Chapter-1

History of print media (1800-1900)

 1800 – Iron presses
Inspired by earlier attempts by Swiss type founder Wilhelm Haas,
Charles Stanhope, the third Earl Stanhope, builds a press which
has an iron frame instead of a wooden one. It can print around 200
impressions per hour. Because this Stanhope press is also more
durable and can print larger sheets.

 1808 – First printing in Brazil

In Spanish America printing presses are introduced fairly early,
such as in Mexico (before 1540) or Peru (1584). In Brazil, which is
under Portuguese reign, this happens much later. Some pamphlets
were printed in the eighteenth century but the first official printing
press is only installed in 1808.

 1810 – History of Printing in America

Isaiah Thomas creates the two-volume History of Printing in
America which is one of the best resources on colonial
printing in the United States.

 1814 – First cylinder presses

Friedrich Gottlob Koenig and Andreas Friedrich Bauer build their
first cylinder press, which is much faster than the existing flatbed
presses. The machine is capable of printing over 1100 double-sided
sheets per hour. In 1817 Koenig & Bauer return to Germany and
start building presses in an abandoned monastery in Würzburg.
Their company is nowadays known as KBA.
  1816 – Columbian Press
The cast iron Columbian Press, invented by George Clymer, can
produce 250 prints per hour. The Eagle mounted on top is not just
a decorative element; it also serves as a counterweight.

 1817 – Cardboard boxes

The first cardboard box packaging is produced. The Kellogg
Company is the first to use it for packaging cereals in the late 19th
century.

 1821 – De La Rue is founded

Thomas de la Rue starts a printing company in London. In 1831 the
company is allowed to produce playing cards, with postage stamps
following in 1855 and banknotes in 1860. Nowadays it is the largest
security printing business in the world.

 1826 – Dandy roll

John Marshall invents the dandy roll which makes it much
easier for paper manufacturers to add a watermark to
paper.

 1827 – Baedeker travel guides

Verlag Karl Baedeker is founded by Karl Baedeker. It
publishes travel guides and becomes such a household
name that such guides are often referred to as ‘Baedekers’.

 1829 – Braille is invented

Louis Braille publishes his Braille alphabet, a tactile
reading system for the blind.
  1830 – Dust jackets made of paper and sealed with
wax
Expensive books are protected by a dust jacket, a
removable paper wrapper. The oldest one in existence is
from 1830.

 1832 – Automating binding

Philip Watt invents the sewing machine, a major step
forward in automating binding.

 1835 – Bertelsmann
Carl Bertelsmann founds C. Bertelsmann Verlag as a
German Protestant publishing house. Over time this
company will become the largest printing group in Europe.

 1837 – Chromolithography
1. In France, Godefroy Engelmann is awarded a patent
on chromolithography, a method for printing in color using
lithography. Chromolithographs or chromos are mainly used
to reproduce paintings and scenic photographs.
2. Another patent from the same year is that of William
Hancock for binding books using glue. After a book is printed,
folded and collated its spine is trimmed and roughened using
sandpaper. Instead of sewing several coats of rubber
(caoutchouc) are then applied to hold the pages together.
 1840 – The first adhesive postage stamp
The Penny Black is the first adhesive postage stamp. It allows UK
citizens to send letters of up to 14 grams to any location in the
country at a flat rate of one penny.

 1841 – Anastatic printing

Anastatic printing is a process to create a facsimile or
identical copy of a document.

 1842 – The first illustrated weekly newspaper

The Illustrated London News is the world’s first illustrated weekly
newspaper. It costs five pence. From 1861 onwards such newspaper
becomes a lot cheaper in the United Kingdom because of the
abolition of paper duty.

 1843 – First use of photos in a book and first

Christmas cards
Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions by English
botanist and photographer Anna Atkins is the first book ever to be
illustrated exclusively with photographs. The 389 photos are all
made by placing algae directly onto photographic paper and
exposing them using sunlight.

