Xavier), of Marseilles, No. 3,748, Sept. 6, 1833 (Brevets d’Invention, Vol. 37, 1st Series, pl. 36). It was called a Typographic Machine, and is shown in the illustration (Fig. 135). Upright key levers s are arranged in a circle around a circular plate n. They have hook-shaped handles at the upper end, and terminate below in forks that are pivoted to the shanks of type hammers, to raise and lower them. These hammers are inked from a pad, and at a central point deliver a printing blow on the paper below. The paper is held stationary, and the whole nest of levers was moved over the paper for each letter printed. The circular index plate n had marked on it opposite the respective levers the letters and characters represented by said levers. Besides printing letters, the device was to be used for printing music, and for making stereotype plates.
On Aug. 26, 1843, Charles Thurber, of Worcester, Mass., took out Pat. No. 3,228 for a Printing Machine. Under the patent he constructed the machine shown in Fig. 136. This differed somewhat from the form shown in his patent, in that the machine shows a paper feed roller which does not appear in the patent. This machine was found among the effects of Mr. Thurber after having lain neglected and unnoticed for many years, and its damaged parts were restored by Mr. H. R. Cummings, of Worcester. The types are carried on the lower ends of a circular series of depressible bars, which are spring seated in a horizontal rotatable wheel. By turning the wheel any type can be brought to the front, and a stationary guide controls its descent as it makes the impression. An inking roller is seen on the right, which inks the faces of the type. In front of the type wheel is a horizontal roller to which the sheet of paper is attached by clips. Finger pawls, working into ratchets at the ends of the roller, serve to rotate it after each line is printed. By means of a handle, seen projecting from the right hand side of the frame, the roller is shifted longitudinally on its axis rod after each letter has been printed. This appears to be the first embodiment of the feed roller rotating to bring a new line into range, and having also a longitudinal feed, but as these movements were required to be separately executed by the operator, the work of the machine was necessarily very slow. Just at what time this old Thurber machine was constructed it is impossible to state in the light of present information, but as the feed roller did not appear in Thurber’s patent of 1843, it is possible that the claim to authorship of the feed roller having both a rotary and a longitudinal movement may be maintained in behalf of J. Jones, whose Pat. No. 8,980 of June 1, 1852, appears to be the first dated record of such a feed roller. Jones was also the first to provide a spring to automatically retract the paper carriage to the position for beginning a new line, the spring being put under tension by the movement of the paper carriage in printing.
Prominent among those whose genius has served to perfect the typewriter occurs the name of A. E. Beach, for many years of the firm of Munn & Co., and well known to the readers of the Scientific American. Mr. Beach’s first model of a typewriter was made in 1847. It printed upon a sheet of paper supported on a roller, carried in a sliding frame worked by a ratchet and pawl. It had a weight for running the frame, letter and line spacing keys, paper feeding devices, line signal bell, and carbon tissue. It had a series of finger keys connected with printing levers which were arranged in a circle, and struck at a common center. This machine was said to have worked well, but was laid aside for further improvement. In the meantime he constructed a typewriter to print in raised letters, without ink. This machine, which was intended primarily for the use of the blind, is illustrated in Figs. 137 and 138. It was first publicly exhibited in operation at the Crystal Palace Exhibition of the American Institute in the fall of 1856, where it attracted great attention and took the gold medal. The embossed letters were printed on a ribbon of paper which ran centrally through the machine. The printing levers were arranged in a circle in pairs, one riding on the top of the other. When the operator pressed a key, the two printing levers of each pair answering to the letter key were brought together, the paper being between them. The printing type were at the extremities of the levers, one lever having a raised letter, and its mate a sunken or intaglio letter, which, seizing the paper strip between them, like the jaws of a pair of pincers, impressed therein an embossed letter. The patent for this machine was granted June 24, 1856, No. 15,164, but the machine showed a much higher degree of development than appeared in the patent. This machine was the earliest representative of the circular basket of radially swinging type levers, combined with finger keys assembled in a keyboard at one side, which is now an almost universal feature, and the suggestion which it handed down to subsequent inventors has doubtless done much to make the typewriter the practical machine that it is to-day.
