How were books printed in the 1960s?

Technique of relief printing using a printing press

This article is about the art and technique of relief printing with a printing press. For a historical account of its origins and societal impact, see printing press

A printer in Leipzig inspecting a large forme of type on a cylinder press in 1952. Each of the islands of text represents a single page. The darker blocks are images. The whole bed of type is printed on a single sheet of paper, which is then folded and cut to form many individual pages of a book. The general form of letterpress printing with a platen press shows the relationship between the forme (the type), the pressure, the ink, and the paper.

Letterpress printing is a technique of relief printing for producing many copies by repeated direct impression of an inked, raised surface against individual sheets of paper or a continuous roll of paper.[1] A worker composes and locks movable type into the "bed" or "chase" of a press, inks it, and presses paper against it to transfer the ink from the type, which creates an impression on the paper.

In practice, letterpress also includes wood engravings; photo-etched zinc plates ("cuts"); linoleum blocks, which can be used alongside metal type; wood type in a single operation; stereotypes; and electrotypes of type and blocks.[2] With certain letterpress units, it is also possible to join movable type with slugs cast using hot metal typesetting. In theory, anything that is "type high" (i.e. it forms a layer exactly 0.918 inches thick between the bed and the paper) can be printed using letterpress.[3]

Letterpress printing was the normal form of printing text from its invention by Johannes Gutenberg in the mid-15th century through the 19th century, and remained in wide use for books and other uses until the second half of the 20th century. The development of offset printing in the early 20th century gradually supplanted its role in printing books and newspapers. More recently, letterpress printing has seen a revival in an artisanal form.

History

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Printer operating a Gutenberg-style screw press

Movable type printing was first invented in China using ceramic type in AD 1040 during the Northern Song dynasty by the inventor Bi Sheng (990–1051).[4]

Johannes Gutenberg is credited with the development in the West, in about 1440, of modern movable type printing from individually cast, reusable letters set together in a "forme" (frame or chase). Gutenberg also invented a wooden printing press, based on the extant wine press, where the type surface was inked with leather-covered ink balls and paper laid carefully on top by hand, then slid under a padded surface and pressure applied from above by a large threaded screw. It was Gutenberg's "screw press" or hand press that was used to print 180 copies of the Bible. At 1,282 pages, it took him and his staff of 20 almost 3 years to complete. 48 copies remain intact today.[5] This form of presswork gradually replaced the hand-copied manuscripts of scribes and illuminators as the most prevalent form of printing.[6] Printers' workshops, previously unknown in Europe before the mid-15th century, were found in every important metropolis by 1500.[6] Later metal presses used a knuckle and lever arrangement instead of the screw, but the principle was the same. Ink rollers made of composition made inking faster and paved the way for further automation.

Industrialization

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1917 press room, using a line shaft power system. At right are several small platen jobbing presses, at left, a cylinder press.

With the advent of industrial mechanisation, inking was carried out by rollers that passed over the face of the type, then moved out of the way onto an ink plate to pick up a fresh film of ink for the next sheet. Meanwhile, a sheet of paper slid against a hinged platen (see image), which then rapidly pressed onto the type and swung back again as the sheet was removed and the next sheet inserted. As the fresh sheet of paper replaced the printed paper, the now freshly inked rollers ran over the type again. Fully automated 20th-century presses, such as the Kluge and "Original" Heidelberg Platen (the "Windmill"), incorporated pneumatic sheet feed and delivery.

Rotary presses were used for high-speed work. In the oscillating press, the forme slid under a drum around which each sheet of paper was wrapped for the impression, sliding back under the inking rollers while the paper was removed and a new sheet inserted. In a newspaper press, a papier-mâché mixture called a flong was used to make a mould of the entire form of type, then dried and bent, and a curved metal stereotype plate cast against it. The plates were clipped to a rotating drum and could print against a continuous reel of paper at the enormously high speeds required for overnight newspaper production. This invention helped aid the high demand for knowledge during this time period.

North American history

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Canada

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Letterpress printing was introduced in Canada in 1752 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, by John Bushell in the newspaper format.[7] This paper was named the Halifax Gazette and became Canada's first newspaper. Bushell apprenticed under Bartholomew Green in Boston. Green moved to Halifax in 1751 in hopes of starting a newspaper, as there had never been one in the area. Two weeks and a day after the press he was going to use for this new project arrived in Halifax, Green died. Upon receiving word about what happened, Bushell moved to Halifax and continued what Green had started. The Halifax Gazette was first published on March 23, 1752, making Bushell the first letterpress printer in any of the areas that later became Canada. There is only one known surviving copy of the first number, which was found in the Massachusetts Historical Society.[8]

United States

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One of the first forms of letterpress printing in the United States was Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick started by Benjamin Harris. This was the first form of a newspaper with multiple pages in the Americas. The first publication of Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick was September 25, 1690.[9]

Revival and rise of craft letterpress

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Proof press, 1850

Letterpress started to become largely out-of-date in the 1970s because of the rise of computers and new self-publishing print and publish methods. Many printing establishments went out of business from the 1980s to 1990s and sold their equipment after computers replaced letterpress's abilities more efficiently. These commercial print shops discarded presses, making them affordable and available to artisans throughout the country. Popular presses include, in particular, Vandercook cylinder proof presses and Chandler & Price platen presses. In the UK there is particular affection for the Arab press, built by Josiah Wade in Halifax. Letterpress recently has had a rebirth in popularity because of the "allure of hand-set type"[10] and the differences today between traditional letterpress and computerized printed text. Letterpress is unique and different from standard printing formats that we are currently used to. Letterpress commonly features a relief impression of the type, although this was considered bad printing in traditional letterpress.[11] Letterpress's goal before the recent revival of letterpress was to not show any impression. The type touched the paper slightly to leave a transfer of ink, but did not leave an impression. This is often referred to as "the kiss".[12] An example of this former technique would be newspapers. Some letterpress practitioners today have the distinct goal of showing the impression of type, to distinctly note that it is letterpress, but many printers choose to maintain the integrity of the traditional methods. Printing with too much impression is destructive to both the machines and to the type. Since its revival letterpress has largely been used for fine art and stationery as its traditional use for newspaper printing is no longer relevant for use.

