This website is the result of an ongoing research project that seeks to collect and organize all materials relating to book and printing history in the Joseph Sablé Centre's collection of nineteenth century periodicals.This rich resource makes it possible for researchers to have access to valuable primary sources which document the widespread changes in the book and printing industry in the nineteenth century, particularly as relating to France. This site is also linked to information about the printing presses recently acquired by the Sablé Centre and the John M. Kelly Library.

The nineteenth century was a profoundly productive time for printing in terms of technological innovation. The book trade was faced with widespread changes that had implications for everyone involved in the trade including: paper makers, compositors, printers, publishers, and book sellers as well as for the consumers of books. This period saw the development of a variety of new presses, from the iron hand press all the way to machine powered platen presses. Composing machines such as the Linotype and Monotype machines were also important inventions which greatly increased production. Significant changes also occurred in the production/manufacturing of paper, type and illustrations. This introduction will briefly discuss these widespread changes.

Cultural Changes - Printing Presses - Composing Machines - Illustration - Paper - Ink - Stereotypes and Electrotypes

Cultural Changes
The development of national railways in the nineteenth century influenced both the distribution of texts–books could be shipped much further and at a much swifter speed than ever before, as well as the physical form of the books. For example, paperback books, designed to be sold in train stations, emerged as a popular format. Migration into urban centres and the ensuing educational reforms meant that there was a growing literate population, which increased demand not only for books, but for all manner of printed material including newspapers, broadsides, pamphlets, magazines, and almanacs. Organizations such as the Mechanics' Institutes and circulating libraries allowed working class and middle class readers to have greater access to books. These cultural changes impacted on and were impacted by the technological innovations that took place during this century.

Printing Presses
Up until the nineteenth century, the wooden hand press (or common press) had been used virtually unchanged since 1455. The common press was capable of approximately 250 impressions an hour. Increased demand for books and other printed products, particularly newspapers and periodicals, rose dramatically in the nineteenth century and a more robust press was necessary to increase production. The Englishman Earl Stanhope designed the first iron hand press in 1800, and developed an improved version by 1807. Stanhope, altruistically, did not patent his press; he intended his invention to be a benefit to humankind. This press incorporated no new innovations, yet because it was constructed of durable iron; it was far superior to the wooden press. The iron hand press was capable of many more impressions per hour, in part because the wooden hand press had required two pulls to create a good impression and the iron hand press only required one. The Stanhope press was followed by the Columbian, the Albion and the Washington hand presses and their various copycat versions. (See the Reliance Press as an example)
The developments in printing press technology in the nineteenth century fall into several categories, which can be divided:

according to the manner of applying the paper to the forme: Platen presses, in which the paper is pressed by a flat surface on to the flat forme...the cylinder press, in which the paper is pressed on the forme by a cylinder which rolls over it; and the rotary press, in which both the surfaces pressing on each other consist of cylinders between which the paper is conveyed in sheets or an endless web.
(The Encyclopedia of the Book, 395)

It is somewhat difficult to ascertain an exact timeline of innovations in the field of printing in the nineteenth century, and there are often varying if not conflicting reports in the literature of printing history. Additionally, the patent date of a product/machine does not necessarily indicate when it came into common use, and there is often a discrepancy between the time of invention and time of mass adoption.
In the early 1800s, Friedrich Koenig designed a mechanized, steam powered platen press. He went into contract with the printer Thomas Bensley in 1807 and in April, 1811 the first page to be printed on Koenig’s invention, indeed the first part of a book ever to be printed on such a machine, was a page from the Scottish periodical The Annual Register. Koenig then moved on to design and perfect another kind of printing machine, a cylinder press. Koenig sought the interest (and financing) of John Walter of The Times newspaper, and by November 1814, the machine was in use at The Times. Koenig’s machine brought production up to approximately 1100 sheets an hour. By 1828, Augustus Applegath and Edward Cowper’s four cylinder printing machine was in use by The Times and was capable of 4000 sheets an hour. Applegath and Cowper later invented the rotary printing machine for The Times. The rotary press was operated using a stereotype cast of the type which was placed around one cylinder, while paper would be fed around another cylinder. Their first rotary press, in use by 1848, printed 8000 sheets an hour. Two decades later, their improved, web-fed rotary machine could churn out up to 20,000 sheets an hour.
The platen jobbing presses were designed in the 1840s by Stephen P. Ruggles of Boston, and George Phineas Gordon of New York City and had a huge influence on printing. Already large steam powered platen presses were available, but the invention of these presses, usually powered with a foot treadle, made possible what is called ‘jobbing’ work (menus, business cards, handbills, and other ephemeral material), which had previously been rare. (See the C.M.C Jobber)
Innovations in printing also led to the embracing of the older technologies. For example, despite the fact that mechanized presses were available, large proofing presses, such as the Reliance, were still designed, manufactured and sold. In addition, late into the twentieth century, small platens such as the Adana and Craftsmen presses were still popular with hobby and jobbing printers.

Composing Machines
Until the late nineteenth century, setting type remained the same as it had been in Gutenberg's time. New, steam powered presses had sped up the printing process, paper was being manufactured by machine, but composing type was still a time consuming process. The invention of a composing machine, was sought by many inventors, though many did not make it past the prototype stage. (see image at left of a composing machine prototype). Eventually, functional machines, which dealt with both the manufacture of type as well as the composing of type, were designed and produced. The advantage of these machines was also that the type could be melted done and re-used after a job was finished printing. The Linotype machine, invented by Ottmar Mergenthaler, was first built in 1886. The Linotype was operated using a keyboard to select each letterform to be cast, which were then used as a mold to cast a whole line of type. The Monotype machine, invented by Tolbert Lanston, came in to use by the 1890s. The Monotype machine consisted of two components, a keyboard which produced perforated paper, and the casting machine into which the perforated paper was fed to produce individual letterforms. These machines were a huge boon to publishers because of the dramatic speed at which type could be set, and the fact that after type was used for a job it could be melted down and reused.

