Anisson-Dupéron Claims Credit for Inventing the Single-Pull Hand Press

Toward the end of the 18th century printers made incremental improvements to the operation of the traditional hand press. In 1783 Étienne-Alexandre-Jacques Anisson, known as Anison-Dupéron, director of the Imprimerie Royale, improved the strength of the traditional hand press, but more significantly made refinements to its screw mechanism, allowing the press to be operated with a single-pull. His new press he described and illustrated in fine detail in "Premier mémoire sur l'impression en lettres, suivi de la description d'une nouvelle press," Mémoires de mathématiques et de physique des Scavants Etrangers X (1785) 613-650, with 4 folding copperplate engravings. In the new press the screw had two threads. "The first, or upper, worked in the head in the usual way, lowering the spindle a short distance; the second, or lower thread, ran in the same direction as the upper but its pitch was not so steep. Operating the bar resulted in a very small descent in relation to the press as a whole, but developing more than double the power of the common screw press. This development became known as the Hunterian screw, the mechanical power having the same as that of a single screw with a thread whose magnitude is equal to the difference of magnitude of the two threads" (Moran, Printing Presses, p 42).

Anison-Dupéron's press was installed at the Imprimerie Royale. In the French Revolution Annison-Dupéron was intially appointed as head of the Imprimerie Nationale; however he lost favor and was guillotined on April 25, 1794. The Didot family claimed that they had invented the single-pull screw mechanism prior to Anisson.