History of Information

Found 223 entry matches for printing

Playing Cards: One of the Earliest Forms of Block Printing

…ce at about the same time as the transition from manuscript rolls to paged books. As the advent of printing made it more convenient to produce and use books in the form of pages, so was it easier to produce cards. These 'sheet-dice,' as they were called, began to appear according to Ou-yang Hsiu (1007-72) before the end of the Tang dynasty, and if this is true, they were one of the earliest forms of block printing in China, as they were in the West" (Carter, Invention of Printing in China …

Printing Playing Cards

Card makers, who presumably were card printers printing from wood-blocks, are mentioned five times in the city records of Augsburg and Nuremberg by 1418. About the same time the records of the city of Ulm in Germany show that cards were being shipped in barrels to Sicily and Italy. Carter, History of Printing in China 2nd ed (1955) 186.…

By 1500 Printing Presses are Established in 282 Cities

By the year 1500 printing presses were established in 282 cities. "These are situated in some 20 countries in terms of present-day boundaries. In descending order of the number of editions printed in each, these are: Italy, Germany, France, Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, Belgium, England, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Portugal, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, Turkey, Croatia, Montenegro, Balearic Islands, Hungary, and Sicily." "The 18 languages that incunabula are printed in, in descending order, are:…

Early Printing in Hebrew Was Relatively Limited

Fewer than 150 editions of Hebrew incunabula (15th century books) were produced— less than half a percent of the total production of printed books during the 15th century. By the end of the 20th century only about 2000 copies of all these editions combined were preserved in institutional libraries. The editions were printed in Italy, Spain and Portugal, and one edition was published in the Ottoman Empire. Many of these editions are very rare, with one-third of them known in only one, two …

The First Mention of Printing in China

The first mention of printing in China is an imperial decree of 593 in which Sui emperor Wen-ti ordered the printing of Buddhist images and scriptures. However, the decree provides no details.…

The Origins of Printing in China

…. However, the earliest date to which ink rubbings on paper from these stones— a kind of pre-printing—can be assigned with certainty is the reign of Taizong of Tang (T'ai Tsung), 627-649 CE, during which "a rubbing was made which was discovered by Pelliot at Tun-huang" (Carter, History of Printing in China, 2nd ed [1955] 20).…

The Oldest Surviving Block Printing from Korea?

…ham estimated the date of this sutra as between 684 and 704. However, when the volume on paper and printing in China in Needham's series was published in 1985 Tsien Tsuen-Hsuin revised the date as somewhat later: "The scroll bears no date, but it includes certain special forms of characters created and used when Empress Wu (r. +680-704) was ruling in China. It is believed that this charm must have been printed no earlier than + 705, when the translation of sutra was finished, and no…

Printing the Buddhist Tripitaka in 5,048 Volumes Containing 130,000 Pages

…ive work, together with additions, was reprinted frequently during the Sung" (Carter, Invention of Printing in China 2nd ed [1955] 89).…

Were Missionaries in China the First European Patrons of the Art of Printing?

…ural way. Whether the missionaries agreed and thus became the first European patrons of the art of printing, we have no means of knowing. That religious image prints, prepared, like the pictures of John of Monte Corvino, 'for the ignorant,' began to appear in Europe some time within the half century after these early missionaries laid down their work, may not be altogether a coincidence" (Carter, Invention of Printing in China 2nd ed [1955] 161-62.)…

There is a Clear Record of Early Block Printing in Tabriz

"Tabriz is the only place in the Islamic world where there is a clear record of early block printing. In the year 1294 at this Mongol capital of Persia there was an issue of paper money with text in Chinese and Arabic.. . . . The notes. . .were direct copies of Kublai's, even the Chinese character being imitated as part of the device upon them. . .There was an Arabic inscription on each note to the effect that the notes were issued in the year 693 of the Moslem era (A.D. 1294), that all who issu…

Rashid al-Din Tabib's Islamic History Contains the Earliest Notice of Chinese Printing from a Non-Chinese Source

…kipedia article on Jami al-Tawarikh, accessed 01-25-2012). This history contained a discussion of printing in China. The description of the printing process bears very strong resemblance to the processes used in the large printing ventures in China under Feng Dao (932–953): "When any book was desired, a copy was made by a skillful calligrapher on tablets and carefully corrected by proof-readers whose names were inscribed on the back of the tablets. The letters were…

The First Two Color Printing Occurs in China

In 1340 the first two color (black and red) printing was produced in China.…

Block Printing May have been Practiced by Arabs and Jews as early as the Mid-14th Century

Fragments of block-printing on paper in Arabic and Hebrew from the Cairo Genizah, the storeroom of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat, Old Cairo, Egypt, now preserved in the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit at Cambridge University Library, indicate that block-printing may have been practiced by Arabs and Jews as early as the mid-14th century. Examples of wood block printing in Arabic excavated in 1880 in the region of El-Fayyum (Faiyum) in Egypt are also though…

Gutenberg Begins Experimentation on Printing

…n by Dr. Karl Schorbach (1941). From these legal documents American printer and historian of printing Theodore Low De Vinne concluded that Gutenberg's key discovery was the invention of the type mold. "De Vinne's unique contribution to the history of printing was his analysis of what was meant by the 'invention of printing,' printing the Western sense. He concluded that the European invention of printing consisted not in the use of the press long employed for broadsides and ind…

Description of Textile Printing and Manuscript Illumination as Well as Painting

…d 01-26-2012). Cennini's handbook includes a description of methods used by Europeans for textile printing. The work was first published in print in Italian by Tambroni (Rome, 1821) from a codex dated July 31, 1437 discovered in the Vatican Library by the Italian cardinal and humanist Angelo Mai. It was first translated into English by Mrs. Merrifield and published (London, 1844) as A Treatise on Painting. . . .containing practical directions for painting in Fresco, Secco, Oil, and …

Card Printing in Venice Has Outside Competition

An edict of the Council of Venice indicated that the card printing industry in this city was being interfered with by outside competition.…

Warfare Accelerates the Spread of Printing

…shop denied Mainz its town rights and made the city an archepiscopal capital. This debacle stopped printing in Mainz for the next few years and contributed to the spread of printing: "It wiped out commerce there, and the consequent lack of money led printers, who were established in a kind of industrial group, to scatter widely. This accounts for the German names we find among the earliest printers in other countries throughout Europe" (Updike).…

An Anonymous Scholar Describes the Value and Difficulty of Preparing an Accurate Manuscript for Printing

…olar described the value and difficulty of preparing as accurate a manuscript text as possible for printing, probably for the first time in any printed book: "Nevertheless I have thought it by all means worthwhile that I should first expend much labour over what would be to the common utility of the Church: that I may have this most useful little book- worthy of all esteem - correct, in order that, after correction this way, I would be able to communicate it more usefully to all those wis…

William Caxton Opens the First Printing Office in England and Issues A Letter of Indulgence, the First Definitely Dated Piece of English Printing

…’s rent in advance for premises there in which he set up his press. The first surviving printing that he completed with a definite date was Indulgentia (A Letter of Indulgence) by John Sant, Abbot of Abingdon, for promoting the war against the Turks. ISTC is00163100 cites only one copy printed on vellum, imperfect, in London at the National Archives, noting "The copy known was issued to Henry and Katherine Langley on 13 Dec. 1476." "The form is se…

Sultan Bayezid II Prohibits Turks from Printing

…ree of Sultan Bayezid II of the Ottoman Empire in 1484 Turks were prohibited from operating a printing press.…

"Book of Hawking, Hunting and Heraldry", the Earliest Work Printed in England to Contain Color Printing

…awking, hunting, heraldry, and etiquette was the earliest book printed in England to include color printing. It is also the first English book on heraldry and sports, and among the earliest, if not the earliest printed book written by a woman, whose name is variously given as Juliana Berners, though this attribution has been disputed. Little is known about the presumed authoress; some of the most basic information about her is given in the second edition of this work issued by Wynkyn …

The Editio Princeps of Homer: The First Printing of a Major Greek Work in its Original Language

In 1488 and 1489 the first printed edition (editio princeps) of the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer appeared in Florence in two volumes. This edition of Homer's Opera in Greek was edited by the Greek scholar Demetrius Chalcondyles and printed by Bartolommeo di Libri at the expense of the brothers Nerli. It was the first printed edition of any major Greek work in its original language. "The type used was that of Demetrius Damilas, whose 'labor and skill' . . . is acknowledged in the colopho…

"The Hours of Henry VIII". An Example of the Persistence of Illuminated Manuscript Production 50 Years After the Introduction of Printing

…ons and prayers contains fifty-five exquisitely hand-painted images. ♦ Even as the reach of printing expanded, the practice of commissioning luxury manuscript books of hours by wealthy patrons continued well through the sixteenth century. From the seventeenth century onward it noticeably declined. Production of these luxury manuscripts, in which the emphasis was on the illustrations, continued to provide employment for a declining number of scribes and illuminators, some of whom fou…

Johannes Trithemius Great Expands his Abbey Library as a Result of the Development of Printing

…bey library reflects the increased availability of information after the development and spread of printing in Europe.…

Charles IX Forbids Any French Printer from Printing Without Permission, Under Penalty of Being Hanged or Strangled

By Letters Patent of the thirteen year old Charles IX of France at Mantes, September 10, 1563 it was forbidden for any French printer to print without permission, under penalty of being hanged or strangled.…

The Star Chamber Court Consolidates and Amplifies the Regulation of Printing in England

…e Star Chamber court in London issued a decree consolidating and amplifying the regulation of printing in England.…

Stephen Daye Establishes the First Printing Press in North America: No Copies of the First Two Imprints Exist

Stephen Daye established the first printing press in North America at Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1639. Daye's first publications were a broadside entitled The Oath of a Freeman, and Peirce's Almanack for 1639. Of these two printings, no authentic copies are known.…

Joseph Moxon Issues the First Comprehensive Printing Manual

…instrument maker Joseph Moxon published in London his Mechanick Exercises on the Whole Art of Printing as part of his survey of the chief trades of his day. This was the first printing manual published in English, and the first comprehensive manual in any language published on printing—a trade that was passed down through apprenticeship, without truly useful printed manuals, since the mid-15th century. Moxon's Mechanick Exercises was intended to furnish his readers with …

The First Attempt to Collect and Organize the Literature of Early Printing

…m in 1688, was the first attempt to comprehend and organize the collected literature of early printing, and the first use of of the term incunabula in the title of a book on the history of early printing. Beughem cited approximately 3000 titles. Beughem, a bookseller and city counselor at Emmerich, in the Duchy of Cleves under the rule of the Electors of Brandenburg, and author of several bibliographies, has been called the foremost bibliographer of the 17th century…

Jacob Christophe Le Blon Invents the Three-Color Process of Color Printing

…of Frankfurt, secured a patent in 1719 from George I for a process which he called "printing paintings." Much as fifteenth century printers viewed printing by movable type as a less expensive way to reproduce texts that had previously been reproduced by manuscript copying, Le Blon viewed his process of color printing as a less expensive way of producing or reproducing color paintings. Prior to moving to London Le Blon worked as a miniaturist in Amsterdam, and it is…

Martin-Dominique Fertel Issues the First Major French Manual on Printing and the First Book on Book Design

…te;fauts qui peuvent y s. from Saint-Omer, France. This was the first major manual on printing published in French, and the first book on book design in any language, though the author probably did not think of it as a design manual per se. The four parts of Fertel's work cover type and composition, imposition and press correction, accentuated letters and punctuation, and press work. Fertel (1648-1752) had a shop in St. Omer from 1713 until his death in 1752. After becom…

Sultan Ahmet III Permits Printing on Secular Topics by Müteferrika While Protecting the 4000 Scribes in Istanbul

…tanbul) in the form of an essay entitled Wasilat al-Tiba'a, (Vesiletu-t Tibaa) The Utility of Printing, in which he showed the losses to Islamic learning from the absence of print and the great benefits that printing would bring to Muslims in general and Ottomans in particular. Müteferrika, the founder of the first Turkish printing press, was born in Hungary and trained as a Calvinist minister. Between 1692 and 1693 he fell into the hands of Ottoman troops, was enslave…

Thomas Jefferson Describes Printing as a Way to Preserve Information

… preserving texts by distributing copies had been anticipated by exponents of the new invention of printing by movable type in the second half of the fifteenth century who believed, and rightly so, that printing an edition of a text that might survive in only one or a handful of manuscript copies was a way of safeguarding the existence of the text.…

Tsar Paul I Suppresses Private Printing in Russia

Private printing presses were suppressed in Russia by the order of the Tsar, Paul I in 1798.…

Napoleon's Imprimerie Nationale, the First Printing Presses in Africa since 1516

During his Egyptian Campaign Napoleon Bonaparte established printing presses (Imprimerie Nationale) at Alexandria, Cairo, and Giza (Gizah) from 1798 to 1789. These were probably the first presses on the continent of Africa since Samuel ben Isaac Nedivot and his son Isaac, set up the first press on the African continent in Fez, Morocco, and operated the press from 1516 to about 1526. When the French were driven out of Egypt in 1801 Napoleon's presses ceased operation.…

The Braille System of Printing and Reading for the Blind

…lume of 4 preliminary leaves and 32 pages included the first presentation of the Braille system of printing and reading for the blind, which represents letters and numbers by combinations of six dots. Though Braille introduced his six dot system briefly in his 1829 work, most of the Procede pour écrire was published through the traditional system of printing for the blind using raised letters that was invented by the founder of l'Institut Royale des Jeunes Aveugles, Valentin H…

The Contributions of the Scheutz Brothers to the Early History of Difference Engines and the Calculating and Printing of Mathematical Tables

…ther work on the Scheutz machine until 1850, when, in response to renewed interest in machines for printing tables, they began working on the Scheutz difference engine no. 2. However, the Scheutz machine no. 1 did not lie entirely fallow during the seven years between 1843 and 1850, for in 1849, Georg Scheutz used it to produce and print a table of a polynomial of the third degree, which he published in Nytt och enkelt sätt att lösa nummereqvationer af hogre och lägre …

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)…

David Edward Hughes Invents a Mechanism for Printing Telegraph Messages

In London in 1854 David Edward Hughes invented the first perfected mechanism for printing telegraph messages, using a keyboard in which each key caused the corresponding letter to be printed at a distant receiver. Hughes's printing mechanism worked something like a "golfball" typewriter, but it was produced before the typewriter was invented.…

William Farr Publishes the First Instances of a Printing Calculator Used to Do Original Work

…onstructed by the firm of Bryan Donkin, a manufacturer of machinery, including those for the color printing of bank notes and stamps. Costs overran and Donkin delivered the machine in July 1859, several weeks past the deadline, at a loss of £615 (Lindgren 1987, 224-25). Farr's preliminary report, received by the Royal Society on March 17 of 1859, was written while the Scheutz Engine no. 3 was still "in the course of construction by the Messrs. Donkin" (p. 854). The report's tabl…

The Burroughs Dependable Key-Driven Printing Adding Machine

… (Burroughs Adding Machine Company 1904) began commercial production of his dependable key-driven printing adding machine. …

The Printing and the Mind of Man Exhibition Concentrates on the History of Printing Technology & Texts Influential on Western Civilization

The Printing and the Mind of Man exhibition took place in London at Earls Court Exhibition Centre during a period of only two weeks, from July 16 to July 27, 1963. Concurrently an exhibition of examples of Fine Printing was mounted at the British Museum from July to September 1963. The lengthy and complex title of its catalogue, with an emblem and tailpiece designed and engraved by Reynolds Stone, read: Catalogue of a display of printing mechanisms and printed materials arranged to illustra…

Printing about the Handpress Using Photo-Offset

Richard-Gabriel Rummonds's Printing on the Iron Handpress was published in 1998. This elegantly produced definitive book on the operation of historic handpress printing technology, illustrated by photographs and line drawings, was printed by high-speed photo-offset rather than manual letterpress printing. It included an annotated bibliography of prior printing manuals published in English. The introduction by Harry Duncan concluded: ". . . anyone who does stay the course and follow to the end t…

Computers Have Not Caused a Reduction in Paper Usage or Printing

In 1999 it required about 756,000,000 trees to produce the world’s annual paper supply. “The UNESCO Statistical Handbook for 1999 estimates that paper production provides 1,510 sheets of paper per inhabitant of the world on average, although in fact the inhabitants of North America consume 11,916 sheets of paper each (24 reams), and inhabitants of the European Union consume 7,280 sheets of paper annually (15 reams), according to the ENST report. At least half of this paper is used i…

The "Print Clock" Method for Dating Printing

…ing Sciences 462 (2006) 3555-3573, describing the "print clock" method for dating examples of printing, including books and copperplates, issued from hand-operated presses. A supplementary appendix was available from Hedges' website. …

Conrad Gessner Issues the First Universal Bibliography Since the Invention of Printing