Letterpress is considered a craft as it involves using a skill and is done by hand. Fine letterpress work is crisper than offset litho because of its impression into the paper, giving greater visual definition to the type and artwork, although it is not what letterpress traditionally was meant for. Today, many of these small letterpress shops survive by printing fine editions of books or by printing upscale invitations, stationery, and greeting cards. These methods often use presses that require the press operator to feed paper one sheet at a time by hand. Today, the juxtaposition of this technique and offbeat humor for greeting cards has been proven by letterpress shops to be marketable to independent boutiques and gift shops. Some of these printmakers are just as likely to use new printing methods as old, for instance by printing using photopolymer plates on restored vintage presses.[citation needed]

Evidence of the range and strength of contemporary letterpress printing across North America was documented in The Itinerant Printer, a 320-page book with 1,500 color photos by Christopher Fritton. From 2015 - 2017 Fritton, a poet, printer, and artist, crisscrossed the United States and Canada traveling 47,000 miles as a “tramp printer” visiting 137 presses, recording his impressions of each studio and documenting the proprietors and their work. A full set of prints and postcards from his travels while researching the book is in the collection of the Library of Congress. Included in many libraries,[13] the book was the subject of Fritton's talks at a Buffalo, New York TED (conference),[14] at the Library of Congress,[15] and at the Los Angeles Printers Fair 2018.[16]

Martha Stewart's influence

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Letterpress publishing has recently undergone a revival in the US, Canada, and the UK, under the general banner of the "Small Press Movement".[17] Renewed interest in letterpress was fueled by Martha Stewart Weddings magazine, which began using pictures of letterpress invitations in the 1990s.[18] In 2004 they state "Great care is taken in choosing the perfect wedding stationery – couples ponder details from the level of formality to the flourishes of the typeface. The method of printing should be no less important, as it can enliven the design exquisitely. That is certainly the case with letterpress."[19] In regards to having printed letterpress invitations, the beauty and texture became appealing to couples who began wanting letterpress invitations instead of engraved, thermographed, or offset-printed invitations.

A modern letterpress workshop at the Basel Paper Mill, Basel, Switzerland

Education

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The movement has been helped by the emergence of a number of organizations that teach letterpress such as Columbia College Chicago's Center for Book and Paper Arts, Art Center College of Design and Armory Center for the Arts both in Pasadena, Calif., New York's Center for Book Arts, Studio on the Square and The Arm NYC, the Wells College Book Arts Center in Aurora, New York, the San Francisco Center for the Book, Bookworks, Seattle's School of Visual Concepts, Olympia's The Evergreen State College, Black Rock Press, North Carolina State University, Washington, D.C.'s Corcoran College of Art and Design, Penland School of Crafts, the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, the International Printing Museum in Carson, CA, Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA, Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA, and the Bowehouse Press at VCU in Richmond, VA.

Economical materials

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Affordable copper, magnesium and photopolymer platemakers and milled aluminum bases have allowed letterpress printers to produce type and images derived from digital artwork, fonts and scans. Economical plates have encouraged the rise of "digital letterpress" in the 21st century, allowing a small number of firms to flourish commercially and enabling a larger number of boutique and hobby printers to avoid the limitations and complications of acquiring and composing metal type. At the same time there has been a renaissance in small-scale type foundries to produce new metal type on Monotype equipment, Thompson casters and the original American Type Founders machines.[citation needed]

Process

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The process of letterpress printing consists of several stages: composition, imposition and lock-up, and printing. In a small shop, all would occur in a single room, whereas in larger printing plants, such as with urban newspapers and magazines, each might form a distinct department with its own room, or even floor.

Composition

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Tools for composing by hand: block of type tied up, a composing stick, a bodkin, and string, all resting in a type galley.

Composition, or typesetting, is the stage where pieces of movable type are assembled to form the desired text. The person charged with composition is called a "compositor" or "typesetter", setting letter by letter and line by line.

Traditionally, as in manual composition, it involves selecting the individual type letters from a type case, placing them in a composing stick, which holds several lines, then transferring those to a larger type galley. By this method the compositor gradually builds out the text of an individual page letter by letter. In mechanical typesetting, it may involve using a keyboard to select the type, or even cast the desired type on the spot, as in hot metal typesetting, which are then added to a galley designed for the product of that process. The first keyboard-actuated typesetting machines to be widely accepted, the Linotype and the Monotype, were introduced in the 1890s.[1]

The Ludlow Typograph Machine, for casting of type-high slugs from hand-gathered brass matrices, was first manufactured in Chicago in 1912 and was widely used until the 1980s. Many are still in use and although no longer manufactured, service and parts are still available for them.

The Elrod machine, invented in 1920, casts strip material from molten metal; leads and slugs that are not type-high (do not print) used for spacing between lines and to fill blank areas of the type page.

After a galley is assembled to fill a page's worth of type, the type is tied together into a single unit so that it may be transported without falling apart. From this bundle a galley proof is made, which is inspected by a proof-reader to make sure that the particular page is accurate.

Imposition

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A single-page forme for printing the front page of the New Testament. The black frame surrounding it is the "chase", and the two objects each on the bottom and left side are the "quoins"

Broadly, imposition or imposing is the process by which the tied assemblages of type are converted into a form (or forme) ready to use on the press. A person charged with imposition is a stoneman or stonehand, doing their work on a large, flat imposition stone (though some later ones were instead made of iron).

In the more specific modern sense, imposition is the technique of arranging the various pages of type with respect to one another. Depending on page size and the sheet of paper used, several pages may be printed at once on a single sheet. After printing, these are cut and trimmed before folding or binding. In these steps, the imposition process ensures that the pages face the right direction and in the right order with the correct margins.

Low-height pieces of wood or metal furniture are added to make up the blank areas of a page. The printer uses a mallet to strike a wooden block, which ensures tops (and only the tops) of the raised type blocks are all aligned so they will contact a flat sheet of paper simultaneously.

Lock-up is the final step before printing. The printer removes the cords that hold the type together, and expands the quoins with a key or lever to lock the entire complex of type, blocks, furniture, and chase (frame) into place. This creates the final forme, which the printer takes to the printing press. In a newspaper setting, each page needs a truck to be transported – 2 pages need 2 trucks hence the term double truck. The first copy is proofed again for errors before starting the printing run.

