Jeremy Norman’sHistoryofInformation.com Exploring the History of Information and Media through Timelines
Jeremy Norman’s
A: Oude Stad, Haarlem, Noord-Holland, Netherlands
Charles Frederic Ulrich, The Village Printing Shop, Haarlem, the Netherlands, 1884. Courtesy of Terra Museum of Art.
In 1884 the American realist painter Charles Frederic Ulrich completed an outstanding painting of the town printing shop in Haarlem, the Netherlands. In the painting we can see a young man, perhaps a typesetter, drinking from a cup in front of the type cases, with a mechanized press in the background. Though the hand crank is blocked by the small stove in the foreground, it appears that the printing machine is driven by a man standing who turns a crank on the large wheel.
