Part 2
Blanks were left for the places of titles, initial letters, and other ornaments, to be supplied afterward by illuminators, whose calling did not long survive the masterly improvements made by the printers in this branch of their art. These ornaments were exquisitely fine, and curiously variegated with the most beautiful colours, and even with gold and silver. The margins, likewise, were frequently charged with a variety of figures, of saints, birds, beasts, monsters, flowers, &c., which sometimes had relation to the contents of the page, though frequently none at all. These embellishments were often very costly.
The name of the printer, place of his residence, &c. were either omitted or put at the end of the book, with some pious ejaculation or doxology.
The date was also omitted, or involved in some cramped design, or printed either at full length or in numerical letters, and sometimes partly one and partly the other: thus, One Thousand CCCC and lxxiiii; but always placed at the end of the book.
There was no variety of character, nor intermixture of Roman and Italic, which were later inventions; but the pages were printed in a Gothic letter of the same size throughout. Catch-words at the end of the foot-line (now generally abolished) were first used at Venice, by Vindeline de Spire. The inventor of signatures is said to have been Antonio Zarotti of Milan, about 1470.
Books were often encased in massive coverings, which were ornamented with florid and arabesque designs. Jewels and precious metals, the finest stuffs, and the most gorgeous colours were sometimes employed. Scaliger says, that his grandmother had a printed Psalter, the cover of which was two inches thick. On the inner side was a receptacle, containing a small silver crucifix, with the name of _Berenica Codronia de la Scala_ behind it.
Two or three hundred copies of a work were considered to be a large edition.
PRINTING IN AMERICA.
Printing was introduced into America at Mexico by the Viceroy Mendoza in 1536. The first book printed was the _Escala espiritual de San Juan Climaco_, of which no copy is known to exist; but the oldest American book now extant is the _Manual de Adultos_, dated 1540, of which only the last four leaves are to be found in the library of the Cathedral of Toledo. The name of the earliest printer is a matter of question.
Cambridge, Massachusetts, is entitled to the distinction of having the first printing-press in North America, which was under the charge of Stephen Daye. For this press the colony was mainly indebted to the Rev. Jesse Glover, a nonconformist minister possessed of a considerable estate, who had left England to settle among his friends in Massachusetts. Some gentlemen of Amsterdam also “gave towards furnishing of a printing-press with letters, forty-nine pounds and something more.” This was about 1638. The first book issued was the _Bay Psalm-Book_, in 1640.
The first book issued in the Middle Colonies was an Almanac, printed by William Bradford in 1685, near Philadelphia. Bradford was brought out from England in 1684 by William Penn. As the government of Pennsylvania became very restrictive in regard to the press, Bradford in 1693 removed to New York, and was appointed printer to that colony, where he established in 1725 the _New York Gazette_, the first newspaper published there. He died May 23, 1752, after an active and useful life of eighty-nine years.[5]
The first newspaper in America was the _Boston News Letter_, which was first issued by John Campbell on Monday, April 24, 1704: it was regularly published for nearly seventy-two years. The second was the _Boston Gazette_, begun December 21, 1719. The third was the _American Weekly Mercury_, issued in Philadelphia, by Andrew Bradford, on December 22, 1719. James Franklin, an elder brother of Benjamin, established the _New England Courant_, August 17, 1721.
The oldest living paper of the United States is the _New Hampshire Gazette_, published at Portsmouth, now (Oct. 7, 1892) one hundred and thirty-six years old.
_The North American and United States Gazette_ leads the existing daily press of this country in point of antiquity. It is the successor of the _Pennsylvania Packet_, (begun in 1771 and becoming a daily paper in 1784,) and is still the chief commercial journal of Philadelphia.
The first paper-mill in America was established near Germantown, Pa., in 1690, by William Rittenhouse.[6]
TYPE-FOUNDING IN EUROPE.