…ience, also at the age of 29. The first "universal" bibliography published since the invention of printing, Gessner's Bibliotheca universalis was an international bibliography of authors who wrote in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, alphabetically arranged by their first names in accordance with medieval usage. Short biographical data preceded the lists of works, with indications of printing places and dates, printers and editors, where applicable. Gessner listed about 12,000 titles in the …

Elizabeth Eisenstein's "The Printing Press as an Agent of Change"

In 1979 Elizabeth L. Eisenstein published The Printing Press as an Agent of Change. Communications and Cultural Transformations in Early-Modern Europe. From the perspective of digital information and the Internet, I think it is appropriate to quote from an evaluation of the impact of this printed book on book history as it appears in the Wikipedia article on Elizabeth Eisenstein: "In this work she [Eisenstein] focuses on the printing press's functions of dissemination, standardi…

Emperor Go-Yōzei Orders the Printing of the Analects of Confucius, One of the Oldest Surviving Works of Japanese Printing by Movable Type

Using Korean printing equipment brought back by Toyotomi Hideyoshi's army in 1593, and type cast by the order of Tokugawa Ieyasu before he became shogun, in 1598 the Japanese printed an edition of the Confucian (Confucius) Analects at the order of Emperor Go-Yōzei. This document is one of the oldest surviving works of Japanese printing by movable type. Despite the appeal of movable type, the Japanese decided that the running script or semi-cursive style of Japanese writing was better repr…

Albinus & Ladmiral Issue the First Full Color Printing by the Three-Color Process to Illustrate a Medical or Scientific Book

…zotint printed by the painter Jan Ladmiral. This was among the earliest applications of full color printing, and the first use of the three-color printing process in a medical or scientific book. Between 1736 and 1741 Albinus issued six pamphlets, each containing a color mezzotint by Ladmiral, forming the first series of full-color anatomical color-printed illustrations ever made. Besides the previously mentioned pamphlet of 1736, the dissertations included De sede et causa col…

Printing Decreased the Costs of Books by 80%

…drea Bussi (Joannes Andreae de Bussis), bishop of Aléria, and the chief editor for the printing house of Conrad Sweynheym and Arnold Pannartz after it moved from Subiaco to Rome, wrote to Pope Paul II: "In our time God gave Christendom a gift which enables even the pauper to acquire books. Prices of books have decreased by eighty percent" (Hirsch, Printing, Selling and Reading 1450-1550 [1967] 1). Hirsch mentions in a footnote that this statement was printed by Sweynheym…

Petrus Caneparius Issues the First Book about Printing Inks

…ice. This is "the earliest known work which gives details of the formulation of typographic inks" (Printing and the Mind of Man. Catalogue of the Exhibition at the British Museum and at Earls Court, London [1963] No. 122).…

The Rouses Describe Three Ways that Printing Changed Manuscript Culture

… define some features of the scribal culture that dominated that area of Europe which produced the printing press, I should like in conclusion to note three aspects of the book and its use that printing, for better or worse, drastically altered. . . . Print as an Agent of Change; its author [Elizabeth Eisenstein] curiously, does not treat these three aspects of change. "(1) With the growth of print as the normal medium of the page, the main medieval vehicle for relating new thought to inh…

Goldschmidt & Otlet Propose a Massive Central Library on Microform for Printing on Demand

In 1925 Robert B. Goldschmidt and Paul Otlet published La Conservation et la diffusion internationale de la pensée, le livre microphotique as publication no. 144 of the Institut international de bibliographie (Brussels). This work described their plans for a massive library where each volume existed as master negatives and positives on microform, and where items were printed on demand for interested patrons.…

The Earliest Printing was Stamped into Soft Clay in Mesopotamia

The earliest printing was the stamping of inscriptions into the soft clay of bricks before firing, done under the rule of the Sumerian king Naram-Sîn of Akkad (Narām-Sîn, Naram-Suen), ruler of the Akkadian Empire, who built the Temple of Inanna, the Sumerian goddess of sexual love, fertility, and warfare. Prior to Naram-Sîn the inscriptions on the bricks were written by hand. MS 5106 in the Schøyen Collection is a brick printing block, 13x13x10 cm, 3 lines in a l…

Block Printing in Arabic in the Tenth or Eleventh Century

…ent difficulties, Arabic writing was printed from an early date. Some form of xylography, or block printing, was practiced as early as the tenth century, as several amulets discovered in Egypt show. Most of the known examples were block-printed on paper, but one example was printed on papyrus, and two were printed on parchment. Although these examples are undated, the use of papyrus and parchment suggests an early date, confirmed by the style of script and by another bit of evidence; schol…

Léonard Defrance Creates Panel Paintings of the Operations of a French Enlightenment Printing Shop

…e des Beaux-Arts de Grenoble acquired a fourth, and previously unknown panel painting of the printing shop of the Liège printer Clément Plomteux, Liège painted by the Franco-Flemish genre painter Léonard Defrance in 1782. Defrance painted a series of four paintings depicting visits to the printing office of Clément Plomteux. Three of these remain in private hands in Liège. The fourth painting of this group, discovered by Prof…

"Biblia pauperum", the First Combination of Text and Illustrations in One Printing Forme

Printing the Biblia pauperum, a kind of illustrated précis of highlights in the Bible— intended for laymen or lower clergy who could not afford a complete Bible— represented a major technical challenge in the integration of the relatively brief text with the numerous woodcuts on each page. In spite of these difficulties, the first printed edition may have employed movable type. The Incunabula Short Title Catalogue lists ten editions of the Biblia pauperum printed du…

Printing on Cakes Made Possible

…photocopying an image onto an edible web for decorating iced baked goods." This invention enabled printing a food-grade color photograph on the surface of a birthday cake, or other iced baked goods, using a dedicated inkjet printer and edible inks. …

The Emperor Charles V Issues "The Law of Printing" in Response to the Excommunication of Luther

…us false doctrines and bad examples from being spread all over Christendom, and so that the art of printing books might be used only toward good ends, we, after mature and long deliberation, order and command you by this edict that henceforth, under penalty of confiscation of goods and property, no book dealer, printer, or anybody else mention the Holy Scriptures or their interpretation without having first received the consent of the clerk of the city and the advice and consent of the fac…

Charles VII Orders a "Well-Qualified Agent" from his Royal Mints to Travel to Mainz to Learn Printing

…ordered the masters of his mints to find a well qualified agent to go to Mainz to learn the art of printing, which had recently been invented by Johann Gutenberg, a man adept at cutting punches and 'caractères'. Nicholas Jenson, (Nicolas Jenson), for some time master of the mint at Tours, was selected for the mission. From this beginning, Jenson became one of the greatest punch cutters and printers of the 15th century. This was the first contemporary reference acknowledging Gutenbe…

The First Illustration of a Printing Office & Bookshop in a Printed Book

The first illustration of a printing press and printing office in a printed book appeared in Danse macabre, published in Lyon by Mathias Huss. The image shows death visiting a printing office and a bookseller's shop. Huss's book was one of numerous editions of The Dance of Death, or Danse macabre. "The first known illustration of a printing press was certainly not drawn to enlighten future generations as to its characteristics. It appears in an edition of the Danse Macabre, published…

Printing Required the Simplication of the Graphic Form of the Book

…ypography immediately introduced simplification in form, and all through the first half-century of printing we can see a relentless process of simplification of graphic form at work. This simplification consisted of a selection of those features of script that were essential for communication, and, conversely, the rejection of the endless variation in form and function that the writing hand can create. Written script forms can be ambiguous; there can be innumerable small distinctions in, s…

Christophe Plantin Publishes the Earliest Description of the Printing Process

…pies were printed, the work is exceptionally rare. Dialogue IX (pp. 218-255) concerns writing and printing. It is thought that the physician and dramatist Jacques Grevin was the general editor of the Dialogues, but that Plantin, who signed the Preface, was the author, or at least the editor, of the section on writing and printing. "The chief interest, hwoever, of the Dialogue lies in the later section, which is introducted with a reference to 'the marvellous art of printing.' H…

Richard Atkyns Issues the First English Publication on the History of Printing

…hed in London at the press of John Streater a 24-page pamphlet entitled The Original and Growth of Printing: Collected out of history, and the Records of the Kingdome. Where is also Demonstrated, that Printing appertaineth to the Prerogative Royal; and is a Flower of the Crown of England. Atkyns's pamphlet was the first publication in England entirely on printing, and the first English work on the history of printing. Atkyns' motivations were primarily political rather than scholarly.…

The Invention of Anastatic Printing Enables Inexpensive Facsimiles and Pirated Editions

The graphic reproduction process which came to be called anastatic printing first began to be known in October 1841 when the proprietors of the London journal, the Athenaeum received from a correspondent in Berlin a reprint of 4 pages of their issue of September 25, containing some woodcut illustrations. This was so perfect a facsimile that they immediately inquired as to how it had been done, and they learned that it had been made by a secret new process. In their issue No. 736 of December 4, 1…

The Caxton Quadricentennial Celebration: Probably the Largest Exhibition on the History of Printing Ever Held; Collecting its Publications

…le participated in some way as patrons or members of committees, representing a "who's who" of the printing industry in England and Europe at the time, along with leading scientists, scholars, librarians and collectors. A few Americans such as printing machine designer and builder Richard M. Hoe were also involved in committees. The exhibition was open for two months, from June 30 to September 1, 1877. According to David McKitterick, Old Books, New Technologies (2013, …

Thomas W. Starr Mechanizes Punch-Cutting for Printing Types

…m as a substitute for cast stereotype plates, was invented in about 1840 and spread rapidly in the printing trade. The use of electrotyping to make matrices from cast type was the subject of US Patent 4130 of 1845, granted to Thomas Starr. By the 1850s, the electrotyping of matrices had entered the normal practice of typefounders. Increasingly, later in the century, punchcutters turned from cutting their designs in steel – especially the more elaborate ones – towards making the…

The "First Printer of National Liberty" Issues the Printing Manual for the French Revolution the Year Before He is Guillotined

In 1789 the printing industry in Paris exploded. In the first few years of the French Revolution the industry was swept by a new generation of small printers, most of them former printing-shop workers or small book dealers who seized the opportunities opened by the declaration of freedom of the press and commerce, bought a few hand presses, and entered into the fast-paced world of revolutionary cultural agitation through the production of political ephemera. In 1793 French printer, bookseller an…

The Fitzwilliam Museum Exhibition of Printing, Precursor to "Printing and the Mind of Man" is Aborted on Account of War

An Exhibition of Printing at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge was planned for May 6 to June 23, 1940, taking the year 1940 as the quincentenary of Gutenberg's invention of printing, just as had been done in 1840 for the quatercentenary, in 1740 for the tricentennial, and in 1640 for the bicentennial. Exhibitions of this kind normally require years of advance planning, but from the brief account in Nicolas Barker's Stanley Morison (1972) it appears that the prospectus for this exhibition …

Printing the Confucan Classics with 100,000 Pieces of Movable Type

According to Needham, following in the foot steps of Wang Zhen, in 1322 the magistrate of Fenghua, Zhejiang province, named Ma Chengde, printed Confucian classics with movable type of 100,000 written characters organized on revolving type tables. Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 5, Part 1, 208.…

Edward Bigmore Compiles a Catalogue of the Printing Library of Richard March Hoe

In 1877 American printing press inventor and manufacturer Richard March Hoe published The Literature of Printing. A Catalogue of the Library Illustrative of the History and Art of Typography Chalcography and Lithography. A New Yorker, Hoe had this catalogue privately printed on handmade paper at the Chiswick Press in London in a small, but unspecified number of copies. Its only illustration was a frontispiece showing Hoe's high speed web perfecting press--the latest and greatest in pr…

George Baxter Invents the First Commercially Viable Method of Color Printing and Great Enhances Reproduction Quality

…roducing Coloured Steel Plate, Copper Plate, and Other Impressions." Baxter described a commercial printing process that printed images in color with a level of detail, precision, and brilliance of color superior to any other commercial process of the time, and equal or better than most hand-coloring.Unlike most patents from the time, instead of patent drawings Baxter illustrated his patent with actual examples of color printing that he had accomplished. His patent included an example of a…

Charles Knight Invents "Illuminated Printing" & Offers Printed Color Plates at a Low Price for the Mass Market

…d in the Production of Coloured Impressions on Paper, Vellum, Parchment, and Pasteboard by Surface Printing." Knight called his color printing process "illuminated printing," and invented it for the economical printing of colored pictures, maps, and drawings. Knight applied this process in a group of his own publications, and then seems to have set it aside. The process appears to have been used by others only in later editions of works that Knight initially published. "At first only four…

Clymer's Columbian Press, Perhaps the First Great American Contribution to Printing Technology

…h the Stanhope Press. In 1817 Clymer received British patent No. 4174 for "Certain Improvements in Printing Presses." His specification described and illustrated the Columbian Press. Reflecting the slow transition from handpress to mechanized printing in many aspects of the printing trades, Clymer's Columbian Press was manufactured and sold for over a century. Some historians consider it the first great American contribution to printing technology.…

The First American Manuals to Discuss "Machine Printing"

The early American printing manuals appear to have been intended for the owners of small to medium printing shops which would not necessarily have required high speed presses. In the first edition of the widely used American printing manual by Thomas F. Adams of Philadelphia entitled Typographia . . . (1837) there is no discussion of "machines" but in the second edition, which was very significantly revised, and given a new title as Typographia, or the Printer's Instructor (1844), the last …

Bigmore & Wyman Issue the First Comprehensive Bibliography of the History of Printing

…d antiquarian bookseller Edward C. Bigmore began publishing in January 1876 A Bibliography of Printing with Notes and Illustrations in monthly issues of Wyman's Printing Times and Lithographer magazine, completing serial publication in 1885. Perhaps it was not coincidental that publication of this work coincided with the planning and occurence of the massive 1877 Caxton Celebration, for which Wyman served on a sub-committee. Beginning in 1880 Bigmore and Wyman's work wa…

Printing in Clay by the Typographic Principle in Germany in 1119

…the typesetter and linguist Herbert Brekle. His findings confirm that the text was produced with a printing method similar to that of the Phaistos Disc: The 17-line text was created by pressing individual, pre-formed stamps (probably made of wood) into the soft clay in a way that, for each letter which occurred more than once, the same letter stamp was re-used, thereby producing identical imprints throughout the text. Thus, the essential criterion for typographic text production was met, n…

The Pure Light Dharani Sutra, the Earliest Surviving Specimens of Woodblock Printing on Paper

"The earliest specimen of woodblock printing on paper, whereby individual sheets of paper were pressed into wooden blocks with the text and illustrations carved into them, was discovered in 1974 in an excavation of Xi'an (then called Chang'an, the capital of Tang China), Shaanxi, China. It is a dharani sutra printed on hemp paper and dated to 650 to 670 AD, during Tang Dynasty (618–907). Another printed document dating to the early half of the Chinese Tang Dynasty has also been found, the …

Persian Scholar Dawud al-Banakiti Records Appreciation of Chinese Printing for the Standardization of Correct Texts

In 1317 Persian scholar Dawud al-Banakiti wrote concerning Chinese printing in his Raudat uli'l-Albab (Garden of the Intelligent) a summary copied closely from the Jami'al-Tawarikh of polymath Rashīd al-Dīn Tabīb (Persian: رشیدالدین طبیب‎) also Rashīd al-Dīn Fadhl-allāh Hamadānī, which had been written in 1307: "The Chinese are wont to make copies from books in such wise that no change or alteration can find its way into the text. And when they thus desire, they or…

A Decree of the Star Chamber Concerning Printing July 11, 1637

…ellent Maiestie: And by the Assignes of John Bill, entitled A Decree of Starre-Chamber, Concerning Printing, Made the eleuenth day of July last past. 1637. The decree also forbade anything to be printed which had not first been licensed and entered in the Stationers' Register, a record book maintained by the Stationers' Company of London. The company had been given a royal charter in 1557 to regulate the various professions associated with the publishing industry, including printers, book…

The Sweynheym & Pannartz Lactantius, the First Dated Book Printed in Italy, Containing the First Printing in Greek

…lavius Julius Crispus. This was the first dated book printed in Italy. It also contained the first printing in Greek by any printer, using a font that was apparently cast in the process of printing the text, as in the earliest printed quires the space for Greek passages are left blank. This is the only appearance of this Greek type; Sweyheym and Pannartz cast a second Greek font for their books printed at Rome. In January 2013 a digital facsimile of the 1465 Lactantius was available from t…

"Psalterium Graeco-latinum cum Canticis", the Earliest Printing of Any Book of the Bible in Greek

