Frederick W. Hamilton

“ Times were not favorable for keeping business running, to say nothing of starting new business. The conditions preceding the war of 1812 were disastrous for business in the United States. American commerce was crushed between the upper and nether millstones of England and France, who had been at war for many years and were attempting to fight each other’s commerce and industries as well as each other’s soldiers. ”

“ In 1769 Abel Buel submitted to the Legislature of Connecticut a document printed from the first English type known to have been made in the United States. This sheet, which is still in the archives of Connecticut, is printed in a very well-cut long primer (ten-point) roman of Buel’s own casting. We have no evidence that Buel ever cast a great deal of type, but his personality is so interesting, and his character so typical of the proverbial “Connecticut Yankee” that it is worth while to recall the story of his life. ”

“ After many failures, they sent a man to Philadelphia in order that he might learn the trade secrets. In those days type founding, like many other trades, was to a great extent a secret trade and one of the chief duties of the workman was to keep his employer’s secrets. Their attempt to steal the trade failed and they were thrown back upon their own resources again. ”

“ It was worked on the ordinary hand-lever principle, but the leverage system gave a fine chance for the pressman’s skill. It had wonderful possibilities in the production of the most perfect work when in the hands of a skillful workman. It won and long kept well-deserved favor. It was introduced into England in 1807, and in 1817 Clymer himself followed it to England, where he spent the remainder of his life.
In spite of the capacity of the Columbian press for the production of artistically perfect work there was a great and increasing demand for presses of a different type. ”

“ The nearer the good people of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia could get to the ways of thinking, speaking, dressing, and acting which prevailed in London, the happier they considered themselves.
Accordingly we find that at first type and presses were all imported. Later we find that although type founding was being successfully carried on in this country, foreign models, especially in type, long continued to be followed. In machinery, American independence very soon asserted itself. ”

“ Americans have always been a newspaper-loving people, and after the independence of the colonies the founding of new newspapers went on apace. It must not be forgotten that all printing in the early days of the last century was done with foundry type, hand set. The demand 19for type, therefore, was not only large, but was increasing. Up to the outbreak of the war of 1812 the few type foundries in America were regularly from three to four months behind their orders, so greatly did demand outrun production. ”

“ If the attempt were made to give in detail the story of American type founding and the accomplishments of the notable American type founders, and at the same time to chronicle the improvements and inventions which American genius has contributed to the machines and processes used in printing and the allied industries, a very large book might readily be produced. ”

“ The iron press was invented by Lord Stanhope, in England, about the year 1800 and was the beginning of the improvements in printing machinery which were to go so far in the course of a century.
Mr. Henry L. Bullen is authority for the statement that no Stanhope press was ever brought to America. The reason lies probably in the fact that an American invented an iron press at about the same time. This was George Clymer, of Philadelphia, who after much experimenting produced the Columbian Press, an 35iron machine which came into general use in England as well as in the United States about 1816. ”

“ Curiously enough American printers have never taken kindly to French type faces although many of them, from Garamond down, are very beautiful. Some of the French types designed, not far from 1875, seem to have become Americanized and are among the most legible and beautiful in use, but the American printers have never been very willing to use them. Whatever the reason, the Franklin foundry was added to the list of unsuccessful attempts at type founding. ”

“ Bruce managed somehow to secure a place and a press, and he borrowed a font of type. He introduced the standing press for dry pressing his sheets, and he turned out so good a piece of work that the publishers offered him all the printing that he could do. From this start he set up a successful business.
In 1811 Bruce, with his usual business acumen, recognized the importance of stereotyping and went 21to England to study it. As we have seen, however, it was not easy to learn other people’s trades in those days and Bruce met with great difficulty. ”

“ After the death of James Conner, in 1861, the foundry was managed by his sons and grandsons, who finally merged the business in that of the American Type Founders Company.
Meantime the business of type founding spread from its original centers and new fields were occupied. By 1818 the Boston Type Foundry had been founded by Beddington & Ewer, and undertook to cast types, set types, and make stereotype plates. Samuel N. Dickinson was taught the trade of a printer in the State of New York, but afterward was employed as a compositor in the Boston Type and Stereotype Foundry. ”

“ The development of the cylinder press in America is largely connected with the name of Hoe. Robert Hoe, a Leicestershire farmer’s son, was born in 1784, and in due time was apprenticed to a carpenter. In 1803 he came to New York, where he worked at his trade. After a time he became associated in business with his brother-in-law, Matthew Smith, Jr. Smith was a carpenter and a printer’s joiner (that is to say, a maker of press frames and other wood work used by printers) and a brother of Peter Smith, the press inventor, who has already been mentioned. ”

“ Arrived in this country, he worked for some time at his trade. The turning point in his career came in 1876 when he was engaged as an expert mechanic to work on the development of a typewriter transfer machine in which a group of people were interested. His work on this machine, although long continued, was not successful, but his study and experimentation led him to conceive the idea of a type-casting machine which should be controlled from a keyboard similar to that of a typewriter, but larger on account of the greater number of characters necessary. ”

“ Barth was engaged by Brockhaus, one of the more important German printers, who maintained his own bindery and type foundry and now added a machine shop primarily for the purpose of building Bruce machines. Barth spent several years in the employ of Brockhaus making type foundry tools and had two years’ service in the German navy. He came to America in 1849 and at first practiced his trade as a maker of mathematical instruments, but before long connected himself with the Cincinnati Type Foundry. Here he invented a machine to cast type by direct steam pressure without the pump. ”