For a long period after the discovery of printing, it seems that type-founding, printing, and binding went under the general term of _printing_, and that printers cast the types used by them, and printed and bound the works executed in their establishments. Type-founding became a distinct calling early in the seventeenth century. A decree of the Star Chamber, made July 11, 1637, ordained the following regulations concerning English founders:—
“That there shall be four founders of letters for printing, and no more.
“That the Archbishop of Canterbury, or the Bishop of London, with six other high commissioners, shall supply the places of those four as they shall become void.
“That no master-founder shall keep above two apprentices at one time.
“That all journeyman-founders be employed by the masters of the trade, and that idle journeymen be compelled to work, upon pain of imprisonment and such other punishment as the court shall think fit.
“That no master-founder of letters shall employ any other person in any work belonging to the casting or founding of letters than freemen or apprentices to the trade, save only in pulling off the knots of metal hanging at the end of the letters when they are first cast; in which work every master-founder may employ one boy only, not bound to the trade.”
By the same decree, the number of master-printers in England was limited to twenty.
Regulations like the above were in force till 1693. The “polyglot founders,” as they have been called, were succeeded by Joseph Moxon and others. But the English were unable to compete with the superior productions of the Dutch founders, until the advent of William Caslon, who, by the beauty and excellence of his type, surpassed his Batavian competitors, when the importation of foreign type ceased, and his founts were, in turn, exported to the Continent.
By an act subsequently passed, no founder was to cast any letter for printing, no joiner to make any press, no smith to forge any iron-work for a press; no person to bring from parts beyond the seas any letters founded or cast for printing; nor any person to buy any letters or any other materials belonging unto printing; without application to the master and wardens of the Company of Stationers.
TYPE-FOUNDING IN AMERICA.
A foundry, principally for German type, was established at Germantown, Pennsylvania, about the year 1735, by Christopher Saur, (or Sower,) a printer, who executed in German the first quarto Bible printed in America, as well as other valuable works in the German language. Three editions of the Bible were printed—viz., in the years 1743, 1763, and 1776, the latter two by his son. In 1739, Saur published a newspaper in Germantown.
An abortive attempt was made about 1768 to set up a foundry at Boston by a Mr. Mitchelson from Scotland, and another in Connecticut in 1769 by Abel Buel. In 1775, Dr. Franklin brought from Europe to Philadelphia the materials for a foundry; but little use of them was made.
John Baine, a type-founder of Edinburgh, sent a relative to this country with tools for a foundry at the close of the Revolutionary War, and soon after came over himself. They carried on the business till 1790, when Mr. Baine died, and his kinsman returned to Scotland.
A Dutch founder, Adam G. Mappa, settled at New York about 1787, and cast Dutch and German faces, as well as Roman styles and several Oriental alphabets. Want of capital prevented his success, and many of his matrices passed into the possession of Binny & Ronaldson.[7]
In 1796, type-founding was commenced in Philadelphia by Archibald Binny and James Ronaldson, natives of the city of Edinburgh, where Binny had carried on the same business. Their assortment was not extensive, but it embraced the essential founts,—Brevier, Bourgeois, Long Primer, Small Pica, Pica, and two-line letters. They were obliging and attentive, and in twenty years made a fortune. They improved their foundry according to the increase of printing and the consequent demands of the trade, extending their assortment from Pearl, of 180 lines in a foot, to 12-line Pica, having 6 lines. Binny made an important improvement in the type-mould, by which a caster could cast 6000 letters in a day with as much ease as he before could cast 4000.[8]
According to Holmes’s _American Annals_, about 200 newspapers were printed in the United States in the year 1801, of which 17 were issued daily, 7 three times a week, 30 twice a week, and 146 weekly. There must also have been at the same time as many as 60 offices engaged in miscellaneous printing. The whole business had increased threefold in eleven years. Another type-foundry was put in successful operation in Baltimore, about 1805, by Samuel Sower & Co. It had in it some moulds and matrices which had been used by Christopher Sower, who had printed in Germantown, near Philadelphia, and cast his own types. He printed with German characters; but now the foundry was revived with excellent Roman and Italic letters, and among other extraordinary things it had the size called Diamond, with a smaller face than had ever been cast before. It was the smallest type in the world.