…, publishing the Septuagint version of the Psalms with parallel Latin transation, was the earliest printing of any book of the Bible in Greek. Appended canticles, including the Benedictus and the Magnificat, represented the first texts of the New Testament printed in Greek. "The type in this psalter is similar to the very first Greek type ever cut. That first type was designed by calligrapher Demetrios Damilas, a Cretan of Milan. it was perhaps modelled on the hand of Michael Apostolis [A…

The Adelaide "Register" General Printing Office Issues the Earliest Australian Type Specimen and Trade Catalogue

…Types, etc., etc., Belonging to the Proprietors of the "Register" and "Observer" General and Fancy Printing Office was issued by the "Register" General Printing Office in Adelaide, Australia. This octavo pamphlet consisted of a blank at each end and 62 leaves printed on rectos including the title. Its title and four pages were printed in color with silver or gold on three of those pages. Until a copy appeared on the Australian antiquarian book market in February 2013 this publication …

The First 3D Printing Pen; Drawing Enters the Third Dimension

On February 21, 2013 at 7:10 AM PST the 3Doodler 3D printing pen project on Kickstarter.com had 12,743 backers who had pledged $1,129.404, drastically exceeding the original goal of raising $30,000, and there were 31 days to go on the fund-raising program. By the time I finished writing this database entry the totals had already increased to 12,801 backers who pledged $1,134,565. Photographs and videos on the websites described the remarkable features of the invention. "A hand draws a sq…

The Role of Women as Typesetters in the French Printing Industry

… simply Receuil de Journaux. On all 184 pages of the album someone pasted newspaper clippings from printing trade journals and other souvenirs of the printing trade published between 1865 and 1867. The articles emphasize social issues in the printing trade, especially in typesetting. Two topics in the collection of clippings and ephemera stand out: pp. 24-65 and 74-76 concern the employment of women as typesetters. Typesetting was one place in the print shop where women were sometim…

Chuck Hull Invents Stereolithography or 3D Printing and Produces the First Commercial 3D Printer

In 1983 Charles W. Hull (Chuck Hull) invented stereolithography, or 3D printing. That year he created the first-ever 3D printed part. Hull coined the term stereolithography in his August 8, 1984 patent application for "Apparatus for production of three-dimensional objects by stereolithography." U.S. patent US4575330 A was granted on March 11, 1986. Hull defined stereolithography as a method and apparatus for making solid objects by successively printing thin layers of the ultravi…

"TOP 10 3D Printing Stories of 2013"

…t of comparatively inexpensive 3D printers intended for the consumer market, by the end of 2013 3D printing had become a widespread consumer and industrial phenomenon, applied to untold numbers of new products and art forms. On December 20, 2013 Designboom.com, based in Milan, Italy, published their illustraded list of TOP 10 3D printing stories of 2013. …

PBS Digital Studios: Will 3D Printing Change the World?

Much attention has been paid to 3D Printing lately, with new companies developing cheaper and more efficient consumer models that have wowed the tech community. They herald 3D Printing as a revolutionary and disruptive technology, but how will these printers truly affect our society? Beyond an initial novelty, 3D Printing could have a game-changing impact on consumer culture, copyright and patent law, and even the very concept of scarcity on which our economy is based. From at-home repairs to …

Death by Printing Press in Stockholm

…e series, entitled in English "Fickle Woman," featured a printer working in an authentic-appearing printing shop, being killed by having his head squished in the printing press. The printer was issuing subversive political documents inspired by the French Revolution, but he mainly got into trouble with his wife for fooling around with too many women who came to get printing done. From the blurb on the DVD set: "The Age of Enlightenment, year 1790. After returning from the battle fields…

How the Large-Scale British Printing Industry is Adapting to the Digital Age

…ut what about the executives even more tightly bound to the presses — the people who run big printing companies? ". . . . In many ways, printing itself has gone digital. Industrial-strength laser printers enable big printing plants to make quick and cost-effective small-batch runs on demand. Even Wyndeham’s big offset machines — which print from lithographic plates created from digital files — are so highly automated that a crew of just a dozen or so can put them t…

Magno's Summary of the Staff and Salaries of 15th Century Venetian Printing Offices

…tself employs three people: the compositor, the inker [printer's devil], and the pressman; a small printing house might have six employees, while one that has from six to eight presses with thirty to forty workers is a firm of substantial dimensions. Only the compositor has to have specialized training, and, judging from satirical comments of the time, there were a lot of unemployed servants and penniless students ready to fill any jobs that might open up. In any case, it's a well-paid job…

Scribe Filippo de Strata's Polemic Against Printing

…nd scribe in the Benedictine community of San Cipriano in Murano, addressed a polemic against printing to the Doge. Printing had only recently been introduced to the city of Venice, but evidently the scribal community already felt threatened by the new technology, and its lower costs, though its impact may not have been as dramatic as Filippo's polemic would imply. One senses considerable exaggeration in Filippo's protests, especially since the texts printed in Venice by this time wer…

Joel Munsell Produces a Sale Catalogue of His Collection of Rare Books on Printing and Related Topics

…Albany, New York, decided to offer his personal library of rare and scarce books on the history of printing and related subjects for sale in a priced catalogue. This was entitled Catalogue of Books on Printing and the Kindred Arts: Embracing Also Works on Copyright, Liberty of the Press, Lbel, Literary Property, Bibliography, Etc. According to Bigmore & Wyman's Bibliography of Printing II (1880-86) 66, Munsell sold nearly the entire collection, on which he had spent about $30…

Zefirino Campanini Writes, but Does Not Publish, the First Italian Printing Manual

The earliest known Italian printing manual, written in 1789 by Zefirino Campanini, remained unpublished until it was discovered in the Biblioteca Palatina in Parma in the late 20th century by book historian Conor Fahey, who edited it for publication as Istruzioni pratiche ad un novello capo-stampa o sia Regolamento per la direzione di una tipografica officina (1789), a cura di Conor Fahy (Firenze, Olschki; London, Modern Humanities Research Association, 1998). Campanini, …

Johan Christoph Wolf Issues the First Bibliography of the History of Printing

…work Wolf reprinted roughly 50 texts of varying lengths and significance to do with the history of printing and typography, some of which are very obscure and difficult to find elsewhere. He prefaced the set with a 96-page bibliography of the history of printing— the first bibliography on this subject. That such a specialized bibliography could extend to 96 pages by 1740 is a reflection of the amount of scholarly interest in the history of printing that had developed in the 200 years…

In Response to the Swing Riots Charles Knight Explains How Mechanized Printing Delivers Information Faster & Cheaper

…tion technology. In The Results of Machinery Knight explained how mechanization of papermaking and printing had increased the speed of book production while reducing costs during the previous 20 years, thereby greatly widening the market for books, and expanding an industry, and creating tens of thousands of new jobs. Knight was primarily motivated to write this book by the large-scale Luddite style Swing Riots protesting mechanization of agriculture, which had occurred in the S…

William Clowes Introduces High Speed Printing in Large Scale Book Production

The distinction between printing by "machine" and handpress printing seems to have originated in the language of the first patents on steam-driven mechanized printing granted to Friedrich Koenig in London between 1810 and 1814. High speed presses initially attempted to meet the increasing demand for higher production output from newspapers, beginning in 1814 with The Times of London. Nevertheless, the technology did not catch on rapidly. In 1820 there were only eight steam-driven …

Machine Press Inventor Edward Cowper Chronicles and Analyzes the New Developments in High Speed Machine Printing

Having studied and collected the history of the technology and the incunabula of machine printing for more than ten years, in January 2018 I had the opportunity to purchase and read for the first time the remarkable article by printing machine inventor Edward Cowper entitled "On the recent Improvements in the Art of Printing" published in The Quarterly Journal of Science, Literature, and Art, January to June 1828, 183-191. This article, written for the educated public by one of the key inventors…

Chambers's "Information for the People" Describes the New Printing Technology; Chambers' Business in 1850

…dinburgh Journal, was very sparcely illustrated. The publishers devoted part No. 35 to "The Art of Printing." This issue was illustrated with a large wood engraving of their steam-powered rotary press, and included a detailed account of the development of printing and an unusually detailed account of the operation of the latest steam-driven printing machinery used to print Chambers' larger circulation publications. The issues of this encyclopedia indicate that it was distributed in E…

Alice Hamilton Conducts the First Comprehensive U.S. Study of Hygiene of the Printing Trades, Including the Use of Linotype and Monotype

…ysician and research scientist Alice Hamilton and Charles H. Verrill published Hygiene of the Printing Trades. Bull. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Whole Number 209. Industrial Accidents and Hygiene Series: No. 12. This was probably the earliest thoroughly documented, detailed statistical study of the hygiene and diseases of workers in the U.S. printing industry, as compared to available statistics on workers in other countries. The 118-page work was also one of the e…

Koenig & Bauer Move Back to Germany; 7 Years Later Print the "Allgemeine Zeitung", the First Examples of Machine Printing in Germany

…eir English partners, and founded the company known today as Koenig & Bauer. They set up a new printing machine factory at an abandoned monastery at Oberzell near Würzburg. However, in Germany development of their printing machines proceeded slowly, as this was at least 25 years before the beginning of the machine age in Germany. In the 1860's there were attempts in Germany at imitating the industrialization that had taken place elsewhere in Europe. This imitation was only moderat…

Sir Francis Bond Head Provides a More Human Perspective on the New Printing Technology

…n office as Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada. Bond Head's article was a review of two essays on printing by writer and publisher Charles Knight. One was an 87-page book by Knight, presumably entitled The Printer. This I have not seen. The other was "Printing in the Fifteenth and in the Nineteenth Centuries" published in Knight's The Penny Magazine, no. 369 (December 31, 1837). Knight was undoubtedly the most enthusiastic promoter of the new printing technology, often writing enthus…

In his "Typographia" Hansard Publishes the Earliest Detailed Illustrated Account of Machine Printing Directed at Printers

…rs was published within the early years of its development by the English printer and historian of printing Thomas Curson Hansard in his monumental book entitled Typographia: An Historical Sketch of the Origin and Progress of the Art of Printing; with Practical Directions for Conducting Every Department of an Office: with a description of Stereotype and Lithography, illustrated by Engravings, Biographical Notices, and Portraits.(1825). Hansard's work, which consisted of about 950…

Early English Critiques of the Quality of Machine Printing

…hese are as significant in the history of books as those produced during the first half-century of printing. Over this period of collecting I have sometimes wondered how the "machine press" was appreciated by printers during the decades of its introduction. In February 2015 I happened to be reading portions of master printer William Savage's A Dictionary of the Art of Printing (London, 1841) and I came across his entry beginning on p. 448 entitled simply "Machines". From Savage's…

The First Published Manuals Specifically on Machine Printing

As the machine press industry grew, the first separately published books on machine or mechanized printing appeared in Germany. That Germany would proceed England or France or America in publishing manuals on this subject might not be anticipated, since Germany initially lagged far behind England and America in the application of printing machinery, and in the Industrial Revolution in general. However, after a slow beginning, Germany was gradually becoming competitive in the field. The first boo…

Cowper & Applegath Invent the Four-Cylinder Printing Machine

In 1827 Edward Cowper and his brother-in-law Augustus Applegath invented the four-cylinder printing machine. This could print between 4200 and 5000 copies per hour. The illustration from The Times' Printing in the Twentieth Century (1930) shows the machine built for The Times of London and operational in 1828. According to Moran, Printing Presses, p. 130, The Times was still using this machine in 1843.…

Charles Knight Launches "The Printing Machine: A Review for the Many"

With an image of the four-cylinder Applegath & Cowper printing machine on the masthead, in February 1834 mass media apologist and promoter Charles Knight launched a new periodical, "The Printing Machine: A Review for the Many." Under the masthead in small print Knight printed a quotation, undoubtedly from one of his own writings in The Penny Magazine: "What the PRINTING-PRESS did for the instruction of the masses in the fifteenth century, the PRINTING-MACHINE is doing in the nineteenth. Each…

Women Operate Printing Machines at l'Imprimerie Impériale

…ustrated account of the operation of l'Imprimerie Impériale, one of the leading large-scale printing operations in France. An image that stands out in this account is the operation of the machine room, in which all the machine presses appear to be operated by women in skirts. In background one can also see the hand-presses, which were operated by men.…

Morris' Kelmscott Press Printing of Ruskin's "The Nature of Gothic": A Manifesto for the Arts & Crafts Movement

…mp; Cope were still manufacturing Albion presses in 1891 exemplifies the persistence of hand press printing throughout the 19th century and its continuation for short run purposes into the 20th, and even into the 21st. The Arts and Crafts movement, which flourished in Europe and North America between 1880 and 1920, was an international movement in decorative and fine arts that promoted traditional craftsmanship in opposition to factory production and its social and economic impacts t…

Henry Maudslay Invents the Table Engine: Appropriate for Driving Small Machines, Including Printing Machines

…as standing. This type of small steam engine became the engine of choice for driving steam-powered printing machines. The boiler would have been located outside the workspace to reduce smoke and fire risk. "...the object [of Maudslay's design] was to get rid of the rocking beam that had been a feature of steam engines since Newcomen's day, to reduce the weight of the machinery, and to lower the centre of gravity and make its workings self-acting--the cylinder sitting on the table, and pis…

Jones & Huston Printers & Stationers Elegantly Advertise Printing by Steam Power

…heir beautiful color printed calender for 1862 Jones and Huston Printers and Stationers advertise "Printing by Steam Power, Wholesale and For Exportation."…

The Illustrated London News Illustrates the Hoe Ten Cylinder Rotary Printing Machine Built or the London "Daily Telegraph"

…Illustrated London News published a dramatic woodcut of the huge Hoe & Co. Ten Cylinder Rotary Printing Machine used to print the Daily Telegraph newspaper. This huge printing printing machine required manual feeding by ten men. It was the largest version of the rotary drum press that Richard March Hoe developed from 1843 and patented in 1847. It must have been truly impressive to watch this enormous steam engine-driven machine in operation.…

Victoria & Albert Visit the Applegath Vertical Printing Machine in The Great Exhibition

…eported in their issue of June 14, 1851 that Queen Victoria and Prince Albert visited the Vertical Printing Machine invented by Mr. Applegath, constructed by Mr. Middleton, and exhibited by Mr. Ingram, for printing the Illustrated London News. The image reproduced here was published in The Illustrated Exhibitor No. 7 (1851).…

Hoe's Railway Newspaper Printing Machine Comes to Brownsville, Texas

…w weekly newspaper. They featured on their front page their new R. Hoe & Co. Railway Newspaper Printing Machine. This Hoe press was crank driven, and could print 1200 impressions per hour. That was apparently fast enough to supply copies for the small population in Brownsville at the time.…

John Walter Defends the New Printing Machine Against Threats from Pressmen

…iament was adjourned, will have been observed: on such an occasion, the operation of composing and printing the last page must commence among all the journals at the same moment; and starting from that moment, we, with our infinitely superior circulation, were enabled to throw off our whole impression many hours before the other respectable rival prints. The accuracy and clearness of the impression will likewise excite attention. Till Parliament, therefore, shall be again assembled, there …

Andrew Ure Publishes Outstanding Illustrated Accounts of Machine Printing & Machine Papermaking

…f the most detailed and best illustrated accounts of the history, design, and operation of the new printing machines. Elsewhere in his encyclopedia he provided an outstanding account of papermaking by machine, among hundreds of other subjects. For most of my long lifetime with books I never had occasion to review 19th century encyclopedias of technology; study of the history of the 19th century technologies that led to the first mass media in print provided the opportunity to begin to fill…

Seymour's "The March of Intellect": a Robot Built of Steam Engine & Printing Machine Parts with a Head of Books Topped by a University

…Seymour's cartoon entitled The March of Intellect a giant automaton built of steam engine and printing machine parts, and with a head of books topped by a university building, sweeps away quackery, delayed parliamentary bills and court cases. In Thomas Love Peacock's 1831 novel Crotchet Castle a character, Dr. Folliott, called the Society for the Distribution of Useful Knowledge the "Steam Intellect Society" and linked the march of technological and efforts at educatio…

Putnam's and Harper's Use the New Printing Machines in Their Marketing

…nthly Library for Travellers and the Fireside (1852) both New York publishers incorporated the new printing machines in their designs. Harpers showed their flatbed Adams type printing machine as a small detail in their engraved frontispiece. Putnams showed a Hoe single cylinder machine at the foot of their printed wrapper. From this we may assume, I think, that both companies believed that these impressive examples of new technology added to the appeal of the publications produced and sold…

Robert Hoe Reviews 19th Century Improvements in Printing Technology

In 1902 printing press manufacturer Robert Hoe privately published an illustrated review of printing press advances from the time of Gutenberg to the end of the 19th century. His 91 page book was entitled A Short History of the Printing Press and of the Improvements in Printing Machinery from the Time of Gutenberg Up to the Present Day. Because nearly all the advances in printing presses occurred during the 19th century from the invention of the iron Stanhope Press onwards, most of Hoe's book co…

