The Industrial Revolution
Introduction
The Industrial Revolution was a period between the late 18th Century and early 20th Century, which saw rapid growth in mechanisation, industrial production and change in society. It began in Great Britain and then spread across the United States and the rest of the world.
Period
There were two stages of the Industrial Revolution:
1. The first stage of the Industrial Revolution (1770-1870) – Centred on steam, water, iron and shift from agriculture.
2. The second stage of Industrial Revolution (1870-1914) – New technologies of electricity, development of petrol engine, oil, and greater use of cheap steel.
Conclusion
Industrial and scientific discoveries enabled a revolution in our understanding of the material world. Thus, there was a population shift – moving from rural agriculture to work in factories in cities which led to mass production of goods, increased efficiency, reducing average costs to enable more goods to be produced.
As such, the Industrial Revolution marks a major turning point in history as it hugely impacted the way societies in the world would function in the years to come, such as graphic reactions.
The Linotype Machine
Introduction
That was briefly what the Industrial Revolution was, I’ll now introduce the Linotype Machine.
The Linotype Machine was invented in 1884 by a German watchmaker named Ottmar Mergenthaler, which is probably one of the most notable creations during the Industrial Revolution. This was during the second stage of the Industrial Revolution, where new technologies and the use of cheap steel were introduced into the industry.
This machine sped up the process of printing which revolutionized the newspaper and book printing industries through the ingenious method of “line casting”. Line casting refers to placing the entire line of type for printing instead of using. Individual letter for typesetting.
How it works
Linotype Machine came from the derivation of its full name- Line of Type, which is a literal description of the machine itself. Here is a video I found, showing a demonstration of the linotype:
If you can’t already tell, the Linotype is an extremely loud machine. Thus, many deaf people were hired to work in this printing industry as they would not be bothered by the noise pollution created during the process, not kidding.
The height of an average Linotype is roughly seven-foot high, and it works by creating one line of type at a time. It uses matrices, which are small brass units that have edges indented with characters that are assembled into lines to compose text.
Once the matrix line is established, a line of type is automatically cast via a solid bar, called the Linotype slug.
The operator types the information on the keyboard and the Linotype pulls type, which can then be printed.
How it differs from other printing methods
The invention of Linotype sped up the process of printing excessively, which allowed letterpress to prosper. Before the invention of Linotype, a huge group of people would be needed to set the type by hand one letter at a time which took a really long time as it was awfully tedious and slow. Other than it being labor-intensive, many typesetters would run out of letters, also known as “sorts”.
The productivity and efficiency made many workers fear that they would lose their jobs as the Linotype created a method for mechanization which cuts down the number of workers needed for typesetting. However, due to supply and demand, there was no issue of unemployment. There was a huge demand for books, newspapers, and magazines due to them being produced so fast. This, in turn, increased the supply and more people were recruited to run the machines to meet the demand of the population.
Influence on society
Linotype machines made an especially huge impact in the newspaper industry. They were first used for the New York Tribune back in 1886. They revolutionized the industry by making newspapers run longer than a few pages.
As mentioned above, since the supply of newspapers increased due to the huge demand, this also meant that the spread of information on political and social events became so much faster as more people have access to the newspapers. Thus, the population was able to keep up with the current affairs.
Not only that, Linotype made education more available to everyone as the printing of textbooks increased as well. Religion also slowly began to rely on it as well- bibles were able to be printed in bulks to be spread across the world.
Not long later, the Linotype spread to different areas in the world, introducing different languages to be incorporated into the machine with their respective local languages. By 1928, Linotype became the primary typesetting device around the world.
Conclusion
The linotype machine was truly an amazing invention. It did not appear as an overnight invention- a lot of thought process was put into place before the final prototype which proves its simple yet reliable design. it revolutionizes the printing industry, increasing productivity and efficiency which made text a lot more accessible to the population.
Although technology has bloomed in our current generation and Linotype has retired, the importance of print through Linotype should not be forgotten. Without the Linotype, we would not be right here with the current typesetting and printing we enjoy in our daily lives. Let’s not take things for granted, and appreciate the pioneer inventions which led us to where we are today!