Printing

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Printing press, engraving by W Lowry after John Farey Jr., 1819

The working of the printing process depends on the type of press used, as well as any of its associated technologies (which varied by time period).

Hand presses generally required two people to operate them: one to ink the type, the other to work the press. Later mechanized jobbing presses require a single operator to feed and remove the paper, as the inking and pressing are done automatically.

The completed sheets are then taken to dry and for finishing, depending on the variety of printed matter being produced. With newspapers, they are taken to a folding machine. Sheets for books are sent for bookbinding.

The output of traditional letterpress printing can be distinguished from that of a digital printer by its debossed lettering or imagery. A traditional letterpress printer made a heavy impression into the stock and producing any indentation at all into the paper would have resulted in the print run being rejected. Part of the skill of operating a traditional letterpress printer was to adjust the machine pressures just right so that the type just kissed the paper, transferring the minimum amount of ink to create the crispest print with no indentation. This was very important as when the print exited the machine and was stacked having too much wet ink and an indentation would have increased the risk of set-off (ink passing from the front of one sheet onto the back of the next sheet on the stack).[20]

Photopolymer plates

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The letterpress printing process remained virtually unchanged until the 1950s when it was replaced with the more efficient and commercially viable offset printing process. The labor-intensive nature of the typesetting and need to store vast amounts of lead or wooden type resulted in the letterpress printing process falling out of favour.

In the 1980s dedicated letterpress practitioners revived the old craft by embracing a new manufacturing method[21] which allowed them to create raised surface printing plates from a negative and a photopolymer plate.[22]

Photopolymer plates are light sensitive. On one side the surface is cured when it is exposed to ultraviolet light and the other side is a metal or plastic backing that can be mounted on a base. The relief printing surface is created by placing a negative of the piece to be printed on the photosensitive side of the plate; the light passing through the clear regions of the negative causes the photopolymer to harden. The unexposed areas remain soft and can be washed away with water.

With these new printing plates, designers were no longer inhibited by the limitations of handset wooden or lead type. New design possibilities emerged and the letterpress printing process experienced a revival. Today it is in high demand for wedding stationery however there are limitations to what can be printed and designers must adhere to some design for letterpress principles.[23]

Variants on the letterpress

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The invention of ultra-violet curing inks has helped keep the rotary letterpress alive in areas like self-adhesive labels. There is also still a large amount of flexographic printing, a similar process, which uses rubber plates to print on curved or awkward surfaces, and a lesser amount of relief printing from huge wooden letters for lower-quality poster work.

Rotary letterpress machines are still used on a wide scale for printing self-adhesive and non-self-adhesive labels, tube laminate, cup stock, etc. The printing quality achieved by a modern letterpress machine with UV curing is on par with flexo presses. It is more convenient and user friendly than a flexo press. It uses water-wash photopolymer plates, which are as good as any solvent-washed flexo plate. Today even CtP (computer-to-plate) plates are available making it a full-fledged, modern printing process. Because there is no anilox roller in the process, the make-ready time also goes down when compared to a flexo press. Inking is controlled by keys very much similar to an offset press. UV inks for letterpress are in paste form, unlike flexo. Various manufacturers produce UV rotary letterpress machines, viz. Dashen, Nickel, Taiyo Kikai, KoPack, Gallus, etc. – and offer hot/cold foil stamping, rotary die cutting, flatbed die cutting, sheeting, rotary screen printing, adhesive side printing, and inkjet numbering. Central impression presses are more popular than inline presses due to their ease of registration and simple design. Printing of up to nine colours plus varnish is possible with various online converting processes. But as the letterpress machines are the same like a decade before, they can furthermore only be used with one colour of choice simultaneously. If there are more colours needed, they have to be exchanged one after the other.[24]

Craftsmanship

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Wooden type for English printing

Letterpress can produce work of high quality at high speed, but it requires much time to adjust the press for varying thicknesses of type, engravings, and plates called makeready.[1] The process requires a high degree of craftsmanship. It is used by many small presses that produce fine, handmade, limited-edition books, artists' books, and high-end ephemera such as greeting cards and broadsides. Because of the time needed to make letterpress plates and to prepare the press, setting type by hand has become less common with the invention of the photopolymer plate, a photosensitive plastic sheet that can be mounted on metal to bring it up to type high.[1]

To bring out the best attributes of letterpress, printers must understand the capabilities and advantages of the medium. For instance, since most letterpress equipment prints only one color at a time, printing multiple colors requires a separate press run in register with the preceding color. When offset printing arrived in the 1950s, it cost less, and made the color process easier.[25] The inking system on letterpress equipment is the same as offset presses, posing problems for some graphics. Detailed, white (or "knocked out") areas, such as small, serif type, or very fine halftone surrounded by fields of color can fill in with ink and lose definition if rollers are not adjusted correctly.

Current initiatives

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Preparation for the Virgil Scott Letterpress Exhibit at Texas A&M University–Commerce in January 2015 The Virgil Scott Letterpress Exhibit

Several dozen colleges and universities around the United States have either begun or re-activated programs teaching letterpress printing in fully equipped facilities. In many cases these letterpress shops are affiliated with the college's library or art department, and in others they are independent, student-run operations or extracurricular activities sponsored by the college. The College & University Letterpress Printers' Association (CULPA) was founded in 2006 by Abigail Uhteg at the Maryland Institute College of Art to help these schools stay connected and share resources. Many universities offer degree programs such as: Oregon College of Art and Craft, Southwest School of Art, Middle Tennessee State University, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Indiana University, Miami University, Corcoran College of Art and Design, and Rochester Institute of Technology.[26]

The current renaissance of letterpress printing has created a crop of hobby press shops that are owner-operated and driven by a love of the craft. Several larger printers have added an environmental component to the venerable art by using only wind-generated electricity to drive their presses and plant equipment. Notably, a few small boutique letterpress shops are using only solar power.