A Photograph of the First Wharfedale Printing Machine

…post card. I have not seen it reproduced elsewhere. It may be one of the earliest photographs of a printing machine in operation. The figure in back at the center of the machine might be David Payne.…

The American Bible Society Exploits the New Printing Technologies

…ents with equal ardor. In the 1820s, the society became a major patron of the power press. The new printing technology that caught the attention of the ABS managers was Daniel Treadwell's steam-powered bed-and-platen press, generally considered to be the first successful powered press to be built in America. Treadwell began experiments with power printing in Boston in 1822; the ABS opened negotiations with him in 1823; and by 1829 the society had installed sixteen Treadwell presses, probab…

Marinoni: The Leading French Producer of Printing Machines

To promote their printing machines at the Exposition Universelle de 1878 Marinoni published a brochure in which they mentioned that M. Marinoni was awarded La Légion d'Honneur in 1875 pour "notables progrès à l'imprimerie, par les perfectionnements qu'il a introduite dans la construction des machines typographiques." With the context of carriages pulled by horses, Marinoni had sold 6000 machines, including steam engines and printing machines.…

The "New-York American" Newspaper Installs a Napier Double Imperial Printing Machine, the First Printing Machine Used by a U.S. Newspaper

…y 4, 1826 the New-York American Newspaper ran an article on their front page headlined "THE NAPIER PRINTING MACHINE." This Double Imperial, or double cylinder, machine was designed for newspaper production, and built in Scotland by David Napier. The first printing machine installed by a U.S. newspaper, it was operated by human power rather than a steam engine or a horse, and remarkably, the author of the article explained that having a man turn the flywheel to power the machine was cheaper…

"Typographical Printing Surfaces": Documenting & Analyzing 19th Century Advances in Typesetting & Type Founding

… years, I would suggest that the most authoritative work summing up and analyzing those aspects of printing technology during that crucial period in which the advances of the Industrial Revolution were applied to book production, is Lucien Alphonse Legros and John Cameron Grant's Typographical Printing-Surfaces: The Technology and Mechanism of their Production (London & New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1916). This work of 732 pages is an encyclopedia of virtually all aspects of the p…

The London Printing Machine Managers' Trade Society is Founded

In 1814, when steam power was first applied to printing at The Times of London there were very strong feelings in the minds of the English working classes against the introduction of machinery. Memory of the luddite machine-breaking in the textile industry and the resulting executions that had occurred only one year earlier, was very fresh. It was felt with much justification that machinery mainly benefited the owners of the factories, and deprived the working man of his right to labor. Han…

Applegath's Vertical Printing Machine Prints "The Illustrated London News" at the "Great Exhibition"

…their May 31 issue the News featured in an article and full-page illustration Applegath's Vertical Printing Machine that was operating during the exhibition and printing sheets that were actually issued in parts of the magazine. In my copy of Vol. 19 of the Illustrated London News on the foot of page 521 in the issue of June 7, there is the statement at the foot of the page: "THIS SHEET WAS PRINTED IN THE GREAT EXHIBITION." I have transcribed the complete article about Applegath's machine…

Koenig and Bauer Remind Visitors to the Great Exhibition that They Invented the First Printing Machines

…aus publish a 16-page pamphlet in German and English entitled Die Ersten Druckmaschinen. The First Printing Machines. Constructed in London up to the Year 1818 by Friedrich Koenig and Andreas Friedrich Bauer. The imprint of the pamphlet stated that it was printed by Brockhaus on a Schellpresse (high speed press) manufactured by Koenig und Bauer, who were then manufacturing printing machines in Oberzell, Germany. The purpose of this very detailed bilingual exposition of Koenig's first print…

A Small Printing Shop in Frankfurt Using English Presses

…is most notable about this volume, I think, is the frontispiece that depicts the interior of their printing shop.…

The Manchester Typographical Society Opposes the Introduction of Printing Machines

Printing machinery was introduced to provincial England decades after it was used in London, occasionally resulting in opposition to the introduction of machinery years after it had become accepted in London: "We hear, for example, in 1842, that the Manchester Society had 'engaged in useless strikes--ruinous, ridiculous, and unjust contests against the employment of machinery. There is, however, no evidence of violent opposition or machine breaking. Although the machines gradually displaced han…

Inventor Edward Cowper "On Printing Machines, Especially Those Used in Printing "The Times" Newspaper"

In 1850 English printing engineer, inventor, and academic Edward Cowper published a paper entitled "On Printing Machines, Especially Those Used in Printing 'The Times' Newspaper." This paper was published in Institution of Civil Engineers. Minutes of Proceedings, Vol. 9 (1850) 409-427. The paper was to a certain extent the summation of his career, as Cowper, who was born in 1790, in the era of hand press printing, died two years after this paper was published. Cowper's role in the advance of pri…

Printers Destroy Printing Machines at the Imprimerie Royale; Odilon Barrot Urges that Presses be Protected

… Orleans, thirty printers broke into the Imprimerie royale, and destroyed or damaged the five printing printing machines that had been installed at the end of 1829. This was both a political statement and an act of resistance against mechanization. Printers felt threatened by the installation of printing machines. Typographers opposed the introduction of stereotyping to which they attributed loss of employment. The following day, July 30, by which the Trois Glorieuses was complete, F…

J.S. Folds, Publisher of "The Dublin Penny Journal" Refuses to Use Printing Machines in its Production

Opposition by publishers to the introduction of printing machinery does not appear to have been frequently recorded in print, mainly, perhaps because publishers, who controlled the content of their newspapers and magazines, were motivated to introduce the machinery to increase productivity and circulation. In Ireland publisher J. S. Folds emulated Charles Knight's The Penny Magazine in concept and format but not in printing technology, and it is evident from his reference to Knight's book i…

"The Dublin Penny Journal" Illustrates its Printing Machinery

…her of The Dublin Penny Journal, published an eloquent essay explaining his decision not to employ printing machinery. Later that year Folds sold the magazine to Philip Dixon Hardy, who clearly disagreed, and wasted little time in installing printing machinery, probably the first in Ireland. By the 97th issue of the magazine published on May 10, 1834 Hardy published a feature article on his double cylinder perfecting machine with one of the more unusual wood engraved illustrations of his m…

"Parley's Visit to the Printing Office" Explains the New Printing Technology to Subscribers

… 1843 Chartist leader, printer and publisher John Cleave published Parley's Visit to the Printing office; with a Familiar Account of the Steam Engine, the Printing Machine, and the Arts of Composition, Engraving and Stereotyping. This small 12mo pamphlet of 36 pages including its self-wrappers, was "Presented Gratis, to all regular Subscribers, with No. 25 of 'Parley's Penny Library.' This is one of the scarcer ephemera of book production in the Industrial Revolution, with …

Parisian Printers Boycott Government Printing Facilities

…l developments in book production since the Revolution of 1789 created problems in the French printing industry that were aggravated by the overall economic crisis of 1830. Parisian printers felt threatened by the introduction of printing machines, and typesetters opposed stereotyping. Having broken the printing machines at the Imprimerie royale during the July Revolution, in September 1830 certain printers and typesetters of Paris organized to boycott government printing projec…

Maschinenfabrik Johannisberg Advertises Printing Machines

This chromolithographed advertisement from 1895 for book, lithography, and collotype printing machines was, of course, produced on a printing machine created by Maschinenfabrik Johannisberg of Geisenheim. It originally appeared in a book containing many samples of very fine printing by Theodore Goebel entitled Die graphischen Künste der Gegenwart. Ein Führer durch das Buchgewerbe (Stuttgart, 1895). …

Industrial Printer Edward Arnott Clowes Provides an Historical Review & Analysis of Developments in Printing Machinery

In 1877 industrial printer Edward Arnott Clowes, grandson of machine printing pioneer William Clowes, published a lengthy paper entitled "Printing Machinery" in the Minutes of Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, Vol. 89, 242-284 This paper provided the best analysis that I have seen of the developments that had occurred in printing machines since their invention by Friedrich Koenig up to the time of writing. At the end of his paper Clowes provided four tables: Table I: Spee…

Ringwalt's American Encyclopedia of Printing

Among the most comprehensive encyclopedias of printing published to 1871 was John Luther Ringwalt's American Encyclopedia of Printing co-published in Philadelphia by printer Robert S. Menamin and the editor, writer John Luther Ringwalt, and J.B. Lippincott. Though it drew, of course, on prior works, I cannot think of a more comprehensive single volume reference work on all aspects of printing and book production published in the English language prior to this date. The work appears to have been …

Pasko's American Dictionary of Printing and Bookmaking

Wesley Washington Pasko appears to be remembered mainly for editing the American Dictionary of Printing and Bookmaking, Containing a History of These Arts in Europe and America, with Definitions of Technical Terms and Biographical Sketches published in 1894. Published 23 years after Ringwalt's Encyclopedia, with which it may be conveniently compared, Pasko's work brings a different perspective to much the same subject matter, though it lacks the richness of the illustrations of Ringwalt's work. …

The SDUK Moves Upscale in its Publications; Dispute Between Journeymen and Masters over the Printing of Copperplates.

…xt were printed on fine paper, probably on hand-presses at William Clowes, rather than high-volume printing machines, since the relatively high price of these publications restricted the number of copies that could be sold. Following Charles Knight's strategy of issuing larger works in parts, the parts for the SDUK's Gallery of Portraits were issued monthly at half a crown each. When each volume in the 7 volume series was complete it was offered for sale in a handsome cloth binding …

Photograph of Master Printer Jules Claye, Remembered for Printing the Works of Victor Hugo

…nt and printed quality books and periodicals of many kinds, but he seems to be most remembered for printing the works of his long-time friend, Victor Hugo. As an indication of the size of Claye's establishment, I read in an article on the French Alauzet high speed printing machines published on p. 75 of the July 30, 1864 issue of l'Illustration that Claye's printers operated twelve of Alauzet's printing machines of different types. These presumably would have been in addition to wha…

The First Art Book Printed on a Printing Machine

…sued a volume of One Hundred and Fifty Wood Cuts, Selected from The Penny Magazine; Worked, by the Printing-Machine from the Original Blocks. The title page incorporated a small woodcut of the Applegath & Cowper printing machine. This was undoubtedly the first "art book" printed on a printing machine rather than a hand press, and the title makes the point that the impressions of the woodcuts were made from the original woodblocks rather than from the stereotype plates used to print the…

The San Francisco Chronicle Publishes Chromolithographs of its Printing Facilities

Comemmorating its new building and state of the art publishing facilities, in 1879 The San Franicisco Chronicle newspaper (founded in 1865) issued The San Francisco Chronicle and its History. This book included four distinctive chromolithographs by the artistic San Francisco chromolithographer Edward Bosqui. The chromolithographs, which have a distinctive artistic charm, are reproduced with this entry. The book confirmed that by this date San Francisco had newspaper editorial and produ…

In Mainz Joseph Scholz Publishes an Outstanding Image of a Printing and Typefounding Shop

Perhaps the most interesting genre scene of a small printing office published in the mid-19th century is the hand-colored lithograph published by the Joseph Scholz firm of Mainz and distributed in the U.S. by Eggers & Co. of Cincinnati. In a charming style the print clearly depicts the various processes of typesetting and printing on an iron hand press of the Stanhope type, together with the type founding process in the room next door. …

Bennet Woodcroft Issues "Abridgments of Specifications Relating to Printing" up to 1857

…ications, Bennet Woodcroft issued Patents for Invention. Abridgments of Specifications Relating to Printing, Including Therein the Production of Copies on All Kinds of Materials, (Exempting Felted and Textile Fabrics), by means of Types, Stereotype, Blocks, Plates, Stone, Dies, Stencil Plates, Paper Writings, Electro-Chemicals, and Light. A. D. 1617 to 1857. Besides summarizing the content of most British patents on these subjects, this work indexed the patents by year, and indicated where…

Alexander Waldow Issues the Most Comprehensive Work on Machine Printing

Though Germany was slow to develop its printing machine industry, by the last quarter of the nineteenth century it became very competitive with machine press producers in England and the United States. It also issued some of the best technical literature on the subject. Between 1874 and 1877 German printer and writer about printing Alexander Waldow (1834-1897) issued Die Buchdruckerkunst in ihrem technischen und kaufmännischen Betriebe. This work, which appeared in 2 vols. plus an…

The U.S. Government Printing Office Expands Dramatically Between 1861 and 1881

Some of the largest industrial printing concerns that developed in the second half of the 19th century were government printing facilities in France, Vienna, and Washington, D.C. For the U.S. facility an excellent account is Robert Washington Kerr's 1881 History of the Government Printing Office, (at Washington, D.C.) with a brief record of the public printing for a century, 1789-1881. The volume was not published by the Government Printing Office, but instead by the Inquirer Printing and P…

Nuremberg Exhibition on the History of Printing Coincidental to the Caxton Celebration?

…bemuseum in Nuremberg held an exhibition of about 2000 books and prints documenting the history of printing. The director of the Bayrische Gewebemuseum, Karl von Stegmann, published an elaborate illustrated catalogue of this exhibition as Ausstellung von Arbeiten der vervielfältigenden Künste im Bayrischen Gewerbemuseum zu Nürnberg, 1877. The last chapter of the catalogue concerned modern methods of printing, illustrating the latest equipment, including new mo…

The First Illustrated Book Printed on a Printing Machine

…d at a low price under the auspices of the SDUK. This book became the first book printed on a printing machine that included images printed by the new technology. Like most of Charles Knight's publications, this book was printed by William Clowes, a large industrial book printer in London, who was one of the first to apply the new high speed presses in book production. In his autobiography Knight recounted what a monumental step in the history of book production producing an illustrat…

Giuseppe Pomba Installs the First Printing Machine in Italy

In 1830 Italian printer and publisher Giuseppe Pomba imported an Applegath and Cowper rotary printing machine from England to his printing plant in Torino. This was the first printing machine installed in Italy. Presumably this model was powered by hand crank, as Pomba did not install his first steam engine, a four horsepower model, until 1847. This engine was also imported from England.Mario Infelise, La nuova figura dell'editore, in Storia dell'editoria nell'Italia contemporanea a cu…

"The Daily Miracle: Finding Magic Inside The Times's Printing Plant"

…nt and online a dramatically illustrated account written by Luc Sante of its high spreed newspaper printing processes entitled The Daily Miracle: Finding Magic Inside The Times's Printing Plant. The subtitle of the article was "The photographer Christopher Payne spent two years shooting The Times's printing plant in College Point, Queens. He captured the craft, precision and unexpected beauty of the newspaper printing process." The article was a paean to the experience of producing and re…

High Speed Printing Machine Manufacturer R. Hoe & Co. Also Manufactures and Sells Many Hand Presses

…t as much space to Hoe's "Saw Department" and its "Hand Press Shop" as it does to Hoe's mechanized printing machines--what it calls Hoe's "Printing Press Department." We learn that the "Hand Press Shop" at this time sold four hand presses per week, chiefly of the Peter Smith and Washington designs, and that the company offered numerous other devices to supplement hand press work.…

Richard March Hoe Issues an Early Catalogue of his Rotary Printing Machines.