Up to the year 1868, however, typewriting machines were mere illustrations of sporadic genius occuring here and there as the pet hobby of some humanitarian seeking to help the blind, or supplement the deficiencies of the tremulous fingers of the paralytic. It had not yet come to be regarded as of any special use, nor had even the demand for such a device been forcibly felt, until the last quarter of the Nineteenth Century began to accumulate its wonderful momentum of progress and prosperity. The man whose genius finally brought forth a practical typewriter, and made a permanent place for it in the daily business of the world, was C. Latham Sholes. As joint inventor with C. Glidden and S. W. Soule, all of Milwaukee, he took out patents No. 79,265, of June 23, 1868, and No. 79,868, of July 14, 1868. These, together with Sholes’ Pat. No. 118,491, of Aug. 29, 1871, formed the working basis of the first typewriters that went into office use. These typewriters were first introduced to the general public under the management of the original inventors (Sholes, Soule and Glidden) about 1873, and at first used only capital letters. On Aug. 27, 1878, a further patent. No. 207,559, was granted to Sholes, and about this time, after five years of uncertain and precarious business existence, the machine was taken for manufacture to E. Remington & Sons, at Ilion, N. Y. Since this time the well-known “Remington” has built up for itself a reputation and a commercial importance that has given it first place among typewriters. In the nine years from 1873 to 1882, it is said that less than 8,000 machines had been manufactured. In the year 1882 Wyckoff, Seamans & Benedict obtained control of the machine, and during the fourteen years following it is said that nearly 200,000 “Remingtons” were made and sold. It is said that 1,000 men are now employed in making this machine, and that the present output is about 800 machines a week, despite the fact that it has a half dozen worthy competitors for public favor. The modern Remington, seen in Fig. 139, is too well known to require special description. Besides the Sholes patents, it embodies the improvements covered by patents to Clough & Jenne, No. 199,263, Jan. 15, 1878; Jenne, No. 478,964, July 12, 1892, and No. 548,553, Oct. 22, 1895, and also a patent to Brooks, No. 202,923, April 30, 1878, a characteristic feature of which latter is the location of both a capital and small letter on the same striking lever, and the shifting of the paper roller by a key to bring either the large or small letter into printing range.
The earliest rival of the Remington was the Caligraph, made by the American Writing Machine Co. This well-known machine, introduced in the decade of the eighties, was made under the patents of G. Y. N. Yost, March 18, 1884, No. 295,469; March 17, 1885, No. 313,973; and July 30, 1889, No. 408,061. The most modern form of the Caligraph is known as the “New Century,” which is shown in the accompanying illustration, Fig. 140. The Caligraph uses a separate type lever and key for each letter, and by a system of compound key levers the touch is rendered easy, even, and elastic, and perfect alignment and freedom from noise are among the objects sought in its mechanical construction.
Next among the earlier typewriters is to be mentioned the “Hammond,” made under the patents to J. B. Hammond, No. 224,088, Feb. 8, 1880, and 290,419, Dec. 18, 1883. A distinguishing feature of the machine is that the printed work is in full view, so that the operator can see what he is doing. The impression is made by an oscillating type wheel, to which a variable throw is imparted by the key letters to bring any desired letter into printing position. When the letter is brought into printing position a hammer, arranged in the rear of the sheet of paper, is made to force the latter against the type to produce the impression by the same movement of the key that brought the type wheel into printing position.
Of later machines, none has met with more popular favor than the Smith-Premier, manufactured under the patent to A. T. Brown, No. 465,451, Dec. 22, 1891, and others. A leading feature of this is the type-bar ring of its printing mechanism. In all typewriters accurate location of the impression is essential to proper alignment of the letters, and proper alignment is the sine qua non of typewriting. The old pivoted type bars were liable to wear at the joint, and the slightest looseness at this point would so multiply the lateral play at the end carrying the type that the letters would soon become irregularly placed and out of alignment. In the Smith-Premier this is reduced to a minimum by making a short type bar, and arranging each upon an oscillating rock shaft, the bearings at whose ends are so widely separated as to permit little or no lateral play in the type bar. A view of this type bar ring with tangentially arranged rock shafts disposed in circular series is seen in Fig. 141, while the full machine is given in Fig. 142. In this latter view there is also shown the cleaning brush for quickly cleaning at one operation all of the types of the outer ring. It is simply a circular brush mounted upon the end of a tool resembling a carpenter’s brace, and is a useful and convenient adjunct to the machine.
In 1891 the “Densmore” typewriter first made its appearance before the public. It was named after James and Amos Densmore, who had been connected with typewriting interests from the time of Sholes’ first practical machine. The Densmore is made under patents to A. Densmore, No. 507,726 and 507,727, of Oct. 31, 1893. It has ball-bearing type bar joints, giving accurate alignment and light key action, the platen rolls to show the work, and the carriage locks at the end of the line, protecting the writing.
