International Printing Museum Tour: The Linotype & the Typesetting Race

Part 4: The Linotype & the Typesetting Race
The International Printing Museum’s curator, Mark Barbour, takes you on a working tour of the museum’s galleries. He highlights the history of printing from the Chinese invention and Gutenberg’s development of typecasting to Ben Franklin’s colonial printing shop. You will also see the workings of a 19th-century country newspaper shop including a platen press, and experience unique typecasting machines such as the Linotype.
Part 1: Introduction to Printing: • International Printing...
Part 2: The Gutenberg Press: • International Printing...
Part 3: The 19th-century Country Newspaper Shop: • International Printing...
International Printing Museum
315 W. Torrance Blvd. Carson, CA 90745
www.printmuseu...
If you enjoyed this content and want to support the conservation and education of printing history please contribute to The International Printing Museum at www.printmuseu...

[@alexj3709]

I became an apprentice hand compositor in 1966 and at trade school the other guys told me I was crazy not to be a hand and machine compositor so that I could learn the Linotype. They argued "A good Linotype operator has a well paid job for life." Well, they pulled all the linotypes out of all the newspaper offices only 10 years later. I became a camera operator and did paste up artwork from the new "galleys" of bromide typeset in a Compstar. All these skills also became obsolete within another 15 years or so. Technology replaced all those jobs. But the innovation and creativity and problem solving that was involved in the invention of these incredible machines is absolutely amazing. Thanks for preserving and showing them off in the videos.

[@johnthomson2164]

I worked one of these machines for nearly twenty years in the Scottish Daily Express in Glasgow. Our paper sold 650000 copies a day and we had more than one hundred operators working on the paper. It was a great experience and the linos and intertypes were very reliable.

[@mememe84]

Hello, so each sentence is printed on a metal bar, then the bars stacked above each other to create a full page, dipped it in ink and press it against paper to make multiple copies? is it powered via electricity?

[@jenniferroberts9529]

J A Rogers was my Great Grandfather who adopted my great grandmother and her sister in the late 1880's. I am so happy to find out more about his invention. I knew that he had invited it but hadn't know his history! I also didn't have that photo of him. THANK YOU!

[@stephenpark8133]

Brought back a lot of memories, worked on a Intertype (1926 model) and a Intertype CS3 (1961 model) then Linotypes, You didn't mention the Spacing, on Linotype 5 I noticed it must of been a "Quadder". Thanks Stephen, a true Gentleman of the Composing Room.

[@geomort756]

I was fortunate enough to be a student at Palm Springs high school, which had an operational Linotype machine. We also had a Ludwig machine as well as an excellent dark room and stripping room. God bless Robert Andrade, my teacher I was blessed to be able to see this close-up and operate this machine.

[@stephenblevins7151]

This video deserves more views! It is extremely informative and interesting and the presenter does a great job. The history of these machines is fascinating. What amazing inventions. I worked an offset printing press in high school and later worked for a publisher which laid out each book by hand. We adopted the first generation Macintosh and everything changed. I have always been fascinated by and appreciative of the printing industry. I hope I can go to this museum one day!

[@JoelMielke]

I had never seen the ingenious competitors to the Linotype. Worth watching.

[@JoelMielke]

The redistribution of the type on the Rogers is beautifully simple.

[@cavecookie1]

My grandpa had a small town weekly newspaper, and printing shop. He had 2 Linotype machines and several presses of various sizes for different jobs. This brings back a lot of fond memories of my childhood.

[@ameilabrewster9532]

My dad had a linotype we enjoyed playing with it as kids. Loved it so fun

[@ma_er233]

The sound of the Linotype machine in operation is just fantastic music to my ears…

[@alexj3709]

Well, not really music to the ears, but they certainly were fascinating to watch and had a hypnotic rythm in the hands of a gun operator.

[@notapplicable3362]

Best explanation of how the Linotype works. Also the evolution of printing.

[@emanuel1.168]

Amazing! An underrated series.

[@dopaminedreams1122]

I somehow ended up in the Linotype rabbithole and this video was honestly perfect for explaining the concept and evolution of typesetting! Id love to visit the museum one day if i get to America, the presenter is super cool

[@dondouglas9035]

Great video! I actually never heard of the Linotype Junior before. A Linotype operator was a highly trained, well-paid and an always in demand tradesman until most printers and newspapers went cold type. I had a linotype running in my shop until the late seventies. It was sort of sad when occasionally an operator from some distance away heard we had a machine in operation, and they would come in just hoping against hope to find a job. We started using offset in the sixties, but I just never developed the love for the wonderfully clean and fast offset printing process that I had from my youth for the slow, dirty, clackity-clack, hot and heavy letterpress printing process. Go figure! Hahahaha.That's why I love the videos like this one so much.