The demand for type was very brisk till the war of 1812 commenced, and the foundries were generally three or four months in arrears in their execution of orders.
The names of the newspapers published in the United States in April, 1810, are given in Thomas’s _History of Printing_, and amount to 359, of which 27 were daily papers, 38 were printed twice, 15 three times, and 279 once in a week. Add those required for general printing, and the whole number of offices could not be less than 500,—being an increase of 240 in nine years, and some of them using several thousand pounds of type for book-printing.
In 1811, Elihu White established a type-foundry in New York. He had been long engaged, in connection with Mr. Wing, in the manufacture of printing types at Hartford, Connecticut, upon a plan of their own invention, by which twenty or thirty letters were cast at once; but, abandoning that invention, he adopted the old plan of casting, and, having a good assortment of faces and bodies, his removal to New York was a great convenience to its printers, and they gave him a very satisfactory support. But the principal business in type-founding still continued, as formerly, to be carried on in Philadelphia.
In 1813, another type-foundry was begun in the city of New York, by D. & G. Bruce, principally to cast types for their own use. They had carried on book-printing for seven years, and had now become acquainted with the stereotype art,—Mr. David Bruce having visited England in 1812 and acquired it by purchase and actual labour. For ordinary printing, it was customary to bevel off the body of the type at the face end, or shoulder, as it is usually called, which unfitted it for making a strong stereotype plate in the most approved way: hence the necessity for casting type expressly for stereotype. Their first fount was Bourgeois, with which they cast two sets of plates of the New Testament, (the Common School Testament,) and sold one of these to Mathew Carey, of Philadelphia, retaining the other for their own business. But these were not completed till 1814. In 1815, they cast the plates of the 12mo School Bible, on Nonpareil type, prepared, like the Bourgeois, at their own foundry expressly for stereotyping. They thus gave the first stereotype School Testament and School Bible to America; but not the first stereotype book. John Watts, of England, also commenced stereotyping in New York in 1813, and completed the Westminster Catechism that year, a volume of 120 pages 12mo. David Bruce invented the planing-machine for equalizing the thickness of stereotype plates, which is now used in every stereotype foundry in the United States. The process of stereotyping is, however, entirely different from that of ordinary type-founding, and it is, therefore, generally carried on as a separate business, or connected with the composing department of a printing-office. Twenty compositors and two proof-readers will furnish full employment for one moulder, one caster, and three finishers, who will, among them, complete, on an average, 50 pages of octavo per day.
In 1818, or soon after, a type and stereotype foundry was established in Boston, and another in Cincinnati, principally through the enterprise of the late Elihu White, who, having the means of multiplying matrices with facility, took this method for the extension of his business. Others followed his example, and type-foundries were established in Albany, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Louisville, and St. Louis, with several additional in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. The business, in fact, was overdone, and failures and suppressions took place, as competition reduced the prices of types.
The mode of type-founding has within forty years undergone important changes, which must no doubt be considered improvements. First among them is the introduction of machine-casting, in which a pump forces the fluid metal into the mould and matrix, and gives a sharper outline to the letter than was formerly given by the most violent throw of the caster. The old practice of casting a single type only at a time remains. The first idea of this machine originated with William M. Johnson, who obtained a patent for it in 1828. Elihu White put it into use in his type-foundry, and persevered in using and trying to improve it as long as he lived; but he did not succeed in removing the greatest fault, which was a hollowness in the body of the types cast by it, that inclined them to sink under the pressure of the printing-press. The first successful type-casting machine was invented by David Bruce, Jr., of New York, and was patented March 17, 1838. The patent was sold to George Bruce, and the machines were used by him until 1845. David Bruce meanwhile patented another machine in 1843, which, with new improvements, patented two years later, gave entire satisfaction, and is now in general use in American foundries. By Bruce’s machine, three times the quantity of type that was cast by Binny & Ronaldson’s improved mould is now cast in a given time, and nearly five times the quantity that was cast by the common hand-mould eighty years ago. This improvement has passed into Europe, and been adopted by most of the German type-founders; but in Great Britain for some time it found little favour. A so-called “automatic machine,” for casting and finishing type, invented by Johnson & Atkinson, is in operation in London; but its rate of production seems to be less than that of the American machine, while, from its multiform operations, the proportion of imperfect type turned out must of necessity be considerably more.