…brary of Congress reads as follows: R. HOE & CO. Manufacturers of Single and Double Cylinder Printing Machines, Washington and Smith Hand Presses, Self-Inking Machines, Steam Engines, Cast Steel Saws, Machinery, &c. &c. &c. EVERY ARTICLE CONNECTED WITH THE ART OF TYPOGRAPHY, COPPERPLATE AND LITHOGRAPHIC PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING, ALWAYS ON HAND, OR FURNISHED AT SHORT NOTICE. MANUFACTORIES, NOS. 29 & 31 GOLD STREET, AND CORNER OF BROWN AND SHERIFF STREETS, NEW YORK. …

George Brown Introduces Machine Printing to Canada

…ards, in August 1844, Brown installed the first cylinder press in Canada West. This printing machine could print 1,250 papers in one hour, many more than the old Washington iron hand press which could only print 200 an hour. Two years later George Brown "continued his role as an innovator by bringing to the the Globe Toronto's first rotary presses. The huge increase in the pace of production that resulted allowed newspaper publishers to produce dailies in place o…

Hector Bossange Retails Books, Magazines, Binding Equipment, Type and Printing Presses & Printing Machines

…lish and Spanish versions of his introduction. It is also the only bookseller's catalogue to offer printing machines and other printing and binding equipment for sale. The price information for presses and printing equipment offered in this catalogue is the first that I have seen for France at this time. …

Charles Frederich Ulrich Paints The Village Printing Shop, Haarlem, the Netherlands

…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.…

The Atlas of Early Printing Goes Online

In February 2008 The Atlas of Early Printing, an interactive website directed by Greg Prickman of the Folger Library, and Andrew Holland, Robert Shepard, both at the University of Iowa Libraries, and others, went online. "Project History "Version 1 of the Atlas went online in February 2008. It was made possible by an Innovations in Teaching with Technology Awards (ITTA) grant from the University of Iowa, and the support of the University of Iowa Libraries and Informati…

Paul Needham Delivers the Rosenbach Lectures in Bibliography on "The First Quarter Century of European Printing"

…rsity of Pennysylvania. The respective titles of the series "The First Quarter Century of European Printing" were Lecture 1: "The 1450s: Bookmaking Inventions." Lecture 2: "The 1460s: Slow Diaspora." Lecture 3: "1470-1475: The Sowing of Printing Shops." In July 2019 audio files with images were available from the University of Pennyslvania libraries at this link.…

Printing the "Speculum Humanae Salvationis" by Blockbook and Letterpress

… different presses, mostly, but not all, printed their woodcut illustrations in the printing press with the text. Some seem to have been printed in two sessions for texts and images. Günther Zainer of Augsburg, a specialist in popular illustrated works, produced the first one in 1473, in Latin and German, and with a metrical summary newly added for each chapter; this is considered an especially beautiful edition.[11] Further incunabulum editions…

An Ox Powers the First Cylinder Printing Machine in China

…ording to Xiantao Zhang, The Origins of the Modern Chinese Press,(2007) p. 106, in 1847 a cylinder printing machine paid for by the British Bible Society substantially increased the output of printing in China by the London Missionary Society Press. "Its first half year of production exceeded a whole year's output of the hand operated press. It is worth noting that the printing machine was in fact modified to be driven by an ox, which, along with its remarkable efficiency, created a sensat…

Missionary Printer William Gamble Introduces Electrotyping to Chinese Printing Type Production

…n Press at Ningbo and Shanghai, developed typographical inventions to improve Chinese movable type printing. He invented cutting characters on boxwood, and making plates from these characters by electrotype. He then made matrices by the hundreds, instead of singly, as was formerly done. Characters produced by the new process, known as "Gamble's Characters," were clearer and also retained more of the original calligraphic effect. The electrotype process made it possible to reduce size of th…

The Scheide Library at Princeton Exhibits an Authentic Piece of 15th Century Printing Type

… In Principio Treasures of the Scheide Library "Curatorial Note: "Almost all 15th-century printing materials have disappeared. A rare exception is this piece of type representing the letter “p”. It is one of several hundred early types discovered in 1868 in the mud of the left bank of the Saône by scavengers who were searching for precious metals discarded by Lyons goldsmiths’ shops that formerly lined the riverside. Most of the recovered types came into th…

The First Illustration of a Printing Machine Published in a German Book

…nologist Johann Henirch Moritz von Poppe 1776-1854) in 1830 contained the earliest image of a printing machine published in a German book that I had seen when I wrote this entry in July 2020. Notably, Poppe, who appeared to be up to date in his accounts of various technologies, issued his book by the time that the Industrial Revolution in Germany, which lagged behind England and France, had begun to advance. Poppe's section on book production, the last section in the volume, co…

Spectacular Catalogue of International Printing & Bookselling Exhibition in Amsterdam

Reflecting the huge progress in printing technology that occurred during the 19th century, the embossed and gilt printed cloth edition binding on the 1892 catalogue of the Amsterdam exhibition, sponsored by the Dutch Assocation Promoting the Interest of Bookstores, depicted the old and new elements of the book production: traditionally bound books in front of a modern printing machine. The catalogue also contained numerous beautiful examples of the printing art produced by printers and publisher…

William Mann's Centennial Calendar Shows Off Advances in Printing Technology

…le hand press that would have been used in 1776 along with a large scale Hoe steam-driven cylinder printing machine. Mann would not have used such a press for chromolithography, but he might have used a press something like it for steam power printing that he also advertised in the lower right corner.…

French Printer Paul Dupont Describes his Visit to the London Printing Plant of William Clowes

…led Notice historique sur l'imprimerie (Paris: Imprimerie Paul Dupont, 1849) printer, historian of printing, and politician Paul Dupont described the many technical innovations in printing and book production that had occurred in the first half of the 19th century. Dupont wrote in a pleasant and positive style, as a booster for the industry, and to promote his own business. Among the topics he covered were the conditions of workers in printing plants. In that chapter he ignored issues such…

Recording the Development of Printing Machines in Germany from 1834 to 1839

As of July 2020 I had not found a history of the early development of mechanized printing in Germany, a country to which, for a variety of reasons, the Industrial Revolution was late in coming. After the printed listing of early machines sold by Koenig und Bauer surviving from 1827 the record appears to be spotty until the later 19th century by which time the technology was established to a greater or lesser extent in most countries of Europe. A useful source for the 1830s in Germany is Johann …

George C. Rand & Avery Co., Printers in Boston, Feature their Advanced Steam-Driven Printing Facility

In their undated elegant book entitled Specimens, a showcase of their type founts and printing styles, printers George C. Rand and Abraham Avery of Boston introduced their volume with a beautifully illustrated series of chapters on their Boston facility, undoubtedly one of the most advanced in the United States in the period around the Civil War. Though the book was undated we know that it was published before 1867 when the name of the firm was changed to Rand, Avery & Frye. Regrettably thei…

The Long Development of the Canon Pocketronic, the First Handheld Battery-Powered Printing Calculator

The Canon Pocketronic, the first handheld battery-powered electronic printing calculator, was developed at Texas Instruments as one of the earliest commercial applications of the integrated circuit. It was conceived in 1965 by TI founder Jack Kilby and TI president Patrick Haggerty as a way to exploit and popularize the integrated circuit developed at TI, which had been primarily used for military purposes up to that date. They turned the engineering of the product over to self-taught TI semicon…

William Bullock Invents the Web Press, Improving upon Hoe's Rotary Printing Press; Is Killed by his Own Invention

󈼗 American inventor William Bullock of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, received U.S. Patent 38200 for a printing machine for printing newspapers that substantially improved upon Hoe's Rotary Press. Bullock's printing machine was the first web press using a continuous web or roll of paper built especially for curved stereotype plates. It printed both sides of the sheet, and cut the paper either before or after printing. According to the Wikipedia article on William Bullock, accessed in 11-2020, …

The k. k. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei in Vienna Installs its First Two Printing Machines and a Steam Engine to Drive Them

In 1836 the k. k. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei in Vienna, the Imperial-Royal Court and State Printing House, founded in 1804 by Emperior Franz I, installed its first two printing machines and a steam engine to drive them. These were probably the first two printing machines installed in Austria.…

Alois Auer Develops Typefaces for 500 European Dialects and 150 Languages at the Austrian State Printing House

… 1841 printer, inventor, botanical illustrator and linguist Alois Auer was appointed direct of the printing office of the k. k. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, the Austrian state printing facility in Vienna. During his directorship through 1868 Auer expanded this very large printing house very significantly and made its productions some of the greatest in the world. He also promoted the printing facility by issuing a series of books about the printing house itself.One of Auer's most significant …

Photographs of Students in the Printing Shop, Tuskegee Institute

…e Library of Congress there are two images dating from about 1900 to 1910, showing students in the printing shop at the Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama (now Tuskegee University) The existence of all the belt drives on the equipment in the first photograph suggests that the shop could have been powered by steam, or if it was powered by electricity by this date they might have been using an electric motor to power equipment that previously had been powered by a steam engine. Bo…

H. Leon Pelletier Issues a Very Extensively Annotated Didactic Poem on Printing

In 1832 H. Leon Pelletier, presumably a little known connoisseur /historian of printing since I found nothing about him, issued from Geneva and Paris, La typographie, poème. Of the 250 pages in this octavo book perhaps only about 40 pages actually included the poem; the remainder consisted of very extensive historical and cultural notes about the history of printing and contemporary printing in France, and an index. The book was attactively printed on paper of high quality, and my c…

Printing on Old & New Style Presses on Wagons or "Cars" for Celebrations of the Printer Benjamin Franklin and for the Atlantic Cable

…se of a Hoe cylinder press from the office of J.C. French & Brothers, the contrast of a modern printing-press and its accompaniments. The press was managed and worked by the firm contributing it and their assistants, who printed and distributed a production in verse of thirty stanzas by our honored member, Benjamin P. Shillaber, entitled: 'A Very Brief and Very Comprehensive Life of Ben: Franklin, Printer, Done into Quaint Verse, by one of the Types. - September 17th, 1856."Almost exac…

The Highly Descriptive Billhead of the Béha Printing Plant in Metz

On March 18, 1894 the Béha printing and book production facility sent an invoice to the Charité Maternelle for printing done over the prior year beginning in April 5, 1893. The billhead is the most descriptive of a complex facility that I have seen. On the left we see the typesetting and bookbinding room. In the press room on the right the printing machines driven by a steam engine are on the left and the lithographic presses are on the right. The steam engine, connected to the pri…

Agnes Peterson Founds The Women's Co-Operative Printing Union in San Francisco

Probably the first woman-owned printing business in California was the Women's Co-Operative Printing Union founded in San Francisco in 1868. The advertisements that I reproduced with this entry were all the evidence that I had of this business in November 2020.Patricia Keats, "Women in Printing & Publishing in California, 1850-1940," California History, 77 (1998) 93-97.…

Henri Fournier Explains the Importance of Printing Machines to French Compositors & Criticizes Composing Machines

…or changes had occurred in certain parts of book production, including advances in papermaking, in printing machines, in the reproduction of illustrations. He also indicated in a footnote that he was the director of typography and printing at Mame et Cie in Tours, which he characterized as the largest establishment of printing, bookselling and bookbinding in the "entire world." In his section on Printing (tirage) Chapter 4, On the Printing Machine (presse mécanique) beginning on p. …

Frey Summarizes the Available French Printing Machines; later Boucher Summarizes French Typesetting Machinery

… of Presses mécaniques on II, pp. 365-371, he summarized the development and application of printing machines in France, concluding that these presses were excellent for high volume work— especially newspapers and magazines—but that they could not equal the quality of handpress for "fine printing." This was the first comprehensive review of printing machines published in a French book.In the second edition of the same work revised, corrected, and augmented by E. Bouchez,…

John Johnson Reports on Printing Machines Powered by Steam and by Hand at the End of his "Typographia, or, the Printer's Instructor...."

…d in two thick volumes, the first of which was historical, and the second of which was a technical printing manual. Notably it was printed at Johnson's Apollo Press in very small types throughout, including in quotes and special situations on the pages some of the smallest types that could be set by hand and actually read without a magnifying glass. Why Johnson chose to publish it in this format remains unclear except that its small format permitted a pocket size edition that would have be…

George Prouty Promotes His Printing Machine for Printing the Heads of Barrels Powered by Foot or by Steam

…ng a smaller platen press, inventor and manufacturer George Prouty of Boston described a press for printing the wooden tops of barrels, a describing one of his presses used for printing on spruce boards "with perfect satisfactiong, working with great rapidity & ease, either by foot or steam."…

At the Vienna Staatsdruckerei, One of the World's Greatest Printing Facilities, Alois Auer Introduces Self-Feeding Printing Machines

…mber 8, 1855 L'Illustration, Journal Universel published on p. 173 an article describing the state printing facility in Vienna directed by Alois Auer. Images showed their type foundry and stereotype foundry, their state of the art press room, and perhaps more unusually, their facility for printing bank notes for the Austrian government. Notably these were all printed by hand from engraved plates.On June 9, 1860 the Illustrirte Zeitung published an article on the new high speed self-f…

Printer Joel Munsell Publishes a Commonplace Book of Mid-19th Century Printing History, Documenting the Industrialization of the Process

…y printed 200 copies of this book, recognizing that it would mainly interest other enthusiasts for printing history --a small number of people at the time. In his Miscellany Munsell compiled a wealth of historical data in an ususually large number of short sections on a very wide range of subjects mostly to do with the history of printing, but also including comments on developments that were current when he wrote the book, presumably compiling the data as he enountered it, and issuing it …

The Chicago "Daily Democratic Press" EXTRA! [Steam-Powered] Printing for the Million!!

…ide preserved in the Library of Congress describes the remarkable extent of the huge steam-powered printing operation at Chicago's Daily Democratic Press in May 1855. The broadside boasts of the speed of all its presses and the power of the single steam engine that drives those that operate under steam power. LOC transcribed its text as follows: " “DAILY DEMOCRATIC PRESS” EXTRA! PRINTING for the MILLION!! DAILY DEMOCRATIC PRESS STEAM PRINTING HOUSE! 45 CLARK ST., CHICA…

Practical Printer Hermann Neuburger Issues the First Manual with Color Plates on Book Printing

…wrote and printed the Praktisches Handbuch der Buchdruckerkunst. This was the first manual of book printing published in any language to include examples of color printing. It was more extensively illustrated than other German printing manuals of the 1840s, and was also the first German manual of book printing to discuss all the types of iron hand presses in use in Germany, as well as printing machines. Neuburger printed the book on mediocre paper; the 270 pages of text of the copy that I …

George Barnard's Book on Landscape Painting: A Masterpiece of the Leighton Color Printing Process

In 1855, the same year as Leighton Brothers introduced their commercial color printing method from wood blocks in very high volume for the Illustrated London News, they printed George Barnard's The Theory and Practice of Landscape Painting in Water Colours for Wm. S. Orr and Co. of London. This book included 26 beautiful chromolithographs reproduced by the Leighton Brothers Chromatic Process, and a cloth binding designed by John Leighton for customers who ordered the book in a cloth binding. The…

Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Visits the The Printing Establishment of William Clowes

…burgh Journal contained an article starting on p. 94 describing and commenting upon a visit to the printing establishment of William Clowes in London. I quote the beginning of the article:" The profession of the printer has within these few years undergone a most extraordinary revolution. From being limited in importance by the feeble efforts of the hand-press, it has, under the magical influence of steam and machinery, expanded into gigantic proportions, and threatens soon to become, by t…

Silvestre Martin Boulard Outlines the Cost of Setting Up a Printing Office and Publishing a Book

…of operating a press and publishing a book. As far as I know, this is the only 18th century French printing manual to emphasize this aspect of the business.On his title page, besides characterizing himself as a printer-bookseller, Boulard described himself as "Electeur de 1790 & 1791," suggesting a possible political motive for publishing his manual in the manner that he did. Because the French Revolution stimulated an immense amount of printing, it is possible that Boulard recognized …

"The Illlustrated London News" Upgrades its Steam Printing Machines to Meet Demand

…Illustrated London News announced that they had acquired two separate double-cylinder steam-driven printing machines--each to print a single side of the sheets on which the paper was printed. The manufacturer of their new machines was Thomas Middleton who had assisted August Applegath in the construction of the Times (of London) four-feeder machine which was still working at the time this report was published. The proprietors also bragged that the machines were driven by a six horsepower s…

Koenig & Bauer, Founded by Friedrich Koenig & Andreas Bauer in 1817, Remains One of the World's Largest Manufacturers of Industrial Printing Presses

…enig and Andreas Bauer, remained one of the world's largest manufacturers of high speed industrial printing presses, and the printing press company with the longest history of continuous operation. Headquartered in Würzburg, they were especially dominate in bank-note printing. According to the Wikipedia article on Koenig & Bauer accessed in January 2020, "95% of the banknotes used the world are printed on printers made by Koenig & Bauer Banknote Solutions SA." When I reviewed …

Alonso Victor de Paredes Typesets and Prints the First Manual on Typesetting & Printing in Spanish

…gacy Press of Ann Arbor, Michigan: Alonso Victor de Paredes' Institution, and Origin of the Art of Printing, and General Rules for Compositors [Madrid: ca. 1680]. The edition included color reproductions of each page of the two known copies on facing pages.…

"William Caxton Examining the First Proof Sheet from his Printing Press in Westminster Abbey A. D. 1471"

This engraving by Frederick Bacon (1803-1887) after Edward Henry Wehnert, and preserved in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, was, according to that museum, published in 1860. The original sheet measures 70.8 x 83.5 cm. The actual plate measures 57.2 x 72.4 cm. The British Museum assigns a date of 1852 to a copy in their collections.…

Printing the "Richmond Planet"

An original photograph preserved in the Library of Congress shows two African American pressmen printing the Richmond Planet newspaper on a steam-powered rotary press, probably in 1899. The photograph is unusual in its very clear portraits of the two pressmen.The Richmond Planet was an African-American newspaper in Richmond, Virginia. The paper was founded in 1882 by 13 former Richmond slaves.[2] It was edited first by Edwin Archer Randolph and then by John Mit…

Color Printing by Leighton Brothers; Bindings by John Leighton?