In Berkeley, California, letterpress printer and lithographer David Lance Goines maintains a studio with a variety of platen and cylinder letterpresses as well as lithography presses.[27] He has drawn attention both from commercial printers and fine artists for his wide knowledge and meticulous skill with letterpress printing. He collaborated with restaurateur and free speech activist Alice Waters, the owner of Chez Panisse, on her book 30 Recipes Suitable for Framing.[28] He has created strikingly colorful large posters for such Bay Area businesses and institutions as Acme Bread and UC Berkeley.[27] Another Berkeley letterpress printer is Peter Rutledge Koch, who focuses on artist books and small published books.[29]

In London, St Bride Library houses a large collection of letterpress information in its collection of 50,000 books: all the classic works on printing technique, visual style, typography, graphic design, calligraphy and more. This is one of the world's foremost collections and is located off Fleet Street in the heart of London's old printing and publishing district. In addition, regular talks, conferences, exhibitions and demonstrations take place.

The St Bride Institute, Edinburgh College of Art, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, The Arts University Bournemouth, Plymouth University, University for the Creative Arts Farnham, London College of Communication and Camberwell College of the Arts London run short courses in letterpress as well as offering these facilities as part of their Graphic Design Degree Courses.

The Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, houses one of the largest collections of wood type and wood cuts in the world inside one of the Hamilton Manufacturing Company's factory buildings. Also included are presses and vintage prints. The museum holds many workshops and conferences throughout the year and regularly welcomes groups of students from universities from across the United States.

In 2015, the New York Times reported a renaissance of letterpress printing as an art form.[30]

See also

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• Amateur press association – Group of people who self-publish material among themselves
• Offset ink – Type of ink used with offset printing presse
• Punchcutting – Craft used in traditional typography
• List of stationery topics

References

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Further reading

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• Blumenthal, Joseph. (1973) Art of the printed book, 1455–1955.
• Blumenthal, Joseph. (1977) The Printed Book in America.
• Jury, David (2004). Letterpress: The Allure of the Handmade.
• Lange, Gerald. (1998) Printing digital type on the hand-operated flatbed cylinder press.
• Ryder, John (1977), "Printing for Pleasure, A Practical Guide for Amateurs"
• Stevens, Jen. (2001). Making Books: Design in British Publishing since 1940.
• Ryan, David. (2001). Letter Perfect: The Art of Modernist Typography, 1896–1953.
• Drucker, Johanna. (1997). The Visible Word : Experimental Typography and Modern Art, 1909–1923.
• Auchincloss, Kenneth. "The Second Revival: Fine Printing since World War II". In Printing History No. 41: pp. 3–11.
• Cleeton, Glen U. & Pitkin, Charles W. with revisions by Cornwell, Raymond L. (1963) "General Printing – An illustrated guide to letterpress printing, with hundreds of step-by-step photos".

