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Type-Setting Machines

mechanical devices for setting type. The first record of type-setting machinery was made in the English Patent Office in 1794. In 1822, W. Church, of Connecticut, took out a patent for a machine having a keyboard, the manipulation of which guided freshly cast type to a central point. Some 20 years subsequently other machines began to appear, among them those of Delacambre, Young, Martin, Boule, Mitchell, Coulan, and Alden. Alden's machine was the first to come into practical use. It was used on magazine work and was able to set about 3,000 ems an hour, but required several men to operate it. The Hattersley machine was produced a little later and was used to some extent. The type was arranged in rows by the manipulations of a keyboard and pushed out by pistons to a guide-plate leading to a central position, where a continuous line was formed.

TYPEWRITER which was taken in sections by an assistant and spaced into lines of the proper length by hand. The distribution was effected by pushing the type, a line at a time, from an inclined galley, the nicks on the body of the type, different for each character, determining the channel in which each one was deposited. Following these machines came the Burr, afterward called the Empire, and the Thorne. The latter combines the distribution and composition in a single mechanism. The Mergenthaler linotype is incorrectly spoken of as a type-setting machine. It does not set type but matrices, from which a bar called a linotype is cast, this being the equivalent of a line of type. It is worked by a keyboard and has two advantages over other machines; no time is lost upon justification, as the spaces are cast at the same time as the letters, and there is no necessity of distribution. When the matter is done with it is melted up and used over again.

The irregularity of the face of the type was at first one of the objections to this machine, but this was corrected. It is in general use in large newspaper offices.

The Lanston monotype casts separately each letter, point and sign, including the space. Typesetting by machinery has revolutionized printing, one operator at a machine being able to do the work of four men. keys