Possibly the masterpiece of color printing in oil colors from woodblocks by the Leighton Brothers, George Cargill Leighton and Charles Blair Leighton, was Gems of English Art of this Century: Twenty-Four Pictures from National Collections, Printed in Colours by Leighton Brothers. With illustrative Texts by Francis Turner Palgrave. Burch, Colour Printing and Colour Printers (1910) 148-149 calls the plates in this work "excellent productions, that would probably be 'collected' if they bore Baxter'…

For the Exposition Internationale Universelle, Imprimeries Lemercier, Printer of the Catalogue, Includes a Pictorial Exposition of their Printing Facility

…it was assembled quickly and would be revised later. Whether the whole section on Lemercier's huge printing operation was included in the final version I did not know when I wrote this entry in February 2021.A feature of Lemercier's infomercial about its operation was the emphasis on powering their printing machines by electricity. At the end of the article they illustrated a very large steam engine that apparently could generate enough power to run most of their printing machines and also…

Joseph Lemercier Publishes a Lithograph Depicting Himself in his Printing Facility

…clients in the interior of his lithography plant. This rare print, which adds human touches to the printing process, is reproduced from the copy in the Princeton's Graphic Arts Collection (GC 077). The lithograph was drawn on stone by Charles Villemin (active 1835-1849) after a design by Victor Adam (1801-1866). It was entitled Interieur de l’Imprimerie lithographique de Lemercier. At this point in time the many lithographic presses that Lemercier operated were powered by hand.…

New Orleans Printers, Weed & Kelly, Feature "Steam Printing"

… 1850s, with the wider availability of small steam engines, especially in the United States "steam printing" became a selling point for printers. The Weed & Kelly calendar for 1871 characterizing Weed & Kelly as "The Inimitable Steam Printers," is one of the most attactive of the large color advertising broadsides that I have found that strongly emphasizes "Steam."…

Images of Printing, Publishing, and Binding the "Illustrated London News"

…

William Bond Wheelwright Publishes "The First Practical Handbook on Paper and its Relation to Printing"

In 1936 paper journalist, historian and publisher William Bond Wheelwright published Printing Papers through the University of Chicago Press. The book, of which 2000 copies were printed by R. R. Donnelly & Sons on "Hermes Extra Strong Book Paper," and which claimed to be the "first practical handbook on paper and its relation to printing," dealt with the history and technology of papermaking and the technical issues of the relationship between paper and printing technology in the production …

The French National Guard Destroys Printing Presses at the Office of M. Boulé

Throughout book history we hear of incidents of printing shops being raided or presses destroyed, but it highly unusual to find such incidents illustrated in newspapers or magazines. On June 23, 1849 the Illustrated London News published an illustration of destruction of wooden handpresses at the office of Boulé et Cie in Paris. What appears surprising is that the presses damaged or destroyed were so primitive, suggesting that Boulé's main printing plant for the production of "five…

Paper Dealer Georges Olmer Explains Available Machine-Made Papers for Printing and their Costs

…me client of Olmer. He devoted most of his text to explaining uses of different papers for special printing applications. Because of the extensive charts of prices occupying pp. 78-86 at the back of the book it appears to be a high-class sale catalogue. Notice that Olmer sold paper by the 100 kilos.…

Social Reformer & Economist Virginia Penny Studies Women's Work, Including in the Printing Trades

…-ready and to not give up when first turned away because of gender discrimination."With respect to printing, I have posted the relevant pages of Penny's book as images. Printing jobs most often held by women were as paper feeders for printing machines, and as typesetters. One generalization that can be made is that, according to Penny, women were generally paid two-thirds the wages of men as typesetters, and sometimes even less. In some printing establishments women typesetters worked in r…

The Detroit Daily Free Press Advertises its Printing House

In 1852 the Detroit Free Press Book and Job Office, publisher of the Detroit Daily Free Press, ancestor of the Detroit Free Press, issued Shove's Business Advertiser and Detroit Directory for 1852-53, Containing a Correct Census of the City for 1852, Together with an Historical Sketch of the City and its Trade, with a Variety of Other Useful Information for Citizens and Strangers.…

R. Hoe & Co. Markets Second-Hand Printing Machines

Between around 2015 and 2021 I collected material on the development of printing machines. With effort it was possible to find extensive documentation, including sale catalogues and ephemera issued by various printing machine manufacturers. In March 2021 I found a very small and modestly produced pamphlet issued by R. Hoe & Co. in November 1896 for the sale of second-hand machines that they took in trade, probably mostly against the purchase of newer and improved machines. This was the first…

Burdick & Son Advertise Printing on Sheet Metal with a Distinctive Chromolithographed Metal Trade Card

About 1910 Burdick & Son of Albany, NY, produced a distinctive and very memorable trade card showing the high quality chromolithography that they could accomplish on metal. On the back of the metal card in black type against a gold background they provided a thorough explanation of the elaborate processes involved in producing chromolithographed metal for tin boxes, decorated signs, etc. from lithographic stones that often weighed about 200 pounds.…

The Steubenville Herald also Operates a Blank Book Manufactory, a Book Bindery & a Printing Office

…lope that showed the building housing the newspaper, its blank book manufactory, book bindery, and printing office.…

L.F. Grammes & Sons Promotes Stamping and Printing on Metal Via the Beginning of Printing in Ancient Mesopotamia

…rough the brochure I was surprised to find that the brochure incorporated references to history of printing with references to its beginning with the stamping onto bricks in Mesopotamia. The company described their work as "the art of reproducing messages, names, numbers, trade-marks, ornaments, designs and the like on Brass, Copper, Aluminum, Zin, Nickel-Silver, Steel, Iron, Tin, etc." This they accomplished through printing, etching, engraving, embossing, stamping, casting, etc.…

L. Maretheux, Printer for the "Cour d'Appel," Depicts his Printing Plant on his Invoice

…the enlargement of the highly detailed engraving in the upper left corner, Maretheux operated many printing machines, including a large two-story web press in the center of his plant. Notably, howeve, there are no typesetting machines visible in the image illustrated on his invoice—just a lot of manual typesetters at their desks on the upper floor by the windows in his plant.…

Edwin T. Freedley Surveys the Printing & Book Production Industry in Philadelphia

…elphia. This 490-page book included an extensive account on pp. 149-185 of the history of the printing, book production and publishing industries in Philadelphia, including details of the companies involved, and the volume of business done. Because Philadelphia was then probably the leading, or second leading, center of printing and book production in America—in competition for leadership only with New York City—the survey of the printing and book production industries pro…

A Unique Set of Books Autographed by All 5,939 Employees of the Government Printing Office

…nt in 1970 of James L. Harrison, the 16th Public Printer of the United States, the U.S. Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C., produced a unique leatherbound, slipcased set of 5 volumes autographed by all 5,939 employees of the GPO. Obtaining the signatures of that many people, and having them bound in such an elegant and luxurious way, must have been a very time-consuming production for the GPO, one of the world's largest printers. The volumes vary from 125 leaves to 180 leaves. …

Ivan Galaktionov Includes Friedrich Koenig Among the Founders of Printing in the First Typographic Calendar Printed in Russia after the October Revolution

…ssive anti-religious propaganda campaign.The Tipografsiy kalendar is divided into two sections: 1. Printing History and Techniques, and 2. Directory of offices for the Printing and Publishing Industry. The first section includes technical details useful to printers as well as essays on the history of printing in Europe as well as the printing history of Russia. There is also a chronological listing of major events in world book printing, a typographical dictionary, and a bibliography of Ru…

Bettina Pauly Teaches "How to Turn Your Pasta Machine into a Printing Press"

…ok artist and letterpress printer Bettina Pauli taught a virtual weekend workshop on Pasta Machine Printing through the Jaffe Center for Book Arts at Florida Atlantic University Libraries in Boca Raton, Florida. "Learn how to turn your pasta machine into a printing press in this two-session workshop! In Session One, students will see their pasta machine in a brand new light as instructor Bettina Pauly demonstrates various ways to create and pull prints off the pasta machine press. Between…

Marius Vachon Records the Papermaking, Printing, and Bookbinding Industries in France at the End of the 19th Century

… 1871-1894. This work contains the best collection of photogravures pertaining to the papermaking, printing and bookbinding industries toward the end of the 19th century that I found during about twenty years of research on history of the mechanization of these industries. Because there are so many worthwhile images in this work I will divide my coverage of its images into separate database entries relevant to the specific topics.Though Vachon does not appear to specifically discuss the ra…

Marinoni's Factory Assembles Printing Machines by Hand

One of the only published images of the assembly of printing machines in the 19th century appears in Marius Vachon's Les arts et les industries du papier en France 1871-1894. I have reproduced it here. Though many of the parts in the printing machines were undoubtedly manufactured in a different place in the factory, assembly of the machines, as shown in this image, appears to have been done mostly by hand.…

Kokubunsha of Tokyo Issues one of the Earliest Advertisements for Western Style Printing in Japan

Western style printing came late to Japan because their non-alpabetic writing system did not adapt well to printing by movable type. Kokubunsha of Tokyo appears to be one of the earliest commercial adopters of Western printing technology in Japan, primarily for the printing of books in Western languages. This 4-page advertisement that I found inserted in a copy of Kanda's Notes on Ancient Stone Implements, &c. of Japan printed by Kokubunsha, with 24 lithogaphed plates in 1884, describes thei…

The Waterman Steam Printing House Advertises the Printing Machinery by Which they Produce "The Best Work at the Lowest Prices"

In one of the largest 19th century printer's flyers that I have seen, the C.A.J. Waterman Steam Printing House of Athol, Massachusetts advertised the various equipment they had on the premises to produce "The Best Work at the Lowest Prices." Equipment included a Whitlock Cylinder Press (not illustrated), Sanborn Paper Cutter (illustrated and explained), Colt's Armory Press (illustrated and explained) and The Prouty Press (illustrated and explained).…

Perhaps the Earliest Photograph of a Hoe Four Cylinder Type-Revolving Printing Machine

I have not seen another photograph of one of these huge printing machines from the period. The woman wearing a long skirt shown in the photograph seems to be in a costume typical for women working with printing machines at the time. See the image of a woman in a hoop skirt operating an Adams Power Press in this database entry for the Harper Establishment dated 1855. During this period women were often employed as paper feeders for printing machines, such as this Hoe Type-Revolving Printing Machi…

"The Bradford Observer" Advertises its Duncan & Wilson "Victory" Printing and Folding Machine

… was pleased to obtain a large broadside illustrating and explaining the features of The "Victory" Printing and Folding Machine, distributed to the subscribers of The Bradford Observer newspaper about 1870. This automatic web press, built by the Liverpool press manufactuers Duncan & Wilson, was the first web press that also incorporated a paper folding mechanism. The new press enabled the newspaper to expand its circulation and increase its pages from four to eight on Thursday and…

Oscar Harpel Issues his "Typograph," the First Great American Specimen Book of Color Job Printing

…pel's Typograph or Book of Specimens. This was the first great American specimen book of color job printing. In 2021, after several years of searching, I was finally able to find a copy in about as fine condition as is possible for this book since it was not printed on paper of the best quality, and most copies were extensively handled and worn out.…

Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang Orders the Printing of a One Kuan Note, the Earliest Commercial Printing on Paper

𔆄 the Hongwu Emperor, Zhu Yanzhang (Ming Taizu), founding emperor of the Ming dynasty, ordered the printing of a one Kuan note, the largest paper money ever printed, the earliest numismatic printing, and the earliest commercial printing on paper. The note in my collection, printed on gray mulberry paper, measures 340 x 220 mm. Ornamentation and text on my note are faded but legible, as in virtually all surviving copies.1. There are two red (vermilion) seal handstamps, one at each side, are…

Hoe & Co Issues Probably the Largest 19th Century Catalogue in Page Format of Printing & Binding Machines

In 1873 R. Hoe & Co. issued probably the largest catalogue in page format of printing machines and equipment published during the 19th century. The 96-page catalogue was titled R. Hoe & Co. Manufacturers of Type-Revolving, Pefecting, Single and Double Cylinder and Adams' Printing Machines, Washington and Smith Hand-Presses, Self-Inking Machines, Etc. Every Article Connected with the art of Letter-Press, Copper-Plate, and Lithographic Printing and Bookbinding, Stereotyping and Electrotypi…

Extremely Early Printing on Plastic

… 55 mm, printed in gold on red translucent Parkesine, is one of the earliest surviving examples of printing on plastic--a substance that in the 21st century is about as widely printed upon as paper for packaging and all kind of products. The thin plastic card was produced for the Italian book, map and paper dealer, Giovanni Gallarini about 1865. In the 1850s British metallurgist Alexander Parkes developed the first thermoplastic, which he called Parkesine, by treating cellulose with n…

The Revised & Expanded Edition of "Printing and the Mind of Man"

The 1963 catalogue for the Printing and the Mind of Man exhibition in London was followed in 1967 by a further-expanded larger format cloth-bound edition with a dramatic double-page wood-engraved title page by Reynolds Stone, significantly more detailed annotations, and notably without discussion of "printing mechanisms," entitled Printing and the Mind of Man. A Descriptive Catalogue Illustrating the Impact of Print on the Evolution of Western Civilization. The book was compiled and edited by an…

Found 239 image matches for printing

Image Source: www.google.com

Benjamin Franklin's printing press at the Smithsonian Institution…

Image Source: ww4.hdnux.com

Andrew Hoyem in front of a printing press.…

Image Source: www.poltroonpress.com

Doctor Prosody Correcting his Proof in a Printing Office (1821); a rendition of a Stanhope press in use is on the left.…

Charles Guermonprez lithography facility in Saint-Omer, a commune in France, c. 1860. The printing machine in the left foreground appears to be operated by a man turning a large wheel.…

From Hoe's 1847 U.S. patent for the complete printing machine.…

Cross section of the press from Hoe's 1847 patent for the complete printing machine.…

Image Source: en.wikipedia.org

The Hughes telegraph, the first telegraph printing text on a paper tape; this one was manufactureed by Siemens and Halske, Germany (Warsaw Muzeum Techniki).…

Image Source: edison.rutgers.edu

Thomas Edison's US Patent (No. 224,665) for a method of preparing autographic stencils for printing. …

Image Source: www.google.com

Thomas Edison's US Patent (No. 180,857) for an autographic printing machine.…

The first American printing of Cybernetics.…

Rear cover of the original Printing and the Mind of Man exhibition catalogue.…

Image Source: deakinscicomm.files.wordpress.com

A diagram of organ printing…

Image Source: upload.wikimedia.org

A photopolymer printing plate for flexography…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

𔆀, 1841 was the first to describe the potential advantages and risks to the invention of anastatic printing.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…paper version of Henry Stevens' booklet about the Bible that fit into the slipcase with the Bible. Printing from standing type of 100 copies this entire Bible, and hand binding in full leather were accomplished in only 12 hours on the opening day of the Caxton Memorial Exhibition. As indicated on the slipcase, my copy is number 20. …

Detail of cover of catalogue for An Exhibition of Printing at the Fitzwilliam Museum. Signed by wood-engraver Reynolds Stone.

