The type case. For our job we used 18 point Times New Roman, and 18 and 24 point Gallia. The type is laid out in the case following the "California Job Case" layout. The upper case letters are on the right hand side, laid out in alphabetical order because they are used less, while the lower case letters occupy two thirds of the case—the middle and left hand side––and are laid out according to frequency of use (like the QWERTY computer keyboard).
Compositor at work. The compositor holds the stick in her left hand and selects type with her right. In the nineteenth century a compositor could be expected to set roughly one thousand to twelve hundred characters an hour, approximatly one page. Technological change in the late nineteenth century saw compositors replaced by casting and composing machines such as the Linotype and Monotype machines.
	The composing stick with type.
The chase, a metal frame into which the forme of type is set and locked.
	Wooden furniture in different sizes, which is fitted around the type to secure it into the chase. The furniture is made to standard measure lengths and is lower than type height (which is .918 of an inch).
Some type and ornaments imposed into the forme, with furniture and quoins.
	This image shows the type and ornaments in the forme, with wooden furniture, leading and quoins around the type. (Roll your mouse over the image to see more detailed descriptive information.)
Quoins and quoin keys are used to lock the type firmly into the chase. Before metal quoins came into use in the 1860s, wooden wedges were used, and were hammered in using a mallet. The quoins are placed between wooden furniture and the chase. The image shows two types of these tools.
	Using the quoin keys to lock the quoins, which secures everything tightly in place. This is crucial, as any type working its way loose during printing could seriously damage the rollers on the press.
Before lifting the heavy forme onto the press, the type is tapped with the quoin key to ensure that nothing is going to fall out when it is lifted off the table.
	After everything is tightly locked in place, the chase is placed onto the bed of the press, which in this case is vertical, unlike a common press or iron hand press (see the Reliance) where the bed is horizontal.
The ink is a rubber-based ink that must be "worked in" before it is used on the press. This is done by using a palate knife. Rubber-based inks are a mid-twentieth century innovation. In the nineteenth century, ink was made primarily with "lamp-black" (essentially soot), linseed oil, and rosin. Additional ingredients were turpentine, soap, balsam of Capivi, and other pigments such as indigo, Prussian blue, and indian red.
	The ink is added in small dabs to the inker, which is a disc that rotates as the treadle is operated. Two rollers distribute the ink around the disc as it rotates and also ink the forme (when the press is set to "on").
A new sheet of tympan paper is added to the press, with packing underneath. The packing can be adjusted as needed to increase or reduce the amount of impression on the paper.
	An impression of the forme is done onto the tympan to set the registration for the job. Guage pins are placed so that the paper being fed into the press for printing will be in registration with the forme.
The presswoman feeding paper into the press. In the nineteenth century, it would have been extremely rare for a woman to be working on a press. Women were more likely to be working at less physically challenging tasks, such as folding paper and sewing gatherings together in the binding process. These tasks did not require them to be literate, and women who worked in printing shops were always paid lower wages than their male counterparts.
	Paper being fed into the press, lined up with the guage pins.
The rollers inking the type between impressions. (Roll your mouse over the image to see more detailed descriptive information.)
	The rollers on the inking disc, with the platen closed, "on impression."
The jobber is operated using a foot-powered treadle.
	Feeding the paper from the feeder-board on the right, with the printed paper placed in front of the operator as it is pulled from the press.
Finished!

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Project conception, research and web design by Jenny Gilbert.

Further Reading
Johns, Adrian. The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.
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 & Oak Knoll Press, 2001.
Rummonds, Richard-Gabriel. Nineteenth-Century Printing Practices and the Iron Handpress. Volumes 1 and 2. Foreword by Stephen O. Saxe. London: The British Library & Oak Knoll Press, 2004.