A couple of unusual films to watch regarding Linotype machines: “Park Row” directed by Sam Fuller, it has an interesting take on the origins of it, and “Prix de Beauté” with some in action at the first part of the film, with an added bonus, Louise Brooks.
What a coincidence: just a few hours ago I was describing this machine to a Japanese acquaintance as part of the explanation for the term “boilerplate” (yeah, I went off on a bit of a tangent on printing history). Now I have an example to show her.
By the way, the local newspaper in Boosier City, Louisiana, was using the Linotype 30 years ago. I know because back then I came across a copy of that week’s edition, and the printing impressions left by raised type were unmistakable.
When I was a kid (early 80s) my dad took us to the University of Oregon print shop, which still had a couple of Linotype machines. They are a fascinating thing to see in operation.
My Dad started out as a lino operator, had to leave high school in the 30s at 15 to support the family (his dad was blind) - in one sense they were the geeks of their day - good lino operators were in such strong demand, they made excellent money - here in NZ a good lino operator could go travelling overseas for a year and always expect to have a job waiting for them when they got back.
After WW2 my Dad went on to get an accounting degree on the local GI-bill equivalent, I worked at the paper the summer before college (the year punk rock arrived) a few years just before they stopped being a hot-metal shop - at that point half the lino machines were driven by paper tape by women working in nice clean offices, rather than the dirty hot lino floor - no one was being trained to be a lino by then, computers were coming and their days were numbered.
What’s missing from the description above is the rest of the process - after a lino was done they would make an impression of a column (a racked set of those cast lino lines, there were in mirror reverse, good linos could read them) on newsprint and attach it to an overhead moving line with a clothes peg, the column would be checked by a ‘reader’ and double checked by a ‘copy holder’ - the spelling and grammar correctors of the time who would send the marked up impression back for fixes.
Next the fixed physical columns (and the fixed impression would go to the editors/sub editors who would physically lay out the lines of type in a page sized image (flowing lines between columns by hand, maybe splitting them and slipping in a “continue on page 6”, also they made up headlines) - at this point images would also be included (etched photographically onto metal plates).
The completed pages were then used to make a positive impression in a sheet of something (looked like a fine grained cardboard at the time, it was a long time ago) that was then wrapped into a half circle and then another negative metal impression was cast into a half cylinder of metal.
Two half cylinders from the 2 pages that would be next to each other on one side of a sheet of paper were then bolted in place on opposite sides of a spindle of the main press. Each sheet of a giant feeder roll went over and under a pair of these spindles to be printed. When that was done the press would be started, the whole building rumbled and a fine mist of ink started to rise up through the building (my summer job was cleaning …) the press operators would pull completed papers from the press and go back and tweak alignment of pages on the fly.
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Sounds unlikely, but I ran one of these twenty-five years ago, at our school’s printing press (well, actually one of the later Intertype machines - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1UsWgTp25Q looks pretty close). One afternoon per school week, for three years (the last in charge of that machine). We mainly did headed notepaper for teachers / parents, with the big job of the year being the programme for Founder’s Day (in not one, but TWO colours! Eh? Eh?). No sign of lead poisoning so far…
The school wouldn’t stump up the cash to replace it with a Mac-based setup, so we just soldiered on… Alas, a year after I left, the Heidelberg press ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okEPMABxkQE ) died and they shut the operation down.
Nice to finally find out why the spaces were designed that way - our training methods were very much based on the Chinese Whispers principle…
My dad used to work on a Linotype so I sent him a link to your post. Here’s his response:
That was a really cool video. I wish I had seen it before I started
learning the trade. It was a fascinating piece of machinery. Too bad
they didn’t show the pitfalls of operating one. When it wasn’t
operated correctly you had a gigantic mess of lead squirting all over
the place and causing several hours of cleanup and repair. That’s
about all I ever accomplished on a linotype. Thank God for the advent
of what was called “cold type”, (in other words, no hot lead). I’m
not sure I could have ever mastered the keyboard (which is totally
different than a typewriter) and the intricacies of the linotype
machine. Now I want to see a video on the composition of the lead
type into page makeup done by the floor men. I was learning that part
also. I could do the simple composition, but the intricate page
layout of an advertisement or chart could be really tricky and amazing
to watch when a journeyman floor man was at work. It all brings back
some great memories.
