6    The first Linotype is produced

On 30 November 1885 Reid wrote to Stone that the working drawings would be completed within two weeks and that as soon as they were ready they should start to organise contracts for manufacturing the first hundred machines. Mergenthaler earnestly objected to the enormous risk involved in such a large order and the board agreed to reduce the number to twelve to be delivered by 1 April 1886.

Reid sent Thomas Miller, his best machine operator, to Baltimore, to work on the machine for a week, but he was constantly interrupted by the draughtsman and by Mergenthaler making little changes as he observed a printer working the machine. Miller estimated that he could set 5,000 ems per hour on it, where a top hand compositor could not normally maintain more than 1,000 ems per hour. However, Reid’s machinist, Mr Thompson, believed that he could get up to 6,000 ems. Reid intended to send Miller back for another week of what he hoped would prove steadier work after Mergenthaler had finished ‘two or three days tinkering’ and wrote to him on Saturday 5 December 1885: ‘Will you be ready for Miller on Monday next with a fair chance for continuous work?’ It was followed by another letter dated 7 December that Miller would report for work Tuesday morning. Yet another letter of the same date said that Miller would report on Wednesday morning instead of Tuesday; to which the inventor replied by Western Union Telegram: ‘Machine working all right; will expect Miller tomorrow morning.’

The experimental output was printed in the New York Tribune, the only perceptible difference in appearance being that the lines of the type were finer and sharper. There was no comment in the paper. On 14 December Hutchins asked Reid for a copy of each issue of the Tribune that contained an article printed from National Typographical slugs. Next day Reid replied that they would try to make a file of marked copies of the papers containing articles set on the Baltimore machine to send to him.

By this time the Remington typewriter had been on the market for over ten years and many typists were familiar with the QWERTY keyboard. Reid wrote to Mergenthaler on 29 December 1885, that Clephane had said that recent improvements would allow him to use the typewriter keyboard on the machine. If using the typewriter keyboard involved no mechanical difficulties and would not delay matters it would be a great advantage over the current keyboard. It would give them the benefit at the outset of a large body of operators who could be called upon in case of need. Mergenthaler replied by return of post that Clephane was mistaken. The improvements to the keyboard related to speed and reliability, and it was not convenient to apply the typewriter keyboard to the machine.

Mergenthaler was under great pressure to manufacture the machines on time and, on 8 January 1886, asked Reid to excuse him from the election meeting the following week, because they were making improvements to the machine that required his personal supervision. In general he was confident about progress on the machine, but was having problems with the matrices. These were flat pieces of metal 1 ¼ inches [32 mm] long by 13/16 inches [21 mm] wide with the mould of a character on the edge.

Those matrices were vital. Reid obviously wanted the output from the machines at the Tribune to match the movable type used on the paper so that he could use them as much, or as little, as he chose without having to make the matter public. [In Part III of the 1989 edition of the biography Carl Schlesinger described the difficulty of identifying those parts of the paper set by Linotype from those set in movable type. He decided that the matrices must have been electrotyped from fonts of movable type.] To protect the newspaper from adverse comment, in case the Linotype failed, Reid had the backup of three Burr typesetting machines for setting movable type and the case hands in the composing room to produce the paper as usual.

Time was very tight because by 23 December 1885 Mergenthaler had not received the type to use as a pattern. By early February 1886 matters were becoming desperate. Mergenthaler started to investigate a process for casting matrices, because electrotyped matrices wore out quickly, but had to find an alloy that would repel type metal and would not deform under heat or pressure.

Reid wrote to his associates and Mergenthaler that he was getting a little nervous about the delay on account of the matrices. He suggested that electrotyping in nickel should continue as before in order to have some matrices ready for the first of March whether or not the new experiments were successful. In rather too diplomatic terms he told Mergenthaler to get the basic design working before looking for improvements. He was not averse to experiments–but not at the cost of any delay to the machines.

Towards the end of February 1886 Mergenthaler said that he had found just the metal for casting matrices and on 9 April 1886, more than a week after the deadline for machines, wrote to Reid: ‘Work on the new machines is being carried on vigorously. The first one is just now being built up and commences to look like what it is going to be. Everything so far goes together nicely. Hoping to be soon able to inform you of the completion of a perfect working machine with cast matrices.’