Videos

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ca. 3100 BCECuneiform, one of the earliest known writing systems developed in Sumer (modern day Iraq). Wedge-shaped marks were made on clay tablets by a blunt stylus cut from a reed. ca. 3000Papyrus plant, paper-like material used as a writing surface in Egypt.
Ink from lamp-black made in China. ca. 500Amate, a beaten paper-like material, made in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. ca. 200Parchment, a material made from processed animal skin, used as a writing surface in Pergamon (Anatolian Greece, Asia Minor, now Turkey). 105 CEInvention of the papermaking process credited to Ts'ai Lun [Cai Lun] a palace advisor during the Han Dynasty of China. ca. 500Papermaking in Samarkand (modern day Uzbekistan). 711Moors invade Spain, introducing papermaking techniques from the east. 794Papermill established in Baghdad, Abbasid dynasty ( present day Iraq). ca. 800Book of Kells illuminated Latin manuscript Gospel produced in Britain and Ireland. 868The oldest dated printed text known: The Diamond Sutra, a Chinese translation of a Buddhist text now preserved in the British Library. 932Chinese printers adapt Wood-block printing to mass-produce classical books. 1041Movable type, made from baked clay, invented in China. 1151First papermill in Europe at Xàtiva (Spain). 1239The oldest Metal-Movable-Type printed book is "The Song of Enlightenment with Commentaries by Buddhist Monk Nammyeong Cheon (南明泉和尙頌證道歌)”. (The Goryeo (高麗) Dynasty of Korea) 1282Watermarks first used in Italian-made paper. 1298Marco Polo reported seeing the printing of paper money in China. 1309Paper first used in England. 1377The world's second oldest extant book printed with movable metal type Baekun Hwasang Chorok Buljo Jikji Simche Yojeol (Korean: 백운화상초록불조직지심체요절, 白雲和尙抄錄佛祖直指心體要節, Anthology of Great Buddhist Priests' Zen Teachings) published in Cheungju (淸州), Korea, now at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF). It is often abbreviated to Jikji (직지, 直指). 1403Guild of Stationers, consisting of booksellers, scribes, illustrators and bookbinders, founded in London. 1423European wood block print: St. Christopher with the infant Christ. 1430sEngraving, combined with drypoint, was first used for intaglio printing plates in Germany 1438–44Adjustable type mold developed by Johannes Gutenberg in Mainz (Germany). 1454First dated European document: a papal indulgence attributed to Gutenberg. 1455Gutenberg's Bible completed by his creditor Johann Fust and his own workman Peter Schoeffer. 1457First printed colophon in the Psalter by Fust and Schoeffer. It also had the first error: "Spalmorum" instead of Psalmorum. Corrected in subsequent editions. 1462Fust and Schoeffer first to use a printer's mark. 1464Arnold Pannartz and Konrad Sweinheim, first printers in Italy (Subiaco) and first to use a Roman printing type. 1465Drypoint engraving developed in Germany.
Greek type used in Cicero's De officiis printed by Fust and Schoeffer. 1473The Constance Gradual, the earliest printed music (after the single line of music in the 1457 Mainz Psalter).
William Caxton prints the first book in English, Recuyell of the Historyes of Troy, in Bruges in collaboration with the Flemish printer Colard Mansion. Three years later Caxton then set up a printshop in England. 1476Intaglio used for book illustration, a printmaking techniques in which the image is incised into a surface, and the incision line or sunken area holds the ink. It is the opposite of relief printing such as letterpress.
First modern title page in Regiomontanus's Kalendario printed by Erhard Ratdolt in Venice. 1478Printing begins at Oxford University. 1486Erhard Ratdolt issues earliest known type specimen in Venice. 1493Nuremberg Chronicle one of the first books to successfully integrate illustrations and text. 1495Paper mill established in England. ca.1495Etching developed by metalsmith Daniel Hopfer in Augsburg (Germany). 1498–1501Odhecaton, book of music printed from movable type. 1499Woodcut of a printing press appears in La Grande Danse Macabre printed by Matthias Huss at Lyon. 1501Italic type and small format books introduced by Aldus Manutius in Venice. 1514Book of Hours printed in Arabic types in Fano (Italy). 1520–23Babylonian Talmud printed by Daniel Bomberg in Venice. 1529Champfleury published by Geoffroy Tory in Paris. It promoted grammar, punctuation and letterform proportion. 1530Claude Garamond designs a Roman typeface in Paris. 1537–38Paganino and Alessandro Paganini produced the first printed edition of the Qur'an in Arabic (Venice). 1539Juan Pablos (Giovanni Paoli) became the first printer in North America (Mexico City). 1545Claude Garamond designs his typeface; forms first independent foundry. 1563Printing in France forbidden without royal permission under penalty of death. 1568–1573Biblia Polyglotta printed in five languages by Christopher Plantin in Antwerp. 1569Mercator's world map, his projection was a boon to navigation. 1584The University Press at Cambridge begins operation, and has done so continuously since. It lays claim to being both the world's oldest university press in and the oldest printing & publishing house. ca. 1600Spain outlaws papermaking in its New World colonies. 1605German language newspaper Relation aller Fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien (Strasbourg). 1611Publication of the first edition of the King James Bible 1623Shakespeare's First Folio published. 1639The Bay Psalm Book, the first book printed in the American colonies (Cambridge). 1642Mezzotint, the first tonal method to produce half-tones without using line- or dot-based techniques such as cross-hatching or stippleling. It is achieved by roughening the plate with thousands of little dots made by a metal tool with small teeth called a "rocker." 1665The Oxford Gazette, first regularly published English newspaper. Charles II moved his family (and the newspaper) back to London in 1666. 1683Mechanick Exercises on The Whole Art of Printing by Joseph Moxon, the first manual on printing. 1690Papermaking in America (Philadelphia).
Newspaper published in America, Publick Occurrences, Both Foreign and Domestick (Boston). 1692Romain du Roi, the first produced type based rational design. Influenced the later transitional typefaces of Pierre Simon Fournier and John Baskerville. 1698Public library opens in Charleston, South Carolina. 1702Daily newspaper in England, the Daily Courant. 1710Statute of Anne regulates copyright in Great Britain. 1725Coloritto by Jacob Christoph Le Blon. Described a RYB three-color printing process. 1728Stereotype printing plates developed. It was means of reproducing composed type forms to prevent wear of original types and free them for other use. 1731Library Company of Philadelphia, first American subscription library, founded by Benjamin Franklin and fellow members of the Junto, a club for mutual improvement. 1733Poor Richard's Almanack, published by Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 1735Publisher John Peter Zenger acquitted of libel in colonial New York City, setting the legal standard. 1743Joh. Enschedé began manufacturing type in Haarlem (The Netherlands). 1750John Baskerville designs a typeface in Cambridge, England. 1751Diderot's Encyclopédie published in France. 1752Canada's first newspaper the Halifax Gazette in Nova Scotia. 1755A Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson.
The Printer's Grammar by John Smith. 1757Wove paper developed by James Whatman for Baskerville's Virgil. 1764Manuel Typographique by Pierre-Simon Fournier. A treatise on the history of French types and printing. 1768Encyclopædia Britannica 1775Common Sense by Thomas Paine.
Wood engraving developed by Thomas Bewick.