Just thought some of you might find it interesting.
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For those interested in printing and printing history, I highly recommend the full length documentary Linotype: The Film released last year. I had the opportunity to see it during it’s initial run here in SF. It’s an amazing look at the machine, its influence on the world, the current state of the few remaining machines, and its operators both old and young. The old pros that used to run these describe it with tremendous awe and respect, because it was a brilliant machine that could also kill you if you weren’t careful. Most of these have gone for scrap metal prices- in the film a man buys one for $20. Since they had two at the auction, he wasn’t sure if that meant he had to take them both for $40…
EDIT: Check out this 4 minute clip from the film (with animation) about the history and origins of the machine. Fascinating for type and printing geeks!
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At Estacada High School in Oregon up through the late 70’s early 80’s, Mr Patterson taught the printing classes in the room under the stadium and we got to actually use this machine to actually print actual stuff we actually wrote and made real. We also burned the paint off all our pencils in the molten lead. I stole several strings of obscenities cast in type. Good times.
Not mentioned here because it would have been obvious to the pros: The single biggest advantage of “hot lead” like the linotype (and ludlow, which was the hand-set equivalent used for headlines and other larger type sizes) may have been that every line was freshly cast type… solving the traditional letterpress problems of damaged type having to be found and pulled out. Set and cast your line, use it for one print job, melt it down and cast again from scratch, and wear issues go away.
(As a kid I had the opportunity to make repeated visits to a typography shop and get closer to the equipment than any insurance company would be happy with these days. Later, my school had a print shop and I learned traditional typesetting and letterpress operation. I can’t feed as rapidly as I once could, but I do still remember enough to get the job done when I can get my hands on the equipment.)
When I worked as an editorial assistant and editor at Lloyd’s Register in the 1980s they were still using hot metal typesetting for printing their staff magazine, commercial magazine and annual report. When I talk about this it makes me feel as old as Methusalah, although I’m only in my fifties.
My great-grandfather was a linotype operator for an Oklahoma paper. But that’s not the most fascinating thing about him. In the late 1920s, he took his whole family on a driving trip from Oklahoma to New York State and back. It took several months to make the trip. He wrote up his memoirs of the trip for the paper, and I have a comb-bound edition of it somewhere (which a friend scanned into PDF form). Someday I should see about who owns the rights; it would be a great thing to publish for the historical record.
The language is awesome but the technology too. Not only is traditional canvas made from linen which comes from flax (not new zealand flax, by the way) but the oil used in the paint to paint those canvases also comes from the flax plant, linseed oil. That makes some kind of nascent sense until you realize the canvas and paint are isolated from each other by sizing. Which is a hide based product. This is pre-acrylic traditional oil painting methods.
Is is alchemy or science?
I know a few printer who do letterpress. This is the system that uses pre-made letters and they are set by hand in boards to make a page of print. I suspect it is the predecessor of the linotype.
This is the kind of printing you see on wedding announcements and the like.
Probably the best known letterpress guy is Bruce Licher who runs Independent Projects and has done record covers for a number of special releases by well known bands whose names escape me right now. He was also the first person to release a record by CamperVanBeethoven and is the founder of Savage Republic. Which takes us right back to the days of Al’s Bar and the Los Angeles underground music scene of the 80s
Bruce does beautiful work. He did a set of stamps for the Post Office at the South Pole. Any display of ephemera from the old scene will include, prominently, a selection of items made by Independent Projects.
Just wanted to clarify that there are artisan printers out there who still use old tech to create nice things for us to have in our lives. Linotype is the industrial version of that technology.
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