UICB historical printing studio
Here you will see three machines in action, each representing an important era of printing from metal type. The Reliance iron press represents the early centuries of letterpress printing, The Star Kelsey jobber recalls the work of innumerable small town trades people who printed everything from flour sacks to wedding announcements. The Model 31 Linotype line setting and casting machine commemorates the technology and operators who produced daily newspapers and popular books at lightning speed.
Reliance Iron Press
The earliest printing presses were made from wood. ìCommon pressesî were in use from about 1450 until the end of the 18th century, when it became possible to manufacture iron presses that were far more durable and precise. Iron hand presses were themselves replaced in the course of the 19th century by larger, faster rotary and platen presses, but presses for hand use like the Reliance continued to be made into the early 20th century. This Reliance was made in Chicago just after 1900. It was previously owned by R. Hunter Middleton, a type designer for Ludlow Typograph Company and fine press printer. In the 1970s, as he retired from printing, Middleton sold this press to cartography historian and amateur printer David Woodward, who used it in his Madison, Wisconsin, workshop. Woodward presented the press to The University of Iowa Center for the Book in 2003.
Star Kelsey Jobber
Do you recognize the distinctive tinkling of the ratchet of the inking plate and the whirl of the S spoke flywheel of the Kelsey Star? This is the same jobbing press that appears in the background of scenes from the Gun Smoke series. The Kelsey manufacturer is most remembered for small table top presses that enticed young printers in an era before electronic communications. With a Kelsey they could produce real print publications, however modest. Our floor model 7î x 11î Star is rare, but it represents the innumerable small production presses used in one or two person shops everywhere, at least in the United States. The platen jobber design was an especially American contribution to letterpress printing.
Mergenthaler Linotype
In 1885 Ottmar Mergenthaler developed the independent matrix typesetting machine. In 1890 Ottmar again improved his machine, creating the prototype for all subsequent Linotypes. This ingenious machine design for setting and casting individual lines then remained in use for over a century, establishing an enviable record in the fast moving printing technologies. For a skilled keyboard operator, the Linotype key arrangement still remains twice as fast as the keyboard arrangement attached to most computers!
By 1916 over 39,000 Linotype machines were at work with numerous machines in every large newspaper office composing room. A Linotype operator could set copy in one hour that would take a full day to set by handÖ and the machine then automatically distributed the mats while type had to be distributed piece by piece. In motion the Linotype is a mechanical acrobat of tumbling cams, manouvering elevators, dancing type mats and revolving mold wheel. It was the syncopation of the Linotype composing room, not just the whirl of the rotary presses, that produced the revolutionary new commodity of latest, up to the minute, News.
cell phone book
We always knew that cell phones were cameras and texting keypads, but now they are books as well. Sarah Glazer provides an
essay in the NY Times Book Review on the ultimate hand-held transformer that figures into the ebook future.
But wait, these minature displays should merge reading modes as well as their larger screened precursors. Forget the ebook premise; cell phones may be the ultimate exemplar of the composite reading mode intermingling verbal/visual, written and print parent modes,