The protection now afforded by the patent laws having checked the piratical production of matrices by electrotyping, (except in plain faces, a practice still pursued by unprincipled type-founders,) the leading founders in this country have been encouraged to produce types of new styles which in beauty and ingenuity surpass those of foreign origin.
There are now three type-foundries in Boston, seven in New York, one in Buffalo, four in Philadelphia, four in Baltimore, two in Cincinnati, four in Chicago, two in Milwaukee, two in St. Louis, one in Richmond, one in St. Paul, one in Cleveland, one in Kansas City, and three in California—in all, thirty-six. Some of these foundries not only supply the printers of the United States, but most of the printers in Canada, some in the British West India Islands, Mexico, South America, China, India and Australasia. American type, in quality, style, and finish, is equal, if not superior, to any made in Europe.
The following are the prices at which plain types have been sold for the last seventy-five years, given at ten different dates, and naming only the principal and most useful sizes:—
+----------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ | |1806.|1811.|1819.|1827.|1831.|1841.|1860.|1866.|1876.|1893.| +----------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ |Pica |$0·44|$0·55|$0·44|$0·42|$0·36|$0·38|$0·32|$0·56|$0·46|$0·32| |Small Pica| ·48| ·58| ·48| ·46| ·38| ·40| ·34| ·58| ·48| ·34| |Lg. Primer| ·56| ·66| ·56| ·50| ·40| ·42| ·36| ·62| ·50| ·36| |Bourgeois | ·66| ·76| ·66| ·58| ·46| ·46| ·40| ·66| ·52| ·38| |Brevier | ·76| ·86| ·76| ·70| ·56| ·54| ·44| ·70| ·55| ·42| |Minion | 1·03| 1·13| 1·00| ·88| ·70| ·66| ·48| ·76| ·58| ·46| |Nonpareil | 1·40| 1·75| 1·40| 1·20| ·90| ·84| ·58| ·84| ·66| ·52| |Agate | | | | 1·44| 1·10| 1·08| ·72| 1·00| ·76| ·60| |Pearl | | | | 1·75| 1·40| 1·40| 1·08| 1·40| 1·20| 1·20| |Diamond | | | | | | | 1·60| 1·80| 1·62| 1·60| +----------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
STEREOTYPING.
Stereotyping is said to have been invented by J. Van der Mey, in Holland, about 1698. A quarto Bible and some other books were printed by him from plates, which were formed by soldering the bottoms of common type together. William Ged, of Edinburgh, discovered the present mode in 1725, and stereotyped parts of the Bible and Prayer-Book. He encountered malicious opposition, and the business was abandoned, the new method dying with the inventor. About 1745, Benjamin Mecom, a nephew of Dr. Franklin, cast plates for a number of the pages of the New Testament. Dr. Alexander Tilloch, of Glasgow, re-discovered the art in 1781. Stereotyping gradually spread, and soon effected a considerable reduction in the cost of books. The arguments that were advanced against its utility have a ridiculous look at the present day, when almost every important work is stereotyped or electrotyped.