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Detail of cover of catalogue for An Exhibition of Printing at the Fitzwilliam Museum. Signed by wood-engraver Reynolds Stone. …

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…frontispiece, the relatively crude metal cut of Hoe's web perfecting press, the latest and fastest printing technology, served as frontispiece to a catalogue of mostly historical literature on printing.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…advertising leaflet for Knight's Weekly Volume June 29 to Sept. 28, 1844 printed by Knight's color printing process.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Sheet H (on the right) printed in April, 1811, was the first printing done by a Koenig power press. Note the different ink color and presswork from the previous sheet (on the left).…

Image Source: en.wikipedia.org

A Columbian press at the International Printing Museum in Carson, California…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Cowper invented a way to make stereotype plates curved--of the greatest value for rotary press printing.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

The Cowper & Applegath printing machine used to print The Penny Magazine. Knight reused this image in publications to the mid 1840s.…

This image published in a French periodical was copied from the illustration of the Printing Office of the Victoria Press in London published in The Illustrated London News on June 15, 1861, p. 555. Emily Faithfull founded the Victoria Press to create jobs for women.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…publisher also featured the detail that this large book was printed on an unusual and new style of printing machine designed by Ruthven.…

…gs in labor were achieved by having the press operated by women. From Hoe, A Short History of the Printing Press (1902) p. 11.…

A printing machine is visible in the lower left corner of the binding.…

…nt of book production this small volume was the first book produced in North America using the new printing technologies introduced in the Industrial Revolution. Above the imprint it modestly states in very tiny 4.5 pt. type, "The first book ever stereotyped in America."…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…sociated with Nicholson's cylinder press patent (1790) as they appeared in the 1856 first separate printing of the patent.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

This is the rotary machine that Geronval says was ordered for the printing of the Journal des débats, the most widely read newspaper in France during the Restoration and July Monarchy periods. Notably the machine illustrated was designed to be driven by a large hand-crank rather than a steam engine. The plate that Geronval published was an exact copy of the plate reproduced by Hansard in his Typographia. From this we may assume that the Journal des débats …

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Audouin de Géronval's schematic of the Stanhope handpress and a single cylinder printing machine of the Applegath & Cowper type (1826).…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Section of Krebs' book discussing Koenig's invention of the printing machine, and the machine that Koenig & Bauer built for Bensley, but for which Koenig & Bauer were not always given credit.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…issue of the Allgemeine Zeitung, making this the first publication printed in Germany by the first printing machine built in Germany.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

… appeared in the August 21, 1825 issue. This was probably the first detailed article on mechanized printing published in Germany.…

Image Source: books.google.com

As much as setting type was a challenge, distributing the type after printing may have been an equal challenge. The images shows Young's attempt at a type distribution machine from Lacroix (1868).…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Public Domain

Hansard's design for a printing machine operated by a hand-crank to avoid the necessity of a steam engine. Note that the crank has handles on each side so that it could be turned by two men. This is in contrast to Rutt's crank design below that could be turned by only one man.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Hansard published the first detailed review of printing machine developments.…

Women are operating the printing machines. In the background men are operating the hand-presses.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…rince Albert visit the machinery department at the Great Exhibition and see the Applegath vertical printing machine in operation. From The Illustrated Exhibitor No. 7 (1851).…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

My copy of Cowie's "Pocket-Book", complete with ink smudges, was clearly used in a printing office. Note the image of the Stanhope Press on the cover.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Ure's article is particularly helpful in explaining the ways the different early printing machines applied ink and directed the paper around the cyclinders.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Hoe designed these machines for book printing. The 1867 Hoe catalogue was printed on a Hoe single cylinder machine like the one on the right.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Enlargement of the foot of the Harper design to show the Adams printing machine.…

… manufactured by Robert Hoe's company toward the end of the 19th century. The company manufactured printing presses, printing machines, and saws.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

The complete set of patent drawings as reproduced in the first printing of Cartwright's patent. Cartwright's first and later versions of the power loom were extremely problematic, but he was the first to attempt to mechanize the weaving process--so critical in the Industrial Revolution.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…ie was also a bookseller, stationer and news agent, and he also offered bookbinding and engraving, printing and lithography.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…they were also using tradititional hand typesetting, according to these images reproduced in their Printing in the Twentieth Century (1930).…

…holson's cylinder press from Nicholson's 1790 patent as published by Thomas in his History of Printing in the America (1810). Thomas would have been able to read Nicholson's patent from the text and plates printed in Repertory of Arts and Manufactures, Vol. 5, Number XXVII (1796) 145-170. …

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Here is the way the way The Times editor explained the historic accomplishment of steam-powered printing: "Our Journal of this day presents to the public the practical result of the greatest improvement connected with printing since the discovery of the art itself...."…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…e footnote Babbage referenced the recent acquisition by William Clowes of Applegath's premises and printing machines that appears to have occurred between the time of printing the tables and the time of printing the introduction. As a technologist it is likely that Babbage would have sought out Applegath in order to have his book printed on the latest printing machine. The third edition of Babbage's book photographed here was published by Charles Knight, a great exponent of machine printin…

A book issued from Treadwell's Power Press before the fire destroyed the printing facility in 1826. …

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Part of Nicholson's account of the Ruthven flatbed printing machine.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

A particularly clear reduction of Bacon & Donkin's view of their rotary printing machine as used for their patent.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Sheet printed by Applegath's Vertical Cylinder Printing Machine at The Great Exhibition.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

… in this brochure, adapted from his patents, are some of the clearest renditions of Koenig's early printing machine designs.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Mame operated 30 steam-powered printing machines, all of French manufacture, printing 20,000 books per day, or 6,000,000 volumes per year. We learn much about the work environment in this huge machine room even though the artist provided few specific visual details regarding the machines.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…y, there appears to be a water fountain in the middle of the room. Dodd's Curiosities of Industry, Printing: Its Modern Varieties (1852) p. 10 suggests, probably with some exaggeration, that Mame may have employed as many as 1000 people in this department.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…r. This facility could print a wide variety of projects including books. At this time the primary printing press manufacturer in Germany may have been Koenig und Bauer; however, they were producing only printing machines for high volume printers. In the print shop depicted each press is operated by a man and a boy.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…ocess (1840) as issued in Knight's Illuminated Atlas of Scripture Geography. This process of color-printing maps does not appear to have been used for any maps except those printed by William Clowes for Charles Knight.…

Image Source: pierrickauger.files.wordpress.com

…e; de la presse (1796), artist unknown. The print satirizes all the processes involved in writing, printing, and distributing newspapers during the French Revolution.…

Image Source: upload.wikimedia.org

In the later 18th century printers made incremental changes to the traditional hand press. In Printing Presses, History and Development (1973) p. 43 James Moran states that the press visible in the lower corner of this portrait of Momoro is that designed by Philippe-Denis Pierres, printer in ordinary to the King of France, and first described by Pierres in Description d'une nouvelle presse de l'imprimerie (1786).…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Church's very unusual printing press from his patent specification. It is unknown if working models of any of Church's patents relating to printing were ever built.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…f Senefelder's Manual of Lithography printed in two colors as well as black, reproducing the color printing of the Mainz Psalter, with precise registration, is considered the beginning of chromolithography. This version is, of course, a translation, with redrawn illustrations, from Senefelder's first edition published the previous year. Historically, Senefelder's choice of reproducing the color printing in the 1457 Mainz Psalter as a way to introduce chromolithography was very approp…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…d stereotype" in the production of large runs of advertising leaflets; whether they actually had a printing machine or stereotype foundry on their premises seems doubtful.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Schematic of Applegath's 8 cylinder vertical printing machine from Cowper's 1850 paper. Cowper presents an elaborate explanation of the operation of this machine in his text.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

This very small and relatively crude woodcut is one of the most realistic images of a printing machine room powered by a table steam engine with the machines in operation. Be sure to click on the image to see it greatly enlarged.…

…lains his philosophy of industrialization, leading to his explanation of his decision not to apply printing machinery to the production of The Dublin Penny Magazine.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

In this paragraph Folds focuses specifically on the issues of installing or not installing printing machines.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

A silver medal, vintage c. 1980, commemorating the invention of the printing machine.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Beaumont's work was cheaply printed in Sheffield, probably by a printer who was not accustomed to printing books. This copy preserved the original printed wrappers in a crude outside wrapper of rough brown paper.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…p of this design incorporates a version of the Hoe Eight Feeder (or Eight Cylinder) Type Revolving Printing Machine, and on the bottom we see the Menamin & Ringwalt printer's mark adapted from the original printer's mark used in the 15th century by Fust and Schoeffer. If you enlarge the image you can read their motto, supposedly a translation from the German, "God Greet the Art."…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Alauzet printing machine from l'Illustration, July, 1864. According to the article Claye's printing company operated a dozen Alauzet printing machines of various kinds.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

This is the full text of the article on Alauzet's printing machines from the July 30, 1864 issue of l'Illustration.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…of a monthly periodical, the publisher gave himself sufficient time to produce 100,000 copies when printing machines in France were in short supply, and to prepare for more efficient high volume production by January 1832.…

Frontispiece printed by Knight's patented color printing process of the Pictorial Gallery of Arts: Useful Arts.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…icates that in spite of the Stanhope hand press on the title page much of this work was printed by printing machinery.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

This is one of two images of the Printing Department—folding room. Here we see folding being done both by machine and by hand. This job appears to have been done mainly by women.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

This is a view of the Main Press room. All 60 printing machines were steam-driven. 106 women were employed to feed the printing presses.…

Image Source: www.crandallprintingmuseum.com

Peter Smith Iron Hand Press at the Carndall Printing Museum, Provo, Utah.…

The original cloth binding issued with copies of the first art book printed by a printing machine.…

Image Source: books.google.com

…ed textsetting and mixing type of any kind. Photosetting brought about far-reaching changes to the printing presses and composing rooms. One typesetting disc replaced many cases full of lead type, which weighed tons, film exposure replaced metal setting" (Osterer & Stamm, Adrian Frutiger - Typefaces: The Complete works, 74).…

Image Source: www.schoyencollection.com

MS 5106 in the Schøyen Collection, a brick printing block, 13x13x10 cm, 3 lines in a large formal cuneiform script with large loop handle from the period of Naram-Sîn.…

Image Source: upload.wikimedia.org

Charles Frederic Ulrich, The Village Printing Shop, Haarlem, the Netherlands, 1884. Courtesy of Terra Museum of Art.…

Image Source: upload.wikimedia.org

…ng the invention of movable type in China--one of the four great inventions of early China: paper, printing, including printing by movable type, the compass, and gunpowder.…

Image Source: upload.wikimedia.org

…entine bookseller, Bisticci favored manuscript books over the productions of the new technology of printing.…

Image Source: www.silk-road.com

Sui Emperor Wen-ti, who ordered the printing of Buddhist images and scriptures.…

Image Source: en.wikipedia.org

"Yuan dynasty banknote with its wooden printing wood plate, 1287, preserved in the Tokyo Currency Museum. An upper line reads: 「至元通行寳鈔」 zhì yuán tōng háng bǎo chāo (Pinyin). A left line ('Phagspa script) reads: jˇi ’ŭen baw č‘aw : to say 「至元寳鈔」. The smaller Chinese characters in the bottom half of the note say "(this note) can be circulated in various provinces without expiration dates. Counterfeiters would be put …

Woodcut of a printing shop by Jost Amman (1568). The printer on the left removes a page from the press while the one on the right inks the type. Printed sheets, having been dried, are piled in the foreground. Typesetters work at their cases in the background. A 15th century printing shop would not have appeared significantly different.…

Image Source: www.michael-giesecke.de

Fragment in the British Library (B.M. IB, 66) of the Mainz printing of Donatus, about 1455, in an earlier state of the 36-line Bible type. …

Image Source: daten.digitale-sammlungen.de

First leaf of the Mainz 1460 printing of the Catholicon on vellum from the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek.…

Image Source: daten.digitale-sammlungen.de

… through March 20, 1472. They claimed to have printed 1100 copies of Nicolas de Lyra—a large printing for a mid-15th century edition. From the copy in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek.…

Image Source: archive.org

Reproduction of an 1877 facsimile of Caxton's 1477 original printing of The Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers. The facsimile was published in London by Eliot Stock as part of the Caxton Quatercentary Celebration.…

Image Source: www.christies.com

First printing of all five books of the Pentateuch. This copy, sold by Christie's in April 2014, was printed on vellum.…

…r in a different copy of the Ratdolt Eusebius poiints to the reference to Gutenberg's discovery of printing in "1440".…

Image Source: atlas.lib.uiowa.edu

Spread of printing reproduced as a screen shot from The Atlas of Early Printing at atlas.lib.uiowa.edu.…

Image Source: books.google.com

Amman's portrait of a book printing shop.…

Image Source: www.christies.com

Medici Press printing of Euclid in the Arabic version ofNasir al-Din al-Tusi (Rome, 1594).…

Image Source: culture.uliege.be

Final or alternate version of the Visit to the Printing Shop by Léonard de France. Musée de Grenoble.…

Image Source: www.hnmuseum.com

…e buds, flowers and leaves are painted. This is the earliest textile ever discovered that combines printing and painting methods, and is a masterpiece of printed and painted fabric from ancient China. Three silk-floss padded garments made from printed and painted gauze were unearthed from the same tomb. This gorgeous, fashionable material was evidently favored by female noblewomen of the time." Hunan Museum, Hunan, China.…

Image Source: dfg-viewer.de

First page of the Rome, Stephan Plannck, printing after 29 April 1493 from Stadtbibliothek Koblenz.…

Image Source: www.otago.ac.nz

…the text was changed during the course of the first five editions this would correspond to a fifth printing.…

… on April 1, 1829, the first part was the very first book with illustrations that was printed by a printing machine. This was also the first volume in Charles Knight's Library of Entertaining Knowledge published for the SDUK.…

This small vignette was the first image printed in the first illustrated book printed by a printing machine.…

This larger image was the second image printed in the first illustrated book printed on a printing machine.…

These were the third and fourth images in the first illustrated book printed on a printing machine.…

Poppe acknowledged that the German Friedrich Koenig invented the printing machine but the image that he reproduced was the version of the Applegath & Cowper machine widely reproduced especially in English publications.…

In his section on printing, the last section in his book, besides the steam-driven printing machine, Poppe illustrated a Gutenberg-style primarily wooden hand press.…

…the upper cover of a book was, and remains, very unusual. Undoubtedly Knight obtained some kind of printing discount from Clowes in exchange for the advertising.…

Knight concluded the last page of his book with the image of the Applegath & Cowper printing machine used by Clowes. Knight frequently associated himself with that image during the 1830s and 1840s.…

The newspaper proudly displayed their cylinder printing machine in the center of their masthead.…

…beneath which was an artistic depiction of early handbound books in front of a modern steam-driven printing machine, behind which appears to be a modern embossing press.…

…company advertised the stationery steam engines, both vertical and horizontal models, that powered printing machines.…

Advertising the kind of printing machine depicted, artistically, on the upper cover of the elaborately produced catalogue.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Paul Dupont presented this copy of his book on his printing facility, with an inscription by Dupont or a professional scribe, in unusually elegant handwriting. Among the elements of this elaborate engraved title page we see the concept of raising the curtain on the operations of his business.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…title page for Dupont's book reflects Dupont's historical interests. On the top is the inventor of printing from movable type, Gutenberg. On the left is a plaque for the famous Elzevir press; on the right for the Didot printing dynasty at which Dupont apprenticed. Beneath the curtain we see Dupont's rather enormous printing facility. Putti at the top of the ornate design work a modern cylinder press on the left and a Stanhope press on the right. In the lower left we see typesetting equipme…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

The male typesetting department at Dupont's printing facility. The labor intensive processes of composition and type distribution required large numbers of skilled workers.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Dupont was still operating Stanhope iron handpresses for short run printing at his facility. He noted in the text that the first Stanhope press was imported into France in 1820.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Dupont operated both single cylinder and double cylinder printing machines at his facility. Here is the artist's rendition of the single cylinder press in operation.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

In this image of a double cylinder printing machine in operation at Dupont's plant women are feeding paper. The double cylinder press could print on both sides of the sheet, doubling speed of output.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…. Huart Paper: from the papermills of MM. Tonnellier et Cie. Printed on Dupont's double cylinder printing machine by Ch. Michaud Ink from M. Lefranc et Cie in Paris. Overall book design by Paul Dupont.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Printer and printing historian Paul Dupont as Deputé de Dordogne. Photograph by Franck, Paris.…

… published in the 1838 volume of Meyer's Journal für Buchdruckerkunst, showing that handpress printing remained very important in Germany at the time.…

… unusually elaborate borders composed of individual type ornaments surrounding a vignette of their printing office. If you enlarge the image you will see that they feature printing on a handpress.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…t of the advertisements in the copies of the catalogues that were sold at the exhibition concerned printing equipment, reflecting the heavy sponsorship of the exhibition from the printing trades. The press on the left is a single cylinder Wharfdale machine. Copies that were clothbound, of which you see several variants in the illustrations, did not include the advertisements.…

…ypesetter, an Adams Power Press operated by a woman, an iron hand press, and other elements of the printing trade. Featuring a woman operating a printing machine would have been an unusual feature of a printers' specimen at the time. The depiction of the Adams Power Press appears to be a standard image, probably produced by the press manufacturer for advertising. Note the very similar rendition of the press, also operated by a woman in Jacob Abbot's book on The Harper Establishment (1855).…

…ould have been an unusual feature for the time, as would have been the placement of the very heavy printing machines on upper floors. How the belt system connecting the steam engine to the printing machines would have operated efficiently over such a long distance is unclear.…

The job composition room for the composition of "job printing" or decorative printing, as distinct for long narrative composition projects like books or longer pamphlets.…

…oted to the Rand & Avery Corliss steam engine. The emphasis on the machinery in this volume of printing Specimens is far greater than most books of its type.…

Image Source: gredos.usal.es

This early printing has neither pagination nor foliation nor catchwords at the beginning or end of signatures. At the back of the book it has what is called an "index" (INDICES) to places arranged in the numerical order of their appearance but there are no numbered references in the text. …

Image Source: www.columbia.edu

…duct onto a blank field of the same card. It could subtract and add as well as multiply. It had no printing capacity, so was generally used as an offline assistant for a tabulator or accounting machine [4]. The 601 that was delivered to Eckert's lab in 1933 was a special model "capable of doing direct interpolation, a very unusual feature, especially designed for Eckert by one of IBM's top engineers at Endicott [NY]" [9]. Eckert went a step further by connecting the 601 to a Type 285 …

Image Source: babel.hathitrust.org

…printer, bringing the contents p to date. When I searched for an image of either the 1667 original printing or the 1668 very early American imprint I was unable to find any online in September 2020.…