Illustration
In the nineteenth century, there were three methods of producing images. Relief, planographic, and intaglio. Relief images were produced from a raised surface, the production of planographic images utilized a greasy ink as it was based on the premise that oil repels water, and intaglio images were incised below the printing surface so that ink was forced into the incised portions to print an image. Thomas Bewick developed a new wood engraving technique in the late eighteenth century, which was superior to wood cutting. This new technique involved using the tools of copper engraving to create a relief printing surface on the end of a wood block instead of the side, as was done with wood cuts. The advantage to wood engravings was that they could be printed on a common press, which meant that the illustration could be printed alongside the type. Copper engravings, on the other hand, were printed on the intaglio press. The invention of lithography, a planographic technique, by Alois Senefelder in 1798 was an alternative to wood and copper engravings. This method of offsetting an image, originally from a stone, and then later from zinc or aluminum plates, meant a more accurate reproduction of an artist's work, and was also ideal for producing maps or sheet music. Due to advancements in science and technology, by the end of the nineteenth century, illustration techniques had become increasingly complex. The invention of photography led to photomechanical processes for printing photographs: planographic techniques included photolithography and collotype, relief images were done using line blocks and half tones, and intaglio images were created using gravure, and rotogravure.

Paper
Paper was one of the most expensive aspects of printing, due to the fact that it required so much man power and expensive materials, so the development of a mechanical method for making paper was a remarkable innovation. The Fourdrinier machine, patented in France by Nicolas-Louis Robert in 1799 was introduced in England in the early nineteenth century by Bryan Donkin on behalf of the stationers Henry and Sealy Fourdrinier. A mechanized paper making machine increased daily production of paper from 60 to 100 lb. per day to 1000 lb. per day. Later in the century, as the demand for paper further rose, there were experiments with new materials for making paper, as cotton rags were increasingly expensive and scarce. Esparto grass was used in the 1860s, but by the 1880s the introduction of wood-pulp paper had made a further, important impact on the production and sale of books, dramatically reducing the cost of paper, and thus the cost of books. daily production of paper from 60 to 100lb. per day to 1000 lb. per day. Later in the century, as the demand for paper rose, there were experiments with new materials for making paper. Esparto grass was used in the 1860s, but by the 1880s the introduction of wood-pulp paper had made a further, important impact on the production and sale of books, dramatically reducing the cost of paper.

Ink
Up until the nineteenth century, printers made their own inks for printing, with varying degrees of success, as ink making was as Richard-Gabriel Rummonds has noted “hard, tedious, and sometimes dangerous, work.” Furthermore, it was difficult to achieve consistent results. As the book and printing trade grew, commercial ink makers proliferated, and by the 1820s most printers ceased to produce their own inks, and relied on more stable manufactured inks. Ink was essentially made of two ingredients: some type of varnish to act as a binding agent and pigment. These ingredients were often combinations of linseed oil, turpentine, “lamp-black,” or soot, and rosin. Some inks also had soap in them, which was said to help the ink to coat the type uniformly in the thinnest layer possible. There were also recipes that included other pigments such as Prussian blue or indigo. Later in the century, advancements in science meant that the recipes for inks became more sophisticated and specialized, allowing for new inks to be formulated for changing printing needs (such as printing on wood-pulp paper instead of rag paper).

Stereotypes and Electrotypes
Stereotyping and electrotyping were two important modes of reproducing set type and illustrations, though when composing machines such as the Linotype and Monotype machines came into use, these processes were less common. Experiments with stereotyping began almost from the beginning of printing as a method to reproduce a blocks of type for later reprinting instead of leaving it “standing,” which meant that the type was not available for other jobs. Stereotyping was a method of casting plates from a page of set type. Early methods used plaster of Paris, poured over the type, which would create a mirror image of the type (or illustration). Hot type metal would then be poured into this cast to create the printing material. The method was later improved by the use of papier-mâché to make the molds, which was advantageous for two reasons: they were easier to produce and store, and more importantly, curved plates could be made, which could be placed on cylinders and used on rotary presses. Electrotyping came into regular use in the 1840s, and was a more commercial process, since it involved a dangerous and complicated process. Electrotypes were made by subjecting a wax mould of the type or illustration to copper and a vat of sulfuric acid and conducting electricity to the vat to force the copper to build up on the wax mold, creating the plate. Electrotypes, like stereotypes could also be made into curved plates for rotary presses. Both methods were routinely used for rotary press printing up until the middle of the twentieth century.

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This webpage was researched and produced by Jenny Gilbert.

Further Reading
Finkelstein, David and Alistair McCLeery. An Introduction to Book History. New York: Routledge, 2005.
Gaskell, Philip. A New Introduction to Bibliography. New Castle: Oak Knoll Press/St. Paul’s Bibliographies, 1995.
Glaister, Geoffrey Ashall. Encyclopedia of the Book. London: The British Library and Oak Knoll Press, 2001.
Jennett, Seán. Pioneers in Printing. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Limited, 1958.
Rummonds, Richard-Gabriel. Nineteenth-Century Printing Practices and the Iron Handpress. Volumes 1 and 2. Forward by Stephen O. Saxe. London: The British Library & Oak Knoll Press, 2004.
Smiles, Samuel. Men of Invention and Industry. NewYork: Harper, 1885.
Steinberg, S.H. Five Hundred Years of Printing. New Edition, revised by John Trevitt. London: The British Library & Oak Knoll Press, 1996.