Matter for stereotyping is set with high spaces and quadrates. The forms must be small, containing about two pages of common octavo. A slug type-high is put above the top line and another below the foot line of each page, to protect the ends of the plates from injury when they are passed through the shaving-machine. Beveled slugs, in height equal to the shoulder of the type, are placed on both sides and between the pages, to form the flange by which the plate is to be clasped by the hooks of the printing-block.
Before the form is sent into the foundry, the type must be carefully compared with the proof, to detect any errors which may have been left uncorrected. Care must be taken to lock up the form perfectly square and quite tight, to prevent the types from being pulled out when the mould is raised from the pages. It must be evenly planed down, and no ink or dirt or incrustations from the ley be allowed to remain on the surface.
The face of the type being clean and dry, and the bottoms free from particles of dirt, the form is laid on a clean moulding-stone, and brushed over with sweet-oil, which must be laid on as thinly as possible, care being taken that the entire surface of the types is covered. A moulding-frame, with a screw at each corner, (called a _flask_,) and fitting neatly to the form, is next placed around it.
The material for moulding is finely ground gypsum, nine parts of which are mixed with about seven parts of water, and well stirred up. A small quantity of the liquid mixture is poured over the pages, and gently pressed into the counter of the types with a small roller, for the purpose of expelling confined air; after which, the remainder of the gypsum is poured in, until the mould is somewhat higher than the upper edge of the flask. In a few minutes the mixture sets, and the upper side is smoothed over with a steel straight-edge. In about ten minutes the mould is gently raised by means of the screws at the corners of the flask; and, after being nicely trimmed at the sides, and nicked on the surface-edges to make openings for the metal to run in, it is placed on a shelf in an oven, and allowed to remain until the moisture has quite evaporated.
The casting-pans may be large enough to hold three or four moulds. The dried moulds are placed in a pan face downward, upon a movable iron plate called a floater. The cover of the casting-pan, which has a hole at each corner for the passage of the metal, is then clamped to it, and lifted by a movable crane and gently lowered into the metal-pot,—containing, it may be, a thousand pounds of liquid metal,—till the metal begins to flow slowly in at the corners. When the pan is filled, it is sunk to the bottom of the pot. The metal should be hot enough to light a piece of brown paper held in it. After being immersed eight or ten minutes, the pan is steadily drawn out by means of the crane, and swung over to the cooling-trough, into which it is lowered and placed upon a stone so as just to touch the water, in order that the metal at the bottom of the pan may cool first. The metal contracts while cooling, and the caster occasionally pours in a small quantity at the corners from a ladle, till it will take no more. It may be here remarked that some stereotypers do not dry the moulds, but immerse them in a green condition into the metal.
The plates are carefully removed from the solid mass which comes out of the pan, and the plaster is washed from the surface. If, after examination, the face is good and sharply set, the plates are passed over to a picker, who removes any slight defects arising from an imperfection of the mould. They are then trimmed and passed through the shaving-machine, till all are brought to an equal thickness. The flanges are neatly side-planed, and the plates are then boxed, ready for the printing-press.
In England, the plates are merely turned on the back, and consequently vary in thickness. This must be a source of continual expense and annoyance to the pressman. The flanges, besides, are very imperfectly made,—so imperfectly that they cannot be used on American printing-blocks; and English plates, when imported into this country, are therefore sent to a foundry here, to be brought to an equal thickness and to be properly side-planed. An order given some years ago by an English printer for a set of American printing-blocks was afterward countermanded, on account of the prejudice against the introduction of new things.
Several methods of stereotyping are now practised. Many of the leading newspapers of England and America are printed from stereotype plates cast in moulds made of prepared paper: this mode, however, yields very inferior plates, quite unfit for fine books.
Another method, styled the “mud-process,” is by spreading a thin coating of pulverized soapstone and gypsum over an iron plate, and a mould is then obtained by pressing the coated face against a page of type. Several of these mould-plates are then set on end in an iron box, separated from one another by a wire of the thickness of the stereotype desired, and hot metal is poured in. This is a very expeditious process, though not so good as the old method.