Image Source: en.wikipedia.org

The original Nuremberg printing of Luther's Ninety-Five Theses. "Martin Luther’s Disputatio pro declaratione virtutis indulgentiarum of 1517, commonly known as the Ninety-Five Theses, is considered the central document of the Protestant Reformation. Its complete title reads in translation: “Out of love and zeal for clarifying the truth, these items written below will be debated at Wittenberg. Reverend Father Martin Luther, Master of Arts and of Sacred Theology and an official profess…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

… tooling. The use of so many different leather inlays in the upper cover, to suggest all the color printing of the contents, was a specially deluxe feature for the time.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…ür Türkische Sprache, Geschichte und Kultur, Universität Bamberg, The Beginnings of Printing in the Near and Middle East: Jews, Christians and Muslims (2001) No. 3.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Hansard's excellent plate of Rutt's printing machine being driven by a hand-crank.…

Last page of the facsimile of Minsheu's 4-page prospectus, of which only 1 copy of the original printing survived.…

Image Source: grolierclub.omeka.net

… the third, last, and most complete edition of Renouard's bibliography of the output of the Aldine printing dynasty.…

Image Source: www.rulon.com

…olume of the first edition of Renouard's pioneering bibliography of the publications of the Aldine printing dynasty.…

Image Source: patents.google.com

First of the 21 images published in the U.S. patent for the first hand-held electronic printing calculator.…

Image Source: twitter.com

Printed wrappers of Nukhbat al-talim (The Elite Education) published at the lithographic printing office on the premises of the Ministry of War in Istanbul.…

Image Source: archive.org

…c Apparatus, depicts people of different races bowing down to receive information conveyed through printing and graphic arts by means of Auer's development of types in many of the world's languages.…

Image Source: books.google.com

Printing machine room C. The large scale government establishment operated mainly printing machines, as they produced mostly larger editions. They also maintained a hand-press facility for limited editions and special printing like Nature Printing.…

Image Source: books.google.com

The steam engine powering the printing machines throughout the establishment.…

Image Source:

Lithographic presses and printing machines used to print paper money.…

Image Source: digital.bib-bvb.de

Rotary press for two-color printing.…

Image Source: digital.bib-bvb.de

Printing machines for book production.…

Image Source: www.gracesguide.co.uk

Model of Haas printing press at Prague National Technical Museum.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

A very dated and rather racist view of the way printing promotes enlightenment.…

Image Source: www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de

…ook the title of which translates as The Machine Master at the High-Speed Press: A Manual for Book Printing Facility Owners, Factories, Machinists and Mechanics.…

Image Source: blogs.soas.ac.uk

Title page of the University of London copy of the Calendar printed in Calcutta that Graham Shaw, Printing in Calcutta to 1800 (1981) attributes to Hicky and dates to 1777. The undated calendar might have been printed by Kiernander in 1778.…

Image Source: www.loc.gov

…typesetting in action. It appears to have been take around the same time as the photograph showing printing at Tuskegee.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Binding of Jerrold's undated, The Triumphs of the Printing Press (c. 1900) depicting a Linotype machine and its operator. The binding is unusal for depicting the Linotype rather than a printing press.…

Image Source: www.foundsf.org

Mae Silver, author of The Sixth Star, reproduced this advertisement for the Women's Co-operative Printing Union that was originally published in West Coast Journal, May 18, 1870. This I found in foundsf.org.…

Image Source: www.jstor.org

Here is an ad showing the building in which the Women's Co-operative Printing Office was housed, with its large painted sign. Reproduced by Patricia Keats, "Women in Printing & Publishing in California, 1850-1940," California History, 77 (1998) 93-97. By this time ownership or management had changed hands.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…this copy. Harpers was one of the first American publishers of fiction to print all their books on printing machines. This we know from the book on their book manufacturing facilities that Harpers issued in 1855.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

… in newspapers. This, of course, allowed the book to be printed on fewer pages, reducing paper and printing costs.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…nature, is actually signed by Alphone Alkan (1809-1889), a printer and writer of numerous books on printing, indicating that he presented the copy. The last line is truly difficult to read.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…to hold both a traditional Gutenberg-style wooden handpress, and a very heavy new style Hoe rotary printing machine along with, it appears, at least eight people. I have not been able to identify or locate the specific items (presumably broadsides) that the printers were printing and distributing from the "car" as it moved along in the procession.…

Image Source: books.google.com

Screenshot of a digitized page of Johnson's Typographia relating to printing machines. This is taken from one of the large paper copies, the second to largest format of the four formats in which this book was issued.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Reverse of the medal that Paul Dupont issued commemorating Gutenberg as inventory of printing and Senefelder as the inventor of lithography.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Sophisticated color printing as demonstrated in Neuburger's manual.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

𔅽 steam engines remained less available in Germany than they were in England or the U.S. The upper printing machine is powered by a large handcrank; the lower machine designed by Dingler is powered by a steam engine.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

A Burr Printing House invoice from 1882. This is the first invoice from a 19th century typesetting machine company prior to Linotype that I found. The Burr typesetter and distributor are illustrated.…

…ypeset by "S. W. Green's Type-Setting Machinery, 18 Jacob Street," the same address as on the Burr Printing House invoice issued three years later.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…nders developed by Isaac Adams of Boston. Adams was the inventor of the Adams Power Press for book printing.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…te paper and book trimmer also invented by Isaac Adams, inventor of the Adams Power Press for book printing, and also of the hydraulic book press that Nicholson illustrated earlier in his book.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…y a portrait of the inventor Timothy Alden in the right corner. A very small image of a Hoe rotary printing machine is visible at the bottom of the certificate in the center, just above the ornamental border.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Second and third pages of the prospectus for Fournier's book. As director of typographie and printing at Mame et Cie, Fournier could have had his book printed in any format. Chose a small 8vo, sort of pocketbook format. He also used good quality paper. The prospectus was printed in the same size and style as the book.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…. Both of the labels feature saw blades reflecting Hoe's saw business. The larger label includes a printing machine in the upper left corner.…

Image Source: babel.hathitrust.org

The new "steam printing machines" installed at the Illustrated London News.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…aper. Prior to papermaking machines it was impossible make a sheet of paper this large, and before printing machines no press could print on a sheet this large.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…he "fastest press in the world--capacity 20,000 perfect copies per hour." They also used a Bullock Printing Press, which was slightly slower.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Hi speed presses for book printing, all driven by belt drives powered by the steam engine through the elaborate rope system.…

Image Source: www.koenig-bauer.com

"The [Koenig & Bauer] RotaJET L/VL series for digital commercial, publication and decor printing as well as the VariJET 106 for digital folding carton printing are examples of the continuous adaptation of our program to changing market requirements. The new design emphasises the premium character of the two inkjet systems in their respective market segments."…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

… on the left was hand-colored in the traditional manner. Baxter had himself credited for the color printing of his first image in very small type on the title pages of this and the second volume. When the set was reprinted for a second edition in 1835 the images were hand-colored and the credit line was removed.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Caxton Showing Specimens of his Printing to King Edward VI and his Queen, as published in The Graphic, June 30, 1877, the day the Caxton Quadricentennial Celebration exhibition opened in London. This image was reproduced in New York in the July 21, 1877 issue of Harper's Weekly--one of the only articles on the London Caxton Celebration in the United States.…

Image Source: en.wikipedia.org

A view of the restored E. B. Grandin printing shop. Facsimiles of original printed gatherings of the Book of Mormon are hanging from the rafters to dry. The Gutenberg-style wooden handpress was clearly not the type of press that Grandin used to print the book.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Steinberg had this sample of printing in bronze ink printed on shiny purple paper inserted into the catalogue.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

This image of The New York Daily Times printing office published as a full-page woodcut in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper on March 12, 1859 is one of the most interesting and impressive images of a mid-19th century newspaper printing office in operation. All of the huge rotary presses were manually sheet fed by boys sitting at various locations around the cylinders.…

Image Source: books.google.com

Engraved title page of the 1635 original printing.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Wilson continued to promote the stereotype process, as if it was superior to ordinary printing from type. Here is such a promotion on the title page of his edition of The Spectator.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…at the early age of 48 this catalogue reproduces a statue of him on the cover. The elaborate color printing was by Kronheim & Co., using zinc blocks rather than chromolithography.…

…tography department associated with more modern methods of lithographic reproduction, specifically printing from aluminum plates.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…g in position by rods actuated from a handle in the centre of each lid" (Wakeman, Victorian Colour Printing [1981] 11).…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…this book it seems reasonable to assume that this system was also used" (Wakeman, Victorian Colour Printing [1981] 12-13).…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

In August 1879 the company had quite a collection of large printing machines. It seems that they were still running manual feeder machines that were decades old along with the latest style of web presses.…

Image Source: www.johnwindle.com

Title page of the Lyons, circa 1503 printing from the 2006 facsimile.…

Image Source: www.johnwindle.com

Page opening from the 2006 facsimile of the Lyons, circa 1503 printing.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

It seems that a significant part of Breger & Duval's business was printing on metal. That department and the scenery behind it is illustrated in this detail. In the far distance the Eiffel Tower is visible in the left upper corner of the image.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…e steam engine is visible at the far end of the room. It appears that the belt drives powering the printing machines were in the basement for safety. The room appears to be very well lit with natural light from windows and skylights. The detail shown in the small engraving, with men operating various presses and no women visible, is remarkable.…

Image Source: worldwide.espacenet.com

Images of Hughes' printing telegraph from his patent 14,917 for "Telegraph" patented May 20, 1856.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…dely chromolithographed trade card produced by the Philadelphia Public Ledger advertised their job printing facilities.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

This small printing \\shop with electric lights appears to date from about 1910. The electric lighting appears to have been a retrofit. It looks like there is a natural gas line coming down the wall to the Linotype caster.…

The Detroit Daily Free Press advertised its activities and printing facilities on this separate sheet pasted to the front pastedown endpaper of the volume.…

Image Source: en.wikipedia.org

Recreation of of Kai Yuan Za Bao; the original printing was destroyed in the Cultural Revolution.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

This is the 1830 second printing of the Life of Napoleon as it appeared in printed cloth covers in The Family Library. In 1829 the 2-volume set was the first publication in what eventually grew to an 80-volume series. By the time the 1830 printing appeared the rear cover advertised the other volumes that had appeared in the series since 1829.…

Image Source: blog.gatunka.com

1852 patent model of House's composing and printing telegraph preserved in the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution. The photograph is miscaptioned. By 1852 House improved his device substantially.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Printed envelope showing the extent of House's telegraph system and his patented composing and printing terminal. Above the envelope is the telegraphed message printed out on paper tape by House's "printing machine."…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Back of the House Printing Telegraph envelop showing the docketing, with the beginning of the telegram print-out.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…rs doing machine binding tend to be much more difficult to find than images of printers working at printing machines.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Upper page: Proof-Readers and Printing Superintendent's Office; Lower page: Mailing and Shipping Department.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Reference to the earliest printing in Mesopotamia by stamping into clay bricks before they were fired appears on the left page of this spread.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

The image of Maretheux's printing plant illustrated on his invoice is unusual for its detailed depiction of the plant in production.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…es, "Al Works appretaining to the various branchs of Lithographic Drawing, Engraving, Transfering, Printing, Plain and in Colors are executed in this Establishment in the best style of the Art."…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…of my copy of Freedley's book summarizes the content of the book overall, including the details of printing and book production in Philadelphia visible in this image. Presumably the review was added to my copy and the book as well as the review was sent out by the Philadelphia Board of Trade to promote business in Philadelphia. The review was printed on paper inferior to the text paper used for the book, and has browned over time.…

Image Source: www.gutenberg.de

…by Friedrich Reichert depicting Gutenberg as associates looking at the result of some his earliest printing. Gutenberg Museum Mainz.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

This image was mounted at the beginning of the Electronic Printing section. Presumably electronic printing at this time was print-outs from computers. The print-outs, which were relatively crude, were often reproduced by photo offset.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Offset printing.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

… card box (enlarged). Notice the illustration (not to scale) of the steam engine driving the printing machines, and the manual typesetting going on at the right of the image.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…loth binding, suggesting that his bindery probably was responsible for the binding as welll as the printing.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Workers using a machine for gilding and printing covers for books at the bindery for the Librairies-Imprimerie Réunie.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…erent view of the bookbindery of the Librarie-Imprimerie réunie. The machine for gildng and printing bookcovers (shown in the previous photograph) is visible in the back end of the long narrow room.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Workers at the Lenegre bookbindery operating high power presses for printing and embossing book covers in color.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Assembly of printing machines at the Marinoni factory. Most of the work appears to have been done by hand.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…power. They reduced the number of hand presses from 21 to 16, increased the number of steam-driven printing machines from 12 to 18. They also added to their very modest number of machines used in bookbinding.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Chart of the new Berger-Levrault printing facility opened in 1877.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…t appears that the steam engine was below ground so that the belt-drives from the engine drove the printing machines from connections in the basement. Further a bit to the right we see the lithography department in which the company employed artists and people who drew on stone. The presses in the lithography department were operated by hand. Below the lithography department we see the ruling department that produced things like account books. To the right of the lithography department is …

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

This page opening from the 1867 Hoe & Co. printing machine catalogue depicts the printing machine shown in the photograph and the variations of it that Hoe made available. Note huge price of the machine relative to the value of money at the time.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

The authors discussed the basics of printing and typography in the context of topics such as the psychology of reading, legibility, visual impact, etc.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…never be known. He also stated that by the second year of the Journal des Connaissances Utiles the printing run of the journal reached 130,000 copies.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Girardin licensed the Duverger technology for printing music, crediting Duverger for the three places where he published music in the journal volume. About this time the English industrial printer William Clowes was also probably using the Duverger technology to print music.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Claye undoubtedly treasured this volume since he presented it 18 years after printing. His calligraphy was beautiful but a little unsteady; he was 70 years old when he penned the inscription.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…in 1862 is more a reflection of their continued novelty than any hint of general acceptance by the printing trades.…

Image Source: gallica.bnf.fr

…his enormous claims for the first edition, Girardin did not mention anything about the size of the printing of the second edition.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

The "Victory" Printing and Folding Machine (detail) as advertised in the broadside issued in celebration of its acquisition by the Bradford Observer newspaper.…

Image Source: www.howardironworks.org

The Colt's Armory Press, beautifully restored by the Howard Iron Works Printing Museum. Colt's Armory is more widely remembered as a gun manufacturer.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Acknowledgement pages of the first and second printings of the exhibition catalogue, with the first printing on the left.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…logue does not appear to have been copyrighted. On the left we see the copyright page of the first printing, followed by the same page and the Foreward from the second printing.…

Pages 2 & 3 of the Printing and the Mind of Man keepsake.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

The second printing, bound in very different bright red cloth. The gilt stamping on the spine is relatively bright on this set but the heads of the spines needed restoration as is evident from the photograph.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

…his was printed in light blue and the ornaments in gold, the most difficult colors for letterpress printing."…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

We typically associate Hoe with large steam-driven printing machines. This catalogue illustrates several that were designed to be driven by hand-cranks.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

This catalogue page shows that Hoe was still manufacturing their huge Ten Cyclinder Type-Revolving Printing Machine for large scale newspaper production. Based on the drawing, the machine required about 6 men or boys to feed the paper.…

Image Source: babel.hathitrust.org

This was a state of the art machine for printing lithographs from stones. Noe that the example shown was driven by a hand crank.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

In 1964 Nicolas Barker published an article about the Printing and the Mind of Man exhibition in the German yearbook, Imprimatur Neue Folge IV – 1963–1964. The article, translated from English into German, was entitled "Der Buchdruck und sein Einfluß auf den menschlichen Geist. Anmerkungen zu einer Ausstellung." It appeared on pp. 99-102. This is the first of two pages of illustrations of the original exhibition published with that article. The upper image provides an ide…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

The second page of images that Barker published with his German-language article on the Printing and the Mind of Man exhibition. This one shows how some books were displayed in the exhibition cases.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

Dust jacket, designed by Herb Lubalin, for the American issue of the 1967 Printing and the Mind of Man book. Apart from the dust jackets the English and American issues were identical.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

I obtained Reynolds Stone's signature on my copy of the 1967 Printing and the Mind of Man book when I attended his lecture on October 21, 1969 at the Roxburghe Club of San Francisco.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

This was Cassell's English dust jacket for the 1967 Printing and the Mind of Man book. Stylistically formal, it was in keeping with the overall style of the volume.…

Jeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons

… papers, of which Muir inscribed offprints for me, are "Ian Fleming: A Personal Memoir," and "Printing and the Mind of Man: The Inside Story". Muir sent me his account of Muir's business and social relationship with Ian Fleming because Fleming was a key pioneer in collecting influential books of the type exhibited in the 1940 Fitzwilliam and 1963 PMM exhibitions.…