Kibyoshi, Japanese picture books, birth of the graphic novel. 1776Declaration of Independence printed July 4 by John Dunlap. 1780A typographic point system developed by (and later named for) François-Ambroise Didot. Based on the pre-metric French inch. 1790William Nicholson (1753–1815) patents cylindrical printing press, London. 1786Philadelphia printers conduct first successful strike for increased wages. 1793The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake. 1796Lithography invented by Alois Senefelder.
Binny & Ronaldson type foundry established in Philadelphia. 1798Giambattista Bodoni designs a typeface in Parma (Italy). 1803An all iron hand press built by Charles Mahon, third Earl of Stanhope.
Fourdrinier continuous web papermaking machine. 1803Fourdrinier continuous web papermaking machine. 1805R. Hoe & Company, a printing press manufacturer, established in New York.
Carbon paper developed 1806Canada's first French language newspaper Le Canadien published in Quebec City until 1810. 1810Composition ink rollers developed in London to replace ink balls.
The History of Printing in America by Isaiah Thomas 1813George Clymer develops the Columbian printing press, a cast-iron hand press featuring a lever, which replaced the simple screw mechanism for lowering the platen. It is distinguished by its bald eagle counterweight at top. 1814Steam-powered, cylinder printing press, built by Frederick Koenig and Conrad Bauer installed at The Times in London. 1816Sans-serif type shown in a specimen by William Caslon IV. 1818Manual Tipografico by Giambattista Bodoni, posthumously published by his widow in Parma.
Stephenson Blake typefoundry established in Sheffield, England. 1820sPhotoengraving process emerges.
Albion press iron hand press developed by Richard Whittaker Cope. Its simple toggle action is an improvement on the complex lever-mechanism of the Columbian press and the Stanhope press.
American Daniel Treadwell developed the first bed and platen press powered by a treadle (London). 1821Commercial lithographic firm established by William Armand Genet Barnet and Isaac Doolittle. 1823Newly-founded Republic of Mexico establishes a Government Printing Office in Mexico City, inside the National Palace. 1824Books bound in cloth issued by William Pickering in London. 1825Typographia by Thomas Curson Hansard
Louis John Pouchée, a London typefounder, produces ornamented types now regarded among the best of their kind. 1826Daniel Fanshaw, NYC, arguably the first "production printer of the machine age." Using Treadwell presses, he held the contracts for the American Bible Society and the American Tract Society. Active till about 1846."
Paper first made in the Toronto area from rags in by Eastwood and Skinner. 1827John B. Russwurm establishes Freedom's Journal, first African-American newspaper in New York.
Means for mass-producing wood type invented by Darius Wells in New York.
Mass-produced newspaper, The New York Sun, "the penny press." 1827–38Audubon's The Birds of America. Hand-colored, life-size prints, often referred to its large size as the double elephant folio. 1828Darius Wells published the first known catalogue of wood type.
Wells introduced the lateral router for cutting endgrain wood type which, when combined with the pantograph in 1834, created the essential wood type making machinery that lasted over 150 years. 1829Louis Braille develops a tactile writing system used by the blind. 1830Adams Power Press introduced.
Calendered paper produced in England. 1830sPaperback books appear in England and Ireland. 1834London Union of Compositors formed by the merger of the London Trade Society of Compositors and the London General Trade Society of Compositors.
Darius introduced the lateral router for cutting endgrain wood type which, when combined with the pantograph created the essential wood type making machinery that lasted over 150 years.
Augustin Zamorano establishes a printing operation at Monterrey, Alta California, the first on the western seaboard of North America. 1835Padre Martinez brings the first printing press to New Mexico. 1837Chromolithography (multicolor printing). 1838Electrotype plates invented by Moritz von Jacobi.
First successful type casting machine patented in the U.S. by David Bruce Jr. 1839Practical photography developed.
After acquiring a small handpress from a Hawaiian mission, Henry Spaulding establishes the Lapwai Mission Press in Northwestern Idaho and prints the first book produced west of the Rocky Mountains in the Nez Perce language. 1841First paperback books are published by Tauchnitz Verlag in Germany
A system of syllabic signs for the Cree language compiled by James Evans in Manitoba. 1843Rotary letterpress developed. 1844Paper cutter patented by Guillaume Massiquot.
1844 Toronto Typographical Union established, the oldest trade union in Canada. 1849Thomas Howard forms by hand in Salt Lake City the first paper produced in the arid North American West. The paper was used to produce binder's board and in the local newspaper, the Deseret News. 1850New York Printers' Union founded.
Heidelberg printing press manufacturer established in Heidelberg, Germany. 1851Platen job press developed by George Phineas Gordon.
Paper made from wood pulp. 1852National Typographical Union founded in the United States. 1853Mary Ann Shadd Cary (1823–1893) founded The Provincial Freeman in Windsor, Ontario. The first female Black woman publisher in North America and the first woman publisher in Canada. 1855The Bank of England issues modern standardized bank notes. 1856Paper folding machine. 1857Work begins on The Oxford English Dictionary. 1860Rotary gravure printing press developed. 1861Confederates capture Mesilla (New Mexico Territory) and throw the local printing press into the Rio Grande 1866American Printer. A Manual of Typography by Thomas MacKellar. 1869National Typographical Union (U.S.) changes name to International Typographical Union to include Canada. First to admit women as members.
Golding & Co., a manufacturer of platen printing presses, founded in Boston. 1870Collotype, or photogelatin printing.
Shniedewend & Lee, a printing equipment manufacturer, founded in Chicago. 1871Daily Yokohama Mainichi Shimbun first newspaper in Japan established. 1873Barnhart Brothers & Spindler (called Great Western Type Foundry until 1883). Bought out by American Type Founders in 1911. 1875Rotary offset lithographic printing press developed.
Mimeograph invented by Thomas Edison. 1876Plantin-Moretus Museum established in Antwerp on the premises of the printing house founded by Christophe Plantin in the sixteenth century. 1879Benday process for production of color images in newspapers.
Gestetner Cyclograph stencil method duplicator.
Smyth sewing machine for bookbinding. 1880Halftone printed from a photograph: "A Scene in Shantytown" in the New York Daily Graphic.
Printers' International Specimen Exchange an influential annual subscription publication that ran until 1898.
James E. Hamilton of Two Rivers, Wisconsin opened a wood type factory in which scroll-sawed veneer wood type was made. The company later switched to endgrain router-made wood type and operated until around 1990. See Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum. 1881Halftone process patented by Frederic Ives.
Chandler & Price, a printing equipment maufacturer, founded in Cleveland, Ohio. Production ceased in 1964. 1883The Inland Printer trade journal founded in Chicago.
The Yellow Pages.
A. B. Dick Company, manufacturer of offset presses, copy machines and office supplies, founded in Chicago. 1884Grolier Club, a bibliophilic organization, founded in New York. 1886Linotype, the first successful automatic typesetting machine developed. The New York Tribune was the first newspaper to install one.