“ One important result of these changes was the invention of the punch-cutting or engraving 28machine. The adoption of the improved system required the production of a vast number of new punches which had formerly been cut by hand. It was impossible to find enough skilled workmen to meet this demand and the engraving machine now used for making punches was accordingly devised by Benton.
The field for the artistic development of type is inexhaustible, but it is difficult to imagine how type, as a mechanical product, can be improved beyond its present condition. ”

“ The electric drive, by the way, is an American invention.
In 1830 Samuel Adams, of Boston, built a platen power press, which was long the only power press capable of fine work and exact register. Not long later S. P. Ruggles, of Boston, invented the Diamond, a small, rapid machine for the quick production of cards, envelopes, and other small work, and later, in 1839, the Ruggles rotary, a successful and popular power jobber. In 1856 George P. Gordon began the line of Gordon presses, still made in improved models by the Chandler & Price Company, of Cleveland, and very extensively used. ”

“ Composing and Type-Casting Machines With the great expansion of printing in the early part of the nineteenth century, and with the invention of greatly improved presses, there appeared a natural impatience with the slow process of hand composition. ”

“ Each publication has been compiled by a competent author or group of authors, and carefully edited, the purpose being to provide the printers of the United States—employers, journeymen, and apprentices—with a comprehensive series of handy and inexpensive compendiums of reliable, up-to-date information upon the various branches and specialties of the printing craft, all arranged in orderly fashion for progressive study. ”

“ It has seemed to the writer best, therefore, not to attempt to collect an encyclopedia of information, but to give a brief sketch of the development of types and presses in the United States, with a special view to the beginnings in both departments. It is greatly to be hoped that a more competent hand may later be set to the production of such an encyclopedic volume as has been indicated, but such a work does not belong in this series.
In these matters, as in so many others, we find a definite course of development going on. Originally American dependence upon Europe was complete. ”

“ It is not unlikely that some if not all of the foreign letters may have come from the Franklin and Mappa stocks. We know that Franklin had Greek and Hebrew and that Mappa had German. Mappa’s Orientals did not appear. Probably even if Binney & Ronaldson still had the matrices it would not have been worth while to include them in their specimen book. The preface says that they were obliged, contrary to their inclinations, to imitate European taste. Evidently America had not yet become independent except politically. ”

“ The great success of the machine and the enormous growth of the business of manufacturing it are too familiar to need description, while the consequences of the invention in making possible an enormous increase in the output of printed matter can hardly be estimated. [1]
1. See Text Book No. 23, “Type-Casting and Composing Machines.”
Mr. Mergenthaler severed his active connection with the syndicate in 1888, although he continued interested in it and made from time to time such minor improvements in the machine as suggested themselves to him. He died in 1899 at the early age of forty-five. ”

“ Conner invented an electrotype matrix to take the place of the matrices which had formerly been made by driving a steel punch into copper.
The Dickinson Type Foundry also did work of a very high grade. Perhaps the most fortunate thing that ever happened to it was the entrance into its service in 1868 of Mr. Joseph W. Phinney. Mr. Phinney was born in 1848, and after a varied experience as a printer in several places, went to Boston in 1868, later entering the employ of the old Dickinson Type Foundry, in the selling department. ”

“ In 1809 the second permanently successful foundry was started by Elihu White and a man by the name of Wing in Hartford, Connecticut. Here again we have a sample of characteristic Yankee courage, resource, and ingenuity, qualities which have enabled Americans at all times to accomplish the apparently impossible. Neither White nor Wing knew the business of type founding. ”

“ One more attempt was to be made before type founding was permanently established in America. This time the attempt was successful, but not permanent. In 1783 John Bain (or Baine) sent his grandson to Philadelphia with an outfit of type founder’s tools. Bain had been associated with one of the famous type founders of the time, Alexander Wilson, of Glasgow. Wilson not only had a market in Scotland and England, but also in Ireland and in North America. ”

“ The experiment was successful, resulting in the production of the wonderful multiple press, which may be seen today in the press room of any great newspaper.
The invention of the Hoe press, the development of the autoplate, a machine invented in 1900 by Henry A. Wise Wood, of New York, whereby the process of stereotyping is made in a practical way subsidiary to newspaper printing, and the invention of wood pulp paper have made possible the modern newspaper. ”

“ These arrangements were very common at this time and reflected no discredit upon the young men who made them. Geiger was a mathematical instrument maker by profession, but became with study and practice a very expert matrix cutter and founder. Franklin had brought him out and he served his time with Franklin, but appears to have left him as soon as his time was out and to have gone to the Philadelphia mint. Like many another 12skilled mechanic, however, he became interested in the search for a perpetual motion machine and finally died an insane pauper. ”

“ In teaching from these books it is very important that these questions and such others as may occur to the teacher should be made the basis of frequent written work, and of final examinations.
The importance of written work cannot be overstated. It not only assures knowledge of material, but the power to express that knowledge correctly and in good form. ”

“ Probably Mappa had no practical knowledge of type founding and very little interest in it, for he left the service of Binney & Ronaldson in 1800 to go into that of the great Holland Land Company. He seems there to have found his place and served in important positions until the end of his life. ”

“ Bache had received some instruction from Fournier, the great French type founder, from whom Franklin had purchased the tools. They had for their workman a man named Frederick Geiger. Geiger was what is known as a “redemptioner,” or a man who in return for his passage money to America, his board, and a small amount of money wages agreed to be the bond servant of his creditor for a certain period. ”