The Linotype Machine

(A modern printer prints out a piece of paper.)

[Abby Brown] There's no doubt that computers have changed our world. Today, people can type and print anything they want. But before computers, there were newspapers, books and magazines. Let's go see how some of those items were printed before modern technology took over.

(Map marking Union County in southern Iowa.)

This is Petznick Printing Museum in Creston, Iowa. It's part of the Union County Historical Village

Petznick’s was started right here in town by a husband-wife team in 1934.

It's not in business anymore, but this museum is full of some of the old equipment they used, including a linotype machine.

The Linotype was loud, hot, dirty, and required skilled workers.

But it was a huge step up from how printed items like newspapers were produced before that, which involved people arranging every single letter into words and sentences, then cleaning those letters and putting them back in the case after printing was done.

Can you imagine how long that would take?

Petznick Printing Museum has a working linotype machine, which is rare. There aren't many of these still left in the United States. Our friend Ed is going to show us how it works.

[Ed] I'll assemble a line.

(Text on screen. Linotype = “Line of Type”)

We use matrices that look like this,

(The matrix is a small, rectangular piece of bronze with a single letter, number or symbol engraved on its top edge.)

and you can see the recessed letters.

[Abby] Yeah, they're kind of pressed down in.

[Ed] And so they're stored in a storage box. We call it a magazine.

(A long flat box attached at an angle on the machine and takes up the whole top of the machine.)

We hit a key and one matrix falls at a time. It’s assembled in a line, and the line is transferred to the vice. The vice goes down and locks against the mold wheel. Hot metal is forced into the mold wheel and creates a line of type that looks like this.

(Abby holds the mold with one line of text that was just made using the matrices. )

[Abby] So why is it backwards?

[Ed] Well because that's part of the printing process.

[Abby] When the paper lays on top of it, we're going to press ink into the paper. And then that's going to transfer a mirror image. And so it needs to be backwards to start because the mirror image is going to end up being the right way.

(The Linotype machine drops the matrices back into the channel they came out of.)

So the machine even cleans up for you — puts all the matrices back?

[Ed] Puts them right back in the channel they came out of.

[Abby] Okay, so you've got your linotype that we just made, and now you're going to bring it over here to the printer’s table and do what with it?

[Ed] All right. I'm gonna put it in a form that we print from.

(Ed places the linotype into the center of an open metal frame and uses a mallet and wood block to tap the linotype into the frame. Once done, he takes a cylindrical key-like device and tightens the frame around the block of linotype on all four sides.)

[Abby] So now we're putting it into the printer?

[Ed] Yep - put it on the press.

(Ed puts the printing plate with the linotype between the paper and the round disc press above. He turns a large wheel at the side of the press to operate the printing press.)

[Abby] Look at that! Very cool.

(Ed holds up a freshly printed souvenir visitor’s pass for the Union County Historical Village.)

The linotype machine revolutionized the printing industry. And here at Petznick Printing Museum, you can get a firsthand look at why.

Every county in Iowa has experienced advancements in technology. In Union County, we get a glimpse of how technology has changed the printing industry.

Funding for FIND Iowa has been provided by The Coons Foundation, Pella and the Gilchrist Foundation.