U.S. Type Founders' Association. adopts the American Point System
Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works.
Historic Printing Types by Theodore Low Devinne. 1887Monotype, hot metal typesetting machine, patented by Tolbert Lanston of Philadelphia. This two-part machine (keyboard and caster) could cast individual types in the order of the text, thus composing and casting at the same time.
Master Printers Club of Boston formed, an owners association.
The United Typothetae of America (UTA) a national owners association organized in Chicago. 1888The British Printer trade journal founded. 1889The Kelmscott Press established by William Morris in London. Inspires the modern fine press movement.
International Printing Pressmen and Assistants Union of North America (IPPAU) split from the International Typographical Union (ITU) 1890Flexography developed. 1891St Bride Library and printing school established in London 1892American Type Founders, a merger of 23 type foundries.
Bibliographical Society (of London) founded.
Four-color rotary press developed.
International Brotherhood of Bookbinding formed. 1895Caxton Club (Chicago) founded.
Stempel type foundry established in Frankfurt am Main.
Ashendene Press founded by C.H. St. John Hornby, London. 1896Central School of Arts and Crafts founded in London.
The Kelmscott Chaucer published. 1900Doves Press established by T.J. Cobden-Sanderson at Hammersmith, London.
Master Printers Club of Boston establishes a School of Printing Apprentices.
The Practice of Typography by Theodore Low DeVinne. 1902Air conditioning accidentally invented by Willis Carrier while developing a dehumidifier for a New York printer.
Etched zinc engravings begin to replace hand-cut wood blocks.
Cost Finding Movement, called upon printers to adopt better accounting methods.
International Stereotypers and Electroplaters Union formed 1904The Bibliographical Society of America established. 1905The Society of Printers established in Boston. 1906Ludlow Typograph hot metal typesetting system developed.
CMYK four-color wet process inks developed by the Eagle Printing Ink Co.
Writing & Illuminating, & Lettering by Edward Johnston. 1907Photostat and Rectigraph developed.
Modern screenprinting process developed.
Peter Behrens was the first designer to create a corporate identity for the German electrical company AEG (Allgemeine Elektricit_ts-Gesellschaft). 1909Vandercook flatbed cylinder proof press introduced in Chicago.
"Futurist Manifesto" published on the front cover of Le Figaro in Paris. 1911Allied Printing Trades Association formed from five unions: Includes the International Typographical Union (ITU) and the Pressman, Bookbinders, Photo Engravers, Stereotypers and Electrotypers Unions
Pressmen's Home established by the International Printing Pressmen and Assistants Union of North America. Situated in Tennessee, it was a training center healthcare facility and resort for union members and their families that operated for sixty-five years. 1912American Specimen Book of Type Styles: Complete Catalogue of Printing Machinery and Printing Supplies issued by American Type Founders Co. the most extensive catalogue ever published by the conglomerate. 1913The Imprint a short-lived British journal of printing trade notable for its contributors. Nine issued were published January to November in that year.
Publication of La Prose du Transsibérien et de la petite Jehanne de France, a collaboration between artist Sonia Delaunay and poet Blaise Cendrars. It defined the modern artist's book. 1914American Institute of Graphic Arts founded in New York. 1919Bauhaus School founded in Weimar, Germany.
The Newberry Library establishes the John M. Wing Foundation on the History of Printing.
Brandtjen and Kluge, printing press manufacturer founded in St. Paul, Minnesota. 1921Wirephoto transmitted by telephotography. 1922Printing Types: Their History, Forms and Use by Daniel Berkeley Updike.
DIN standard for paper sizes introduced in Germany.
Laboratory Press, directed by Porter Garnett, started as the first U.S. fine press educational program at Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 1923Deberny et Peignot typefoundry established in Paris.
The Fleuron, an influential British journal of typography and book arts published in seven volumes through 1930.
Spirit duplicator (ditto machine) developed.
Specimen Book and Catalogue issued by American Type Founders Co. 1924UTA establishes Lithographers Technical Foundation (forerunner of Graphic Arts Technical Foundation) 1927Futura a geometric sans-serif typeface designed by Paul Renner. Commercially released in 1936.
Society of Typographic Arts founded in Chicago.
Atelier 17 is founded by Stanley Hayter in Paris. 1928Gill Sans a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Eric Gill, released by the Monotype Corporation.
Die Neue Typographie by Jan Tschichold.
Roxburghe Club, a bibliographic organization founded in San Francisco. 1929Graphic Arts Monthly a trade magazine founded.
Modern Typography and Layout by Douglas C. McMurtrie. 1930The Colophon: A Book Collectors' Quarterly, a limited edition periodical appearing in various formats until 1950. 1931Albert Skira publishes his first livre de peintre, Ovid's Metamorphoses with etchings by Pablo Picasso in Lausanne, Switzerland. 1932Times New Roman typeface debuted by the The Times newspaper in London. Commercially released the following year by the Monotype Corporation. 1933Synthetic rubber printing rollers appear.
The Newspaper Guild established in 1933, affiliated with the Communications Workers of America in 1995. 1934Pocket Pal: A Graphic Arts Production Handbook, first issued by Grover Daniels of Daniels' Printing in Everet, Massachusetts. 1935Penguin paperbacks introduced in Great Britain.
Bookburnings carried out on a large scale in Nazi Germany 1937Boston Typothetae renamed Graphic Arts Institute of Massachusetts.
FAG (Fournitures pour les Arts Graphiques) prepress equipment manufacturer established in Switzerland.
The American Imprint Inventory begins under Douglas C. McMurtrie, a Depression-era section the Historical Records Survey to identify and catalogue US imprints produced before 1800 (1890 west of the Mississippi). Suspended in 1942. 1938Xerography (photocopying) developed by Chester S. Carlson of Queens, New York. 1940Print, A Quarterly Journal of the Graphic Arts. 1943Papermaking: The History and Technique of an Ancient Craft by Dard Hunter. 1946Bookbinding, Its Background and Technique by Edith Diehl.
International Standards Organization (ISO) founded in London 1947Graphic Arts Institute of Massachusetts changes name to PIA-New England
Communications Workers of America (CWA) formed. 1949Phototypesetting developed. 1950sPhotopolymer used for flexography.
Term "prepress" replaces "pre-makeready" used in commercial letterpress, particularly in regard to printing photoengravings. 1951Inkjet printing developed.
Drupa is the world's largest printing equipment exhibition first held in D&uumlsseldorf. 1952The Wonderful World of Insects, first book composed by phototypesetting. 1954Leonard Baskin establishes his Gehenna Press while a student at the Yale School of Art. 1955Printing for Pleasure by John Ryder, it popularized the amateur and fine press movement after World War II.
Claire Van Vliet establishes the Janus Press.
Allied Printing Trades Association (formed in 1911) admits five unions: United Papermakers and Paperworkers, the Newspaper Guild, the International Brotherhood of Pulp, Sulphite and Paper Mill Workers, and the Plate Printers, Die Stampers and Engravers. 1957Association Typographique Internationale (ATypI).
Helvetica typeface introduced.
Dye-sublimation printing developed.
Image scanner (176 pixels) introduced.
