Page By Page: Publishing in the Late 1800’s and Early 1900’s

This is the transcript of the audio narration for the previous video. My father, a member of the .918 Printing Club,  demonstrated graciously how a platten press from the Industrial Revolution was used to create a page of text.

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We’ve all wanted to take hammers to our desktop printers from time-to-time, smash them to bits in frustration, but we should consider ourselves lucky we no longer need to publish our work using turn-of-the 20^th Century platten presses like this one.

This Industrial-Revolution-Age process creates one printed page at a time. The printer arranges small raised-faced letters into a frame, which, when inked and pressed against paper, leaves images of words.

The individual letters, including blanks used for spaces, are called “type.” A printer may need to set by hand more than a thousand pieces of type to create one page. The type is arranged into a metal frame called a “chase.” The chase is locked into the bed of the press.

From this angle, you can see the bed, which is perpendicular to the floor and facing the printer.  Rollers skim the ink plate, which is on the top of the press then roll down and over the bed to spread a fine layer of ink on the type locked into the chase.

The printer places a sheet of paper on the platten, which is facing away from him. The platten is pressed against the inked type to create a page of text. Each printed page must be removed and a new sheet of paper fed into the press quickly; otherwise, a time-consuming jam results.

I recorded this printing demonstration on October 7^th, 2016 at Lancaster, Pennsylvania’s Building Character, which houses a printing museum administered and staffed by members of the .918 Printing Club.

Special thanks go to my father, Dave Cooper Sr., who conducted this demonstration.