By mid-April Reid’s growing frustration showed in his correspondence to others. In a letter to Stilson Hutchins he wrote: ‘You are certainly right as to the necessity of getting one of those machines either into our office or some other office at the earliest practicable moment. We were promised, within a fortnight, that one of the machines should be ready to have steam turned on this week. The last letter from Mr Mergenthaler spoke of a little delay, but evidently he was not expecting it to be long. Just as soon as this machine is running, I hope to be able to make [some] sort of move in the direction you suggest.’

However, no machine was delivered and Reid wrote to Mergenthaler on 6 May: ‘You don’t need to be told that it is a very great disappointment, both to the Washington stockholders and what is called the New York syndicate, that the first of May finds us a month after the date fixed and still without a single one of the twelve machines ready for work. From the report sent to Mr Smith, I gather that one of these machines might now be ready for work if the course strongly argued last February had been taken and the preparation of matrices had then been begun by the old electrotyping process. Quite probably these matrices could not have lasted more than two or three months, but meantime the machine would have been at work and you would have had further leisure for perfecting your new plan for casting matrices.’

Reid kept in constant touch with Baltimore and, on 17 May, wrote to Hine: ‘According to reports from Baltimore, one of the new machines is now in good running order and needs only an adequate supply of matrices to be set at once at regular work.’ Hine replied next day: ‘that a complete font of type matrices will be ready and the machine running tomorrow. There will probably be some filing and grinding needed before all the parts will work smoothly together but this will not take more than two or three days. I think we had better keep the machine running in the shop for about a week before removing it. I can see no possibility of any failure or weakness in any of its parts but it seems a little cruel and dangerous to remove it from maternal care the first week of its existence.’

Hine continued, no doubt hoping to placate Reid, that: ‘the men work very industriously and take a real interest in the work. The trouble is – if it ought to be called a trouble – that Mr Mergenthaler is a characteristic inventive genius with astonishing fertility of resources in mechanics and a mind too original to adopt suggestions in his work. In short he is a pleasant estimable German. I have not found the loss of anything by accident. Mergenthaler is the last to leave and carefully goes over the factory every night. There is nothing that the thief could make pay for the labour and risk of stealing and organised distructionists have not yet considered us.’

On Tuesday 22 June, Smith wrote to Reid about delivering the first machine. Mergenthaler had kept the men at work until eleven o’clock the previous night and the machine could now be shipped on Friday with a full set of matrices. He had given strict orders to arrange with the Pennsylvania Central Rail Road Company for the prompt delivery of the machine in New York on Saturday morning [26 June]. Mergenthaler would go up on Friday night. It would not take long to set up the machine and connect with the gearing which, it was assumed, would be ready in advance.

Reid evidently had planned to leave New York on Thursday 1 July, and Smith tried to reassure him with the statement: ‘I could have had the machine packed and shipped Wednesday, but nothing would have been gained so far as your getting off on the 1st is concerned, and something would have been lost with Mergenthaler. I found him really ill, and I have been worrying all the time lest he break down altogether. He has trouble with his lungs. I have therefore taken that course that will avoid irritating him, and yet promises to get you off on the day you have fixed.’ This seems to have been the first reference to Mergenthaler’s failing health.

Reid replied the next day that he would try to have shafting ready by Friday night, but would not attempt to arrange blower and air-blast until Mergenthaler arrived. He also wanted to know the size and weight of the machine and suggested that it could be hoisted like a safe if it would go through a window four feet eight inches wide. If it had to be taken apart any pieces weighing less than three thousand pounds and measuring less than two feet six inches could be brought up by the rear elevator.

Reid made arrangements with a safe-hoisting company to collect the machine from the Jersey City freight depot and install it in the Tribune building, but the shipping date had slipped because on Monday 28 June, he sent the following message to the Freight Office: ‘Heavy machinery direct to me at Tribune office, New York, was shipped from Baltimore yesterday afternoon. Bearer has contracted to take charge of it and hoist to its place in my office. Please deliver to him, holding this as your voucher, and oblige.’

