After the United States gained its independence in 1776, American cities began to grow, and newspapers were established in most of them. To make the collection of news items as simple as possible, newspapers often set up shop near harbors and ship ports. When ships arrived in port, reporters interviewed sailors and merchants and gathered news of faraway events. Soon, the newspaper business began to grow. Newspapers were still printed on printing presses very similar to Guttenberg's original design. The process was still quite time-consuming, and most American newspapers were only eight pages long.

In 1886, Ottmar Mergenthaler, a German immigrant who lived in Baltimore, invented the Linotype machine. As described earlier, traditional methods required printers to select single pieces of metal type and form each line of text by hand, character -by character. The Linotype ("line of type") machine allowed printers to set a complete line of type, using the machine's ninety-character keyboard. The Linotype keyboard, similar to those used for computers, contained all of the characters commonly used in newspaper text. When the Linotype operator hit a key on the keyboard (the letter T, for example), the keystroke told the machine to retrieve the letter T mold. Inside the Linotype machine was a collection of molds for every character on the keyboard. If the operator typed the word "The," the machine selected the "T," "h," and "e," molds. Then the machine poured molten lead into each mold, and this created a metal image of the each letter. Eventually, after the operator typed a line of text on the keyboard, the Linotype machine produced a metal line of the text, but in reverse, so that it would read properly when it transferred ink to the page. This line of metal type was called a slug. The machine automatically restored the molds to the letter mold collection after the lead was poured.

The Linotype machine measured seven feet tall, six feet wide, and six feet deep. It was a big machine with lots of moving parts. Mergenthaler's invention enabled newspapers to compose newspapers four or five times faster than the Gutenberg process of setting type piece -by piece. Within twenty years after the Linotype invention, the machine was in use in every state. Unfortunately, thousands of hand compositors lost their jobs.

Linotype Machine

Hot metal lines of text produced by Linotype machine.

A good Linotype operator could compose four to seven lines of text per minute. The process was loud, dirty, and dangerous, because the machines made so much noise and used molten lead to form the lines of text. Because of the hot metal and the many moving parts, operators had to be careful around the Linotype machine. Most Linotype workers were self-taught, often apprenticed under a printer before moving into the composing room of a newspaper.

The use of the loud, complex Linotype machine required an operator who was mechanically inclined as well as good with details. To be an effective Linotype operator, the person had to have a strong background in the English language and a thorough knowledge of English grammar. As the operator sat before the Linotype machine, he usually had a handwritten or typed copy of the newspaper article. Unlike today's computers, which allow us liberal use of the Backspace Key, the Linotype machine did not make correcting errors easy. If the operator realized that he'd made a mistake while typing the line of text, he had to retype the line to create another corrected slug of the metal type. As he typed, he had to check the length of the line constantly so he wouldn't make it too long or too short--the Linotype machine did not offer automatic word wrapping like today's word processing programs.

As the Linotype operator typed the article into the Linotype machine, the hot metal lines of text dropped into a tray situated next to the machine's keyboard. When he finished typing the article, the operator collected the metal slugs and printed the entire article on a long, narrow strip of paper, which he handed to a proofreader. The reader reviewed the article word -by word, line -by line, marked any errors, and returned the long, narrow paper with corrected text back to the Linotype operator. The operator retyped only the lines that required correction and finalized the text for the article. Once all the metal slugs for an article were ready, printers arranged the article into metal frames called chases, splitting the article text as needed to make room for ads and pictures. When the paper was printed and delivered, the hot metal lines of type for the old issue were melted down and reused indefinitely, day after day, in the Linotype machine.

The story of The Printer takes place in the 1940s. The methods used to create the text for today's newspapers are far different from those used then-. Linotype machines sit unused and covered in dust as newspaper production workers use computers and desktop publishing programs to produce modern newspapers.

Many of today's newspapers struggle to stay in business as people turn to television and the Internet for news. But the printed word is a convenient and portable form of information. For centuries, printing has held an important place in human history. The printing industry will probably continue to flourish in some form for a very long time.