Noted for its clear, sharp print, the “Yost” typewriter comes in for its share of praise. It is made under the patent to Felbel and Steiger, March 26, 1889, No. 400,200. It does not employ an inked ribbon interposed between the type and the paper, as do most typewriters, but its type-bearing levers, when at rest, occupy a position in which the type are all arranged within and bear against a circular inking ring or pad, and when a key is struck, its lever, by a peculiar and ingenious movement, leaves the inking pad, moves inward and backward toward the center, and then rises and strikes an upwardly directed blow in the center, and prints the letter on the paper. As the printing is done directly from the type, the letters are formed with sharp and clear outlines that give beauty and neatness to the print. Alignment is insured by a center guide hole through which the type end of the lever passes in striking the paper.
Among machines of simple organization may be mentioned the Blickensderfer, which is a wonderfully simple and effective little machine, first made under the patent to Blickensderfer, No. 472,692, April 12, 1892. Like the Hammond, it belongs to the class of typewriters which employ a rotary type wheel, which is given a variable throw, from the depression of the keys, to bring the proper letter into printing position; but unlike the Hammond, its type wheel advances to contact with the paper, a little felt ink-roller being brought into contact with the type wheel to ink it as the latter moves. The printed work is in full view, the line spacing may be varied to any fractional adjustment, and the action is quite free from noise. With its mechanism reduced to the fewest and simplest parts, the whole machine weighs only six pounds, and it differs in many respects from the ordinary typewriter. Since its introduction a few years ago, its growth in popularity has been very rapid.
Another recently appearing machine is the “Oliver.” This has type bars which are normally above the work. Each bar is loop shaped, hinged at its lower ends, and bearing the type letter on the bend at the upper end. They are arranged in two series, one on each side of the center, and in printing each loop swings down like the wing of a bird. As the printing is from the top, and the ribbon is moved away from in front of the line immediately after the printing blow, the writing is always visible to the operator. This machine is manufactured under various patents to Thomas Oliver, the first of which was No. 450,107, granted April 7, 1891. Further improvements are covered by subsequent patents, Nos. 528,484, 542,275, 562,337, and 599,863. The Oliver has made many friends for itself by its fine alignment and visible writing, and shares with the other standard machines a considerable patronage.
It is not practicable to give a full illustration of the state of the art in typewriters, as it has grown to an industry of large proportions. Nearly 1,700 patents have been granted for such machines, and more than 100 useful and meritorious machines have been devised and put upon the market. Among these may be mentioned the Hall, Underwood, Manhattan, Williams, Jewett, and many others.
Besides the regular typewriters, various modifications have been made to suit special kinds of work. The “Comptometer” used in banks is a species of typewriter, as is also the Dudley adding and subtracting machine, known as the “Numerograph,” and covered by patents Nos. 554,993, 555,038, 555,039, 579,047 and 579,048. Typewriters for short hand characters, and for foreign languages, and for printing on record and blank books, are also among the modern developments of this art. In the latter the whole carriage and system of type levers move over the book. The Elliott & Hatch book typewriter, Fig. 143, is a well-known example. In attachments, holders for the copy have received considerable attention, and simple and practical billing and tabulating attachments have been devised which expedite and facilitate the statements of accounts and other work requiring numeration in columns. The Gorin Tabulator is one of those in practical use.
In point of speed the typewriter depends entirely upon the aptness of the operator. For ordinary copying work, where much time is occupied in deciphering the illegible scrawl, probably forty words a minute is the average work. When taken from dictation, seventy-five words a minute may be written, and in special cases, when copying from memory, a speed of 150 words a minute has been maintained for a limited time. It was estimated that there were in use in the United States in 1896 150,000 typewriters, and that up to that time 450,000 had been made altogether. In the last four years this number has been greatly increased, and a fair estimate of the present output in the United States is between 75,000 and 100,000 yearly. In 1898 there were exported from the United States typewriting machines to the value of $1,902,153.
The typewriter has not only revolutionized modern business methods, by furnishing a quick and legible copy that may be rapidly taken from dictation, and also at the same time a duplicate carbon copy for the use of the writer, but it has established a distinct avocation especially adapted to the deftness and skill of women, who as bread winners at the end of the Nineteenth Century are working out a destiny and place in the business activities of life unthought of a hundred years ago. The typewriter saves time, labor, postage and paper; it reduces the liability to mistakes, brings system into official correspondence, and delights the heart of the printer. It furnishes profitable amusement to the young, and satisfactory aid to the nervous and paralytic. All over the world it has already traveled—from the counting house of the merchant to the Imperial Courts of Europe, from the home of the new woman in the Western Hemisphere to the harem of the East—everywhere its familiar click is to be heard, faithfully translating thought into all languages, and for all peoples.