[@volkerjanssen7905]

Thanks Mark. I felt like I was walking along listening to your lecture. It's not only your detailed knowledge that brings the past to life, but also your enthusiasm for this part of printing history. Brilliant!

[@wasbus]

I worked for a Christmas card company back in the 70’s and it was all letter press. I work on model 29 linotype mixer you could Mix between two magazine

[@zono9045]

Mark, I just came across your channel and I’m absolutely thrilled. Having worked in the printing industry myself. I started in the mid 90’s when the computer was about to dominate our field. Luckily, I worked in a specialty shop with Kluges and Heidelberg windmills and cylinders that were about 60 years old.

[@lyndaboyer2076]

You did a great job explaining this process.

[@InternationalPrintingMuseum]

Thank you!

[@amartini51]

So cool to see the rare contemporaries and competitors of the Linotype!

[@acastillo2584]

Stumbled on this video after a quiz on "Linotype".....so fascinating. Definitely it is the 8th wonder of the world.

[@slimtimm1]

Wonderful video!!!

[@koka3243]

Such a fascinating and enjoyable story! Watching this from Russia. Huge thanks to Mark and the entire stuff of the Museum for the work they doing!

[@InternationalPrintingMuseum]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@wvsky]

WONDERFUL video! The best video on the Linotype I've EVER seen. I saw a bank of Linotypes in the late 50s at a large printing company right behind my house, and I never forgot those machines.

[@roger1561]

1st class communication video on history of Linotype and its competitors. Came upon this video after some history of China's block printing in 8th century and movable-type abt 1045 AD. Electrician only briefly at new LA Times plant after install of Photo-llitho presses 1980...was best job I ever left; both personnel and working conditions! I had never seen a Linotype until this video 42 yrs later. Thanks your clear and artful presentation.

[@markbarbour656]

Thanks Roger! So glad you enjoyed it. The Lindner Collection at the Printing Museum dates back to the early days of the LA Times. FYI we just did a movie rental of a 1975 phototypesetting machine to show the LA Times composing room in that period... a show called The Dating Game! Look out for it...

[@pd4106]

I loved my time working at the printing trade, and before the computer age came about these fabulous Linotype machines were everywhere in the printing offices/newspapers. A real trade and craft. A privilege to be a Linotype/Intertype operator. Bob Paulsen, ITU reg. 181231.

[@bruceough6590]

!949 I started working in a printing office as an apprentice compositor, leaving ‘the art of all arts’ twenty-five years later. It is a great video that nourished my continual interest in letterpress printing.

[@moomoo7946]

This was one of the most interesting videos I’ve watched in a very long while!

[@InternationalPrintingMuseum]

Thanks, we're glad you enjoyed it.

[@LisaandKatey]

That was the most informative presentation about the linotype i learned how to operate in high school and had the opportunity to operate one for a couple years in the early 90s it is truly the most important advancement in printing. Never know about the unitype. Thanks for you work

[@loiselling]

This was an excellent and enjoyable series on printing. Thank you so much.

[@InternationalPrintingMuseum]

You are so welcome!

[@Bokto1]

oh my god the engineering of those things, it must be so hard to come up with such machines pure joy to watch! awaiting for photoprinting now

[@oaks.at.sunrise]

Thank you for sharing. Absolutely fascinating!! 😮

[@InternationalPrintingMuseum]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@JanWritesMG]

Well that was brilliant! After trawling through dozens of sites and videos, I finally understand how the the Linotype machine worked - enough for my purposes anyway! So interesting about the Unitype and the Rogers' Typograph which I'd never heard of. Thank you very much for some great storytelling. Off to watch the other videos...

[@douwhurter8935]

Great video. As an Photo lithographer apprentice in the mid 80"s I was forced by the manager to spend a few months in the hot metal department, working the Linotype, hand casting and making up forms for the letter press presses we still used. Not my trade to be but gave me so much knowledge and understanding of the basics of typography that I used in the litho department for years on. With the coming of computers and the DTP age a lot of the work become easier and faster but with a lost of a lot of knowledge. Today everybody with a computer and some sort of design software reckon they can design print matter.

[@deezynar]

Thanks for making these videos. All of them are very informative, on a subject that is extremely significant.

[@DandyDon1]

My high school print shop also had a Linotype in the 1970s, which was used with the earlier print presses. Also in the print shop class was a Compugraphic Jr. which I learned to use. I was one of the few men who could actually type, I'd key in some of the article-columns for the high school newspaper. The Compugraphic Jr. was used in conjunction with a single color the Heidelberg offset printing press.

[@otto16121970]

l’ve learned a lot, watching this 4 part story. Thank you so much!