The delay also affected Reid’s plans to leave New York on 1 July. Part of a letter of that date stated that Reid would be in the office on Friday and Saturday [July 2 and 3] between one and five o’clock. There was no further correspondence about the installation date of the first machine.

7    The first machine goes to work

In the biography, Mergenthaler glossed over the first installation in a sentence: ‘In July, 1886 we find the first of these machines completed and at once forwarded to the composing room of the New York Tribune, where it was used on the daily paper and also to set a large book called The Tribune Book of Open Air Sports which book was composed entirely by this first linotype machine that ever went into commercial use.’ As mentioned above, he seemed oblivious to the urgency and drama of that first installation.

In the August 1936 issue of Linotype News, John T. Miller, the first Linotype operator on the Tribune, aged only 20 at the time, recalled the arrival of the first machine on 3 July 1886: ‘Through the Frankfort Street end of the composing room ran a huge flagpole. To that pole, that memorable afternoon in 1886, a block and tackle was attached. Nine stories below, in the street, was the first Linotype. It was completely boxed, and on top of it stood a man to guide it through the network of telegraph wires. [A safe rigger was paid $35 for this service!] The middle one of our three Burr machines had been shunted aside to make way for the new device, and the Linotype was slowly drawn up to the composing room. As the man who made the dangerous ascent threw one leg over the large window sill, he gave loud expression of his relief, and soon Ottmar Mergenthaler and Charlie Letsch had the Linotype in working order.’

‘Naturally, the arrival of the new and improved contraption made a big stir. All of us who could manage to, crowded about for a good look at it. Most of the hand men didn’t think much of it, and many said so. Even we Burr operators were a little skeptical at first. But we were the ones, we knew, who’d have to handle it, and I was determined to learn all I could about it as quickly as possible.’

Despite reports of a crowd when the first Linotype was delivered there was no publicity about the installation of the machine. The first known article and illustration released to the general public appeared in the Scientific American on 9 March 1889, nearly three years after the first Linotype came to the Tribune. The front page illustration, much reduced, is shown in figure 8.

The machine went into production the same day, but it was too late to set matter for that day’s edition. John Miller explained how Linotype slugs came to be in the Tribune on 3 July 1886: ‘Those slugs were cast by my brother Thomas Miller, now dead, who worked for some time with Mergenthaler in Baltimore, I clearly remember when the slugs arrived, and I distinctly recall that the postage on the package amounted to ninety-five cents.’ Every day, after the paper had been put to bed, the Linotype was modified to compose the 500-page Tribune Book of Open-Air Sports. This was a major task; it took an hour to change from news to book setting.

Data based on personal recall 50 years after the event is always open to doubt. In this case, popular belief that the machine was delivered and installed on 3 July, is disproved by Whitelaw Reid’s correspondence books in the Library of Congress. A letter to his wife, dated 2 July 1886, stated: ‘Machine here and working beautifully. On farm next Thursday.’ A memo dated 3 July 1886, confirmed that he would leave New York next Wednesday [7 July] – but made no mention of the new machine.

When asked about the new machine Reid refused to give details until it had been thoroughly tested. On 9 September 1886, his secretary wrote to Henry P. Hay, First Auditor’s Office, Washington, to say that the new ‘type-setting machine’ is doubtless the machine for casting ‘linotypes’ from moulds of letters. This machine, the property of the National Typographic Co and the invention of Ottmar Mergenthaler, is not yet on the market, and is still being perfected. When ready for introduction, you will have no difficulty in getting particulars. This was possibly the first use of the word linotype, but applied to the printing surface, not the machine. Reid sent a similar reply to a John Doran on 17 September 1886.

In November 1886, the Tribune Book of Open Air Sports was offered for sale to Tribune readers, by subscription only. A review in December, after the lists had closed, stated that the print was clear and attractive and that it was the first product in book form of the Mergenthaler machine which wholly supersedes the use of movable type. It was published in January 1887 and carried the message about the Mergenthaler machine on the reverse of the title page. The Tribune carried no further information about Mergenthaler or the Linotype until 19 May 1889.