Tilon, the first photopolymer-based letterpress plate is developed by Time, Inc. 1958New Graphic Design an internationally influential journal published in Zurich until 1965. 1959Xerographic office photocopying introduced. 1960Tamarind Lithography Workshop is founded by June Wayne in Los Angeles. 1961IBM "golf ball" typewriter introduced.
Letraset, dry rub-down instant lettering developed. 1962Ed Ruscha publishes Twentysix Gasoline Stations. 1963Pantone Color Matching System introduced.
"Printing and the Mind of Man" exhibition in London. 1964Printing Historical Society founded in London.
Walter Hamady founds his Perishable Press. In 1966, he moves to the University of Wisconsin—Madison.
National Graphical Association formed in Great Britain through the merger of the Typographical Association and the London Typographical Society. 1965Term "hypertext" coined. 1967WorldCat founded, an online catalog describing the collections of libraries worldwide.
1967 Carl Dair created Cartier, the first Canadian-designed type face. 1968Dot matrix printing introduced. 1969Laser printer invented at Xerox.
Printing with A Handpress published by Lewis and Dorothy Allen.
The Visual Studies Workshop is founded in Rochester, New York. 1970Water-based ink introduced. 1971Project Gutenberg, oldest digital library of public domain books launched. 1972Thermal printing developed.
A New Introduction to Bibliography by Philip Gaskell. 1973–75Graphical User Interface developed by Xerox PARC.
Nexus Press is founded by Michael Goodman and others in Atlanta. 1974American Printing History Association founded.
The Center for Book Arts founded in New York, the first not-for-profit organization of its kind in the United States.
Women's Studio Workshop is founded by Tatana Kellner, Ann Kalmbach, Anita Wetzel, and Barbara Leoff Burge in Rosendale, New York. 1975Fine Print a Journal of printing founded. Ran through 1990.
ISO standard for paper sizes introduced (ISO 216). 1977Gocco compact color screen printing system developed in Japan.
Judith Hoffberg begins publishing Umbrella, a critical journal of artists' books. 1978Last New York Times set by Linotype; featured in documentary film Farewell, Etaoin Shrdlu.
TeX typesetting system developed by Donald Knuth. It revolutionized the composition and publication of technical books and journals.
The Museum of Printing now in Haverhill, Masssachusetts incorporated. 1981The Internet developed.
Matrix: A Review for Printers & Bibliophiles an annual "utilizing a remarkable combination of authoritative scholarship and fine printing." Still produced.
Microsoft Disk Operating System introduced. 1982Artists Book Works, a community book art student founded by Barbara Lazarus Metz in Chicago.
Adobe Systems Inc. founded.
The Printing Museum, founded by Raoul Beasley, Vernon P. Hearn, Don Piercy, and J. V. Burnham, officially opens in Houston, Texas. 1983Desktop publishing appears.
Rare Book School founded by Terry Belanger at Columbia University. 1984Apple Macintosh personal computer introduced.
3D printing developed.
Emigre, Inc. digital type foundry and Emigre magazine founded. 1985Microsoft Windows introduced.
Microtek 300 dpi black and white scanner introduced.
PostScript typesetting language introduced.
Apple LaserWriter desktop printer introduced.
PageMaker one of the first desktop publishing programs introduced.
Minnesota Center for Book Arts opens in Minneapolis.
Pyramid Atlantic, a private studio for printmaking, papermaking, and book arts, founded by Helen Frederick. 1986Wapping Dispute: a significant turning point in the history of the trade union movement and of UK industrial relations. 1987Soy-based ink appears.
QuarkXPress desktop publishing program.
The International Typographical Union affiliates with the Communication Workers of America. 1988Adobe Photoshop raster graphics editor introduced.
The International Printing Museum was founded by David Jacobson and Ernest A. Lindner in Carson, California. 1989Photopolymer plates begun to be used by studio letterpress printers. 1990Xerox DocuTech. Production-publishing system that allowed paper documents to be scanned, electronically edited, and then printed on demand. 1991World Wide Web launched.
Bookways: A Quarterly for the Book Arts, a journal of fine printing, is published by Thomas Taylor in Austin, Texas. Sixteen issued published through 1995.
TrueType scalable computer introduced.
Heidelberg and Presstek introduce GTO-DI, first platemaking on press. 1992Rare Book School moves to the University of Virginia. 1993Indigo digital color printer introduced.
Portable Document Format (PDF) introduced.
Practical Typecasting by Theo Rehak. 1994The Journal of Artists' Books (JAB) founded by Brad Freeman and Johanna Drucker to further discourse and criticism about artists books. In 2006, it moved with Freeman to Columbia College, Chicago.
Columbia College Chicago takes in the people and structures of Artists Book Works (Barbara Lazarus Metz) and Paper Press (Marilyn Sward) to form the Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts. 1995Letpress listserv online discussion group for letterpress.
Amazon.com founded. 1996OpenType scalable computer fonts introduced.
World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty ensures that computer programs are protected as literary works.
Fine Press Book Association founded. 1997Printing on the Iron Handpress by Richard-Gabriel Rummonds.
The Newspaper Guild and the Independent Association of Publishers' Employees affiliate with the Communication Workers of America. 1998U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Fine Press Book Association launched its biannual journal Parenthesis.
Printing Digital Type On The Hand-operated Flatbed Cylinder Press by Gerald Lange. 1999PIA and GATF merge as PIA/GATF.
Blogger online self-publishing app launches. 2000Theo Rehak produces a new casting in metal reproducing Gutenberg's 42-line Bible type, called B-42. The entire Gutenberg Bible available at gutenbergdigital.de. 2001Wikipedia free, online collaborative encyclopedia launched.
Creative Commons, a non-profit "devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share." 2003Hewlett Packard wi-fi laser printer introduced.
WordPress open source online publishing platform launched. 2004Facebook social network launched. 2006Twitter social networking service launched. It allows users to send and read 140-character messages called tweets. 2008PIA/GATF renamed PIA.
College Book Art Association is formed, professionalizing book art education, supporting academic book artists and students, setting standards, and promoting the field. 2007Kindle e-reader developed by Amazon.com. 2009Nook e-reader developed by Barnes & Noble. 2010Apple iPad tablet introduced.
Instagram online mobile photo and video-sharing service launched. 2011St. John's Bible first completely handwritten and illuminated Bible commissioned by a Benedictine Abbey since the invention of printing.
Snapchat image messaging and multimedia mobile application 2012London Centre for Book Arts opens. 2014Sorts from the lost Dove Press type located on the banks of the River Thames. 2017US Postal Service issued stamp printed with thermochromic ink, which responds to changes in temperature as one touches it. The image is a solar eclipse that becomes the moon. It reverts to the original image as it cools. 2018The U.S. Government Publishing Office declares the last remnants of its letterpress operation to be hazardous waste and sends off its remaining Vandercooks, Intertypes, Ludlows and 200-300 cases of foundry type—the last physical artifacts of what once was the largest hot metal operation on earth—for scrap. 2019U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics no longer tracks the commercial printing industry for its monthly jobs report.