Richard M. Hoe's Rotary Drum Press Accelerates Printing

Between 1843 and 1847 inventor and printing press manufacturer Richard March Hoe of New York invented the rotary drum printing press, dramatically increasing the speed of printing. This became known as the "lightning" press. Hoe's 1844 patent 3687 replaced the reciprocating platforms used in earlier designs with a fixed platform served by rotating drums. Through a series of advances he perfected a complete rotary press in 1846, and patented it in 1847 (U.S. Patent 5,199).

Hoe's press "... appeared in Edinburgh in 1851 and then traveled to London where it was used by the Times newspaper in 1853, where it then traveled to France in 1866 and Germany in 1873. By the time it reached Spain in 1885 it had become common use.^[4] Some sources describe the Parisian Hippolyte Auguste Marinoni as the inventor of the Rotary printing press, but this was the subject of a patent dispute that was decided in Hoe's favor. A.S. Abell of the Baltimore Sun was the first American user of the rotary press.^{[5] (Wikipedia article on Rotary Printing Press, accessed 10-17-2018).}