Linotype Memories

When I first looked into this I could not find any mention of a linotype in use at The Morris Chronicle, but I have since found articles in 1920 and 1922 showing that the Morris Chronicle had a linotype before the New Berlin Gazette. See the links below the text to read the articles.

Don Valentine
November 3, 2021 ·
As a young man fresh out of doing battle with college, I saw a help wanted ad. It was a 6 year apprenticeship with a weekly newspaper in Sidney [The Tri-Town News - 1882-2018]. I got my journeyman's certificate signed by Governor Wilson. This was one of the things I had to learn. A linotype along with a letterpress and various other tasks with putting a newspaper together start to finish. It was an accomplishment I'm glad I did but would never do again!

Jean Jones Valentine
I never knew a linotype operator who wasn't a little
"odd" .

Don Valentine
Jean Jones Valentine That could very well be. I did get quite proficient at it though. I don't know if that's anything to brag about.

Jean Jones Valentine
Don Valentine
May be an image of ‎text that says '‎CATALOGUE A. OT..MERGENTHALERA AND CO. BALTIMORE, MP MECHANICAL ENGINEERS AND MACHINISTS GRESSON POUNDED LINOTYPE PARTS LINOTYPE SUPPLIES INVENTORS Hส LINOTYPE ATTACHMENTS. DরL LINOTYPE IMPROVEMENTS. LINOTYPE LINOTYPE OFFCE IMPLEMENTS. AND MANUFACTURERS OF THE REPAIRING 2LINOTYPE MACHINES امی REPAIRING OF LINOTYPE MACHINE PARTS. DEALING IN SECOND HAND LINOTYPE MACHINES. REPAIRING OF LINOTYPE SPACE BANDS. ス1971 ی CABLE ADDRESS: LINOTYPE, BALTIMORE. LINOT WE MAKE A SPECIALTY OF DESIGNING AND BUILDING AUTOMATIC MACHINER EVERY DESCRIPTION, SPECIAL TOOLS, OF alamy mage WH95NX www.alamy.com‎'‎

Jean Jones Valentine
Bob Tex - This makes me remember George.

Bob Tex
We have one in the lobby in work.

Jean Jones Valentine
Bob Tex Wowie, photo please!

Peter Skoglund
I think I know where you worked Don...

Don Valentine
Peter Skoglund We had some fun there or at least tried to make it fun. You, Leo, Gary and Dick....what a crew. Along with Harold and Dave plus the ladies upstairs.

Peter Skoglund
I think I could get a job at Farmer's Museum!!!.
Haha....but I did like working nites at The Star...it was that deadline every night and the excitement with working with the newsroom.. when it was a newspaper...

Peter Skoglund
May be an image of one or more people, people standing and text that says 'a any and $500 a'

Don Valentine
Peter Skoglund Seems like a lifetime ago....kinda was! You were smart to go to the Oneonta Star back then. Good seeing a photo of Leo again. He knew how to make you laugh!

Cynthia LaClair
Don Valentine
Gary Jacobsen?

Don Valentine
Cynthia LaClair Gary Somerville and Peter Skoglund worked there with me.

Cynthia LaClair
Don Valentine
Not my Gary…but those names are familiar too.

Don Valentine
Cynthia LaClair Yes, they graduated from Morris High School so you probably at least knew of them.

Peter Skoglund
Don Valentine .Steve and Dale too

Gary Somerville
I think smelting the "pigs" was best. So healthy. OSHA never stopped there. And then there was "karate" Pete. Too fun.

Want to learn more about the linotype and hear and see it running? Watch this youtube video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TgOIrX09do

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linotype_machine

How much did a Linotype machine cost?
A Square Base Linotype had 5,000 parts, and cost $1,000. Thomas Edison called it the "eighth wonder of the world." Thanks to its efficiency, reliability, and durability, the Linotype allowed further growth in the number, circulation, and size of daily newspapers, while lowering costs in book publishing.

Does 5,000 sound like a lot of parts -- modern gasoline powered cars have around 30,000 parts. An electric car has many fewer parts. A bicycle can get down the road with about 900 parts. A Boeing 747 needs to have about six million parts to complete a flight -- the Wright brothers first plane was probably less than 5,000 parts including the engine.

Mark Twain / Samuel Clemens backed a rival machine, the Paige Compositor and it led him into bankruptcy. Read that story in the PDF linked below.

Ottmar Mergenthaler Linotype inventor died at 45 years of age from tuberculosis.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/708/ottmar-mergenthaler

A fire at The Otsego Farmer offices in Cooperstown, NY in 1904 destroyed 4 of their five linotypes. They cost about $3,500 each in 1904 which would be about $113,000 each now.

Floyd Reeser used to work at The New Berlin Gazette in 1980s.

Also---when I worked there in the early 1980s the Gazette had at least four linotype machines as I recall. That way they could set different sizes of type without changing the magazines and molds. I don't know how much those magazines weighed, but in the shop where I worked in Egg Harbor City in the 1970s, usually two men did that job and they tried not to have to do it often. They had only two linotypes. So they would set all the agate (classified and legal) type early in the week, then switch to 8-point body type, then switch to headlines.

See links below to find story of the loss of prestige among printers after the Linotype burst on the scene.

or watch a video or two

O. M. Linotype
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8Z4JZ6swp0

Linotype article in The Atlantic
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/05/celebrating-linot...

Linotype - The Film
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDM-EbDCiQg

A Printing Museum in California with a working linotype
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gQasrMBALA&t=117s

Linotype Machine Principles
http://www.linotype.org/OnLineDocs/LinotypeMachinePrinciples-1940/LMP-TO...

Steps in workings of the linotype

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1R-YgEHqN18

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nC-kKtWmujg

But you need paper, too -- learn about how it is made

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6On9tqPOzqw

Farewell Etaoin Shrdlu
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MGjFKs9bnU

The right hand types and the left hand gives signals to the machine to end a line or move matrices back to the magazine, etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzilaRwoMus

Saguache Crescent, the last linotype newspaper.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/small-town-newspaper-prints-li...

Library of Congress blog about the Linotype
https://blogs.loc.gov/headlinesandheroes/2022/06/the-linotype-the-machin...

2023 Video of a company reviving a 1922 Linotype in Mooreland, OK
https://youtu.be/gCtjMZxsOTg?si=qWLXlVX7aKCKSryA