[@InternationalPrintingMuseum]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@AffordBindEquipment]

Linotype is one of the most incredible wonders of the world.

[@CurtaCrazy]

I quite agree! Just wow! All these operations with each rotation of the huge cams in the back directing the steps to cast a slug. Words can’t express my love and admiration for this fantastic machine! 🥰 😍

[@xereeto]

So glad I stumbled across this! Deserves far more views, this whole series gives remarkable insight into the history of one of humanity's most important inventions. Very well presented too.

[@Adey308QV]

As an apprentice Heidelberg platen operator back in the 70s I always wondered how the lines of type were produced. Amazing machine. No wonder the Photo typesetting spelt the end of mechanical typesetting. After purchasing our CRTronic in 1986 I remember.. suddenly no more trips to the linotype hot metal casters!

[@colinashman4706]

Thank you for such an interesting video. When I left school in the late '60's, I was a mechanic working on about 30 or so Intertype machines at a local newspaper in South Wales UK. The Intertype machines were very similar to the Linotype as I'm sure you know.

[@MendItAussie]

Shared to Lovers of Linecasting Machines on Facebook @linolovers. Thank you for sharing, Mark. Karen+Danny Ellis

[@pablohernandez-sf4jc]

Una máquina con la precisión del má fino reloj suizo. Su Inventor OTTMAR MERGENTHALEY fue un relojero alemán. Magnífico documental...

[@18000rpm]

That was incredibly fascinating. And the Linotype demo was great to watch. I was watching another video which described tech like Linotype as steampunk technology so I looked this up. Thank you!

[@ConnieFWill]

reading the text notes for Lord of the Rings got me wondering what it meant for a book's text to be "reset" which lead me to looking up how old school typesetting worked, which lead me here! this is amazing stuff

[@omangmutamar-uv1pc]

When I was young , at 21 years old I have been working in the Printing Company, it was called Handpress Or letter press printing.

[@oprion]

Brilliant, as ever!

[@evandrosybine9916]

Perfeito!!! Obrigado pela aula incrível, uma arte a arte da impressão e a maravilhosa mecânica gráfica.

[@HurricaneEmily]

I watched all 4 videos of the tour. I don't normally like museums but this was absolutely fascinating. Thank you for putting this online. I'm disabled and housebound and I wouldn't have been able to take this tour any other way. You should put a link for donations to the museum in the videos.

[@KC-rd3gw]

Could you do a video with the linotype machine going through the whole process of printing a galley of type? I can't find anything like that on youtube. Just short demonstrations of several lines, or the NYT documentary on the last day of the linotype. Watching a step by step process start to finish would be very satisfying to watch.

[@mfbfreak]

Finally a proper description of the sorting mechanism. I already had a hunch that it was a bit like how a key in a lock works, but this makes it a lot clearer. Marvelous machines. Wish they were a bit more compact so i could own one... One thing that strikes me is that even in 1961 they didn't bother to cover up the mechanical bits, and make it look more like an IBM bookkeeping machine that is at home in an office.

[@bigjd2k]

That was awesome - how problems were solved mechanically, before electronics! I wish I was around back then, I love the old way of doing things. You could understand completely how the machine worked, and even fix it. Unlike today’s iPads and iPhones which are sealed, miniaturised units. The most wonderful place would have been the Linotype factory where all these intricate parts were made.

[@robertbailey3075]

I shared this with the members of a Fine Press website and the viewers were delighted! Great video; now what about one on the Monotype?

[@silvestresanchezmorales5732]

Yo trabaje en linotipo gráficas e imprentas de joven, era cajista y formador de periódicos y revistas. Como recuerdo formar líneas y hacer caratulas de inmumerables tesis. Me vienen muchos recuerdos a mi mente al ver estos videos. También formaba periódicos en linotipia. Gracias

[@luisfernandoariza1301]

Tanks For this video,from Colombia

[@InternationalPrintingMuseum]

You are welcome!

[@pariodeusex]

amazing video! Very rare for a machine to have an 80 year run without being replaced by something better, as a computer programmer its very easy to underestimate how advanced these machines were in the pre electronic/digital era, these in effect are primitive mechanical computers by the way they sort letters using grooves and teeth and recycle metal to produce new text. The modern equivalent in a computer would be a sorting algorithm like bubble sort for sorting letters and memory garbage collection to reset the 1s and 0s in memory to all 0s for reuse just like the molten metal. The one leg up they do have on modern computers is that you can see the algorithm in action and it makes a noise! even if it is many orders of magnitude slower, the ultimate steam punk machine IMHO, I assume the first models would have alternative power driving the system and keeping the metal molten rather than using electricity?

