In the development of the printing art in the United States the name of Franklin will ever be memorable, so it is most fitting that we should illustrate Franklin's own press before reviewing the great inventions which contributed so largely to the dissemination of cheap literature and which properly belong to the epoch we are considering.

The Ramage press was used by Ben Franklin in London in 1725. The press was constructed almost entirely out of wood though iron was subsequently used in many of the parts.

On the clumsy frame the great statesman has left the marks of his inky fingers. It is now in the National Museum at Washington.

In the early part of the present century, Earl Stanhope invented a press made entirely of iron, the frame being cast in a single piece. The power was applied by a combination toggle joint and lever.

The Columbian press was invented in Philadelphia in 1817. The power was applied by a compound lever.

In 1829 the Washington Press of Samuel Rust was introduced and many improvements were introduced in inking Later, a self-inking device was invented.

The first power press produced in America was that of Daniel Treadwell of Boston in 1822.

The Adams press was invented in 1830 and has superseded all other platen presses; the impression being given by raising the bed upon which the form rests against a stationary platen.

The first attempt to make a rotary press was that of Friedrich Konig in 1814. In this the type moved horizontally printing 1800 impressions per hour.

The first great step toward facilitating the rapid and cheap production of the modern newspaper was made by Col. Robert Hoe of New York about 1840 when the first of the type-revolving presses were built. At about the same time a type-revolving press on materially different lines, the Applegath machine, was brought into practical use in England. This machine was first employed by the London Times in 1848. In the Applegath machine the type-holding cylinder revolved on vertical axis and the machine could print about 12,000 single sheets on one side in an hour. In the Hoe machine the type cylinder revolved on a horizontal axis. This arrangement for feeding the sheets was more simple and the capacity of the press varied according to the number of impression cylinders arranged around the type cylinder, these presses being successfully made with four, six, eight, and ten impression cylinders respectively.

A four-cylinder press of this kind was built for the Philadelphia Ledger in 1845. The first eight-cylinder press was built for the New York Sun in 1850, and the first ten-cylinder press for the New York Herald in 1857. Our engraving shows the eight-cylinder Hoe press of 1850 as furnished to the New York Sun office. The average capacity of the presses was 2,000 single sheets per hour by cylinder, or 20,000 sheets per hour on one side, on the largest press, the ten-cylinder. These presses were 37 feet long, 18 feet high, and 21 feet wide, and were beautiful pieces of mechanism to look at in full operation, as their working parts could be seen to advantage, the ten feeders, five on each side, supplying the sheets, which traveled on tapes to an impression cylinder, the later pressing the paper against the inked type, which was held on the large central revolving cylinder. Between each two impression cylinders the type passed under inking rollers, and the paper printed upon was passed back by tapes to delivery boards, each revolution of the main cylinder of the ten-cylinder press thus printing ten separate sheets of paper.

The great advance thus effected upon all previous means of fast newspaper printing was deemed one of the highest triumphs of mechanical genius during the decade from 1850 to 1860, but this success was entirely along the lines established by the presses at work in 1845. Still faster work was, however, to meet the enormous increase in the public demand for newspapers, which publishers were enabled more easily to furnish at reduced prices, when the substitution of wood pulp for rags had greatly lessened the cost of paper. But it is of primary importance to note, in connection with the next great advance in fast printing, that all promptly issued editions of newspapers, prior to 1860, were printed from the type forms direct. To make stereotype plates with sufficient expedition for the requirements of newspaper work had not, before that time, been considered practicable, but this difficulty was removed in 1861 by the employment of a steam bed to dry a novel style of paper mache matrix, or mold, which could be conveniently used for making stereotype reproductions of the type pages, in the form of plates to fit around the cylinders.

At first it required half an hour to make a single plate, but now a plate was made in about seven minutes and a half dozen duplicates of the same plate could be made in about fifteen minutes. This made possible the modern "perfecting" press, so called because both sides of the paper are printed at the same time in passing through the press.

In its largest size, the octuple machine, of which but one has yet been placed in operation, this press prints, folds, and counts 96,000 complete eight-page papers per hour, or 48,000 sixteen-page papers, the size of the page being that of the ordinary daily newspaper. The press has eight plate or impression cylinders, there being eight stereotype plates or pages on each cylinder, and the paper of double width is fed from four independent rolls, 73 inches wide, one side being printed upon as the paper passes over the set of stereotype pages on one cylinder and the other side being printed upon as it passes over the plates of another cylinder. The paper rushes through the cylinders at a speed of thirty-two and one-half miles an hour, the several sheets being separated and folded, and passed out of the press with accuracy and precision. The entire work is automatically performed, after the press is once started, but it requires the active labor of ten men and boys to operate it and to remove the folded sheets as fast as they are printed.

We illustrate one of these which is now in operation in the printing room of the New York World. Two others will be placed in position soon. The presses are 14 feet high and 25 feet long. They also fold and bundle the papers. When all 3 presses are installed, they will be able to print 748,000 eight-page sheets per hour, or an output equal to 42 tons of printed matter an hour.


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