The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1915-07-22
THE LINOTYPE.
History Of Machines Used to Set Type
for The BamberS Herald.

minute. were maze "ltH DrOHLe
punches while the material was soft.
That was 1000 years ago.
King Sargon became forgotten.
Chaldea became forgotten. Europe
became great.
Columbus was born. 1t was $500
years after King Sargon. Books still
were being written by hand.
Columbus was growing into lad
when the first effective Improvement
came. 1t was in 1854. Then Johann
Gutenberg made the first book with
movable type.
Men had printed for ages. They
had even printed in colors. from
wood blocks and with other devices.
The greatness of Gutenbergs achieve
ment was not in printing, but in the
successful use of separate type. In
that moment the human spirit found
means of expression: and knowledge
possessed till then by the few, was
given to all.
Columbus found the New World.
Spain lost it, then France, then Eng
land. The young republic flung it's
banners of States across the Appala-
chians. Printing still was almost as
laborious as in Gutenberg's day. The
printing press did not accompany the
pioneer.
Our civil war came. Its news was
set by hand as Gutenberg had set his
first book. The compositor reached
into his case of type for each letter
separately, and separately dropped it
into place to spell each word. To
set a page no larger than an ordinary
book the compositor's hand had to
move one-half mile.
1t was 1886, four hundred and
thirty-two years after Gutenberg S
first type was set. before the printer
was emancipated from this painful.
useless labor. In that year there ap-
peared the first copy of a newspaper
whose type had been composed not
by hand, but by an instrument.
The newspaper was the New York
Tribune. The instrument was the
linotype.
That was only thirty years ago.
Today newspapers composed on the
linotype greet the sun in its fight
around the world. They are in Afri-
ca, north and south. They are in ST.
IBERIA, India and China, Japan and
the Philippines, Hawaii, even the
Ladrone islands of the far Pacific
know the linotype. They tell the
news in Alaska. They print it i'll
Spanish and Portuguese under the
snow-helmeted Andes, and a thou
sand miles up the Amazon river.
1t is an achievement of our gener-
alton and typical of it. Thomas A
Edison says it is one of the ten Won
ders of the world.
1t is not "type-setting' machine
1t has not a piece of type in 1t. IT
makes it's own type-a new letter
every time; and every time it forms
a sentence it does twenty-three sepa-
rate and intricate things.
To tell how this complex, marvel
Gus instrument was devised, improv-
ed and made perfect is to tell a story
of courage rather than mere inven-
tive ingenuity.
The original device did not have
even the germ of the linotype in it.
It failed again and again. 1t sue
ceeded in nothing save in impover-
ishing all who had anything to do
with it. But it planted in their
brains and spirits dream.
They raised more money. They
engaged Ottmar Mergenthaler. then
working as a mechanic in a Balti-
more shop.
From that time on the story is the
story of improvement after improve
ments that refused obstinately for all
their wonderful ingenuity. to produce
a successful machine. More than one
great invention or discovery, beset
with such difficulties, has been aban-
doned in despair, to lie idle and for
gotten for years or even generations,
till new men found new courage to
take it up again. This invention.
fortunately, had men behind it who
would not give up. They stayed.
They heartened each other, and they
heartened the inventor, ever and
again. Ever and again they refilled
| the ever-emptying treasury.
Today, perfected to a degree that
Mergenthaler would not have con-
sidered possible. there are 10000
linotypes working around the world.
Exchange.
War and Football.
| ..,,- :: 80. tb;po foofha1l ic an