[@MaxPMagee]

Fantastic presentation. One note-the illustration of the Linotype keyboard doesn't match the one you've got in your shop-you have an English "etaoin shrdlu" Model 5, but you show a graphic of the French is the "elaoin sdrétu" variety. Okay...two notes: the Linotype's keyboard is unique, but it's not VERY unique. ;-) As others have said, these machines are amazing, and your videos are fantastic. I so appreciate your making your knowledge available online. Thank you.

[@DetroitStars]

A lot of the highly skilled Linotype operators could do something called "hang the elevator." They would set the line of type so fast, they had to wait for the preceding lines to complete their cycle through the machine before they could elevate that current line.

[@Shinkajo]

As an engineer, this just makes me wonder how long did it take to design and engineer those machines, all those little mechanical contrivances without computers, calculators using tables and slide rules and the limitations of the day. Everything drafted by hand, machined by hand for the prototypes. I can only imagine all the headaches.

[@lindaSee89]

Line setting is what we were introduced in high school.

[@JohnnyFlynn-z7v]

Great informative video! I have a question: was it common to re-use certain lines that repeated for every issue? Say for example a regular column heading or cartoon heading. Or would everything be re-done a fresh each day?

[@sky173]

Nothing like the smell of ink in the morning. I miss the printing industry.

[@sarahburt8446]

Mr. Barbour, Thank you so much for the upload! I'm currently doing some research on the mid 19th century printing process in regards to Walt Whitman, and I was wondering if you had links available to the illustrations you show throughout the video- particularly the robot? Thanks!

[@InternationalPrintingMuseum]

Hi Sarah can you email our manager [e-mail] and she'll be happy to share those images with you

[@sarahburt8446]

@@InternationalPrintingMuseum I absolutely can! Thank you so much!

[@brental1]

Nice explanation and video. My brother was a Linotype operator and composer (if that's the correct word) from about 1950-1980. I remember he always carried a small metal tool in his pocket. It was about the size of a business card, rectangular with a small semicircle tab on one side. Is there a name for this tool? Thanks.

[@graywood6794]

The “Font” he is referring to is a style of typeface in a family i.e. Helvetica Bold San-serif etc. Somewhere in the digital age the word (font) became a misnomer to describe typefaces. For instance Bodoni 12 point (12pt) indicates the typeface style, and size. "Bold Serif" would indicate the Font within that typeface family. Yeah picky I know, but there is something to be said for historic accuracy...

[@planaritytheory]

This is a very well done video about some extremely fascinating machines. Thank you! Something is unclear to me with the Rogers machines: how is it that the characters can be selected in arbitrary order to travel along their rods to the casting location, and then back again, without the characters or the rods interfering with each other, or getting tangled up? I can't quite picture this in my head.

[@markbarbour656]

On the Rogers Typograph, each set of matrices for the alphabet as their own wire that they slide on, never leaving. The matrices to the left and the right of the "cage" are the shortest in height, with the other letters increasing in height as they are positioned toward the middle. When the selected matrices are released by the keyboard, gravity causes them to descend down toward the casting area, though always still attached to their specific wire. The position and bends of that wire help create a smooth movement and also prevent the matrices from bunching up. Long answer but hopefully answers you. Brilliant solution!

[@planaritytheory]

@@markbarbour656 Thanks for your detailed response! I will continue to try to picture it in my head, using your description, but I am afraid I may require a video or some pictures to really get it.

[@markbarbour656]

@@planaritytheory shoot an email to the Printing Museum and I can get you some additional images etc [e-mail]

[@richardmaryman3494]

there was one other machine...the monotype which could cast individual letters (rather than a "brick"of letters).the operator set type on a keyboard which punched a paperscroll, which then used by the casting machine to produce type, which could then be distibuted into cases. The monotype machines are quite rare. I had a friend who had one funtional monotype casting machine and he used to produce fonts of type.

[@paolopinoargote]

This is fcking awesome

[@michaelmiller641]

Wow!

[@joearnold6881]

So cool I’m surprised that chunk of metal cools quickly enough to be useful (not that I know anything about alloys of lead, lol)

[@fultzrussell3021]

I came into possession of an old cylinder press sold by Toronto Type Foundry. Can anyone help me find out any information about it? It would be greatly appreciated!

[@davidkachel]

One please!

[@clippedwithoutcomment118]

He did a typo, right? In the demonstration he missed the 'N' in linotype, and didn't correct it as he was talking about corrections...

[@Gelatin84]

Rip to your Benjamin Franklin actor o7

[@User0000000000000004]

actually actually actually

[@andrebrandao9451]

...and then you have a line o' type. A Linotype.

[@SuperOlds88]

e s t h a r o d i l n u

[@edregan3025]

Uh I think the story is a little off on the unitype.