 1844 – Using wood to produce paper

The Canadian inventor Charles Fenerty and his German
counterpart F.G. Keller simultaneously invent a new papermaking
technique based on pulping wood. Until then all paper was made
from pulped rags. Cotton fiber is still used today but only for
specialty applications such as currency.

 1846 – AP is founded
Five daily newspapers in New York City create The
Associated Press (AP) to share the cost of transmitting news
of the Mexican-American War by boat, horse express, and
telegraph. Other news agencies from the same era
are Agence France-Presse or AFP(France, 1835), Agenzia
  1851 – The New-York Daily Times
The first issue is published of what will later become The New York
Times.

 1856 – Full-page ads

Robert E Bonner runs the first full-page ad in a newspaper. It
promotes the New York Ledger, his own literary paper.

 1858 – Gordon Jobber

George Phineas Gordon produces the Franklin press, which is also
known as the Gordon Jobber. Once the patents on this design
expired other companies build presses based on Gordon’s design,
such as the Chandler & Price letterpress.

 1860 – Photozincography
A reproduction of the Domesday Book is the first publication that is
printed using photozincography, a lithographic printing technique
that uses zinc plates instead of stones. It is developed by the team
of Henry James of the British Ordnance Survey.

 1864 – RR Donnelley is founded

R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company is founded in Lancaster,
Pennsylvania. It becomes one of the largest custom map making
companies in the United States and gradually expands into other
markets. Nowadays it is a Fortune 500 company that is still heavily
print oriented.

 1865 – Faster web presses

William Bullock perfects Hoe’s rotary press. His press doesn’t print
on sheets but is fed by a roll of paper which is printed on both
sides. The press then folds the paper and cuts sheets at a speed of
up to 12,000 sheets an hour.
  1867 – Agfa is founded
Agfa, the Aktiengesellschaft fur Anilinfabrikation, is founded in
Rummelsburg, Germany. Originally the company focusses on
producing color dyes but it will gradually become one of the leading
manufacturers of film and printing plates.

 1874 – Production of corrugated board

Mass production of corrugated board starts. It is initially used to
package bottles and glass lantern chimneys.

 1875 – Printing on tin

In England, Robert Barclay patents the first
rotary offset lithographic printing press for printing on tin.

 1876 – Duplicating documents with the

Mimeograph
Thomas Edison receives a patent for a printing mechanism that
around 1890 will result in the mimeograph or stencil duplicator.
The Mimeo name is a trademark of Albert Blake Dick who licenses
Edison’s patents.

 1877 – Creative advertising agencies

The J. Walter Thompson Company is the first advertising agency to
have its own creative department staffed with copywriters and
artists. Its founder James Walter Thompson is credited as the
‘father of modern magazine advertising’.

 1878 – Invention of photogravure

The Czech painter Karel Klíč invents photogravure, a process to
faithfully reproduce the detail and continuous tones of
photographs.
  1883 – First practical use of halftone screening
Around 1850 William Fox Talbot had come up with the idea
of halftone printing – reproducing the gray levels in a
photograph using dots that vary either in size or in
spacing.

 1884 – Mechanical sewing machines

Hugo Brehmer develops the first mechanical thread-based sewing
machine for bookbinding.

 1885 – Automating punch cutting

Linn Boyd Benton invents the pantographic punch cutter. With this
machine, an operator can trace the brass pattern of a letter with
one arm of the device.

 1886 – Invention of the Linotype

Ottmar Mergenthaler invents the Linotype composing machine.
With this typesetter, an operator can enter text using a 90-
character keyboard. From a stock of letter form molds, the machine
assembles a line containing the typed text

 1889 – Early pop-up books

Lothar Meggendorfer’s International Circus is a pop-up book that
contains six pop-up scenes of circus acts, including acrobats,
clowns, and daredevil riders. Unfolded they form a circus complete
with orchestra and spectators.

 1890 – First flexo press

Bibby, Baron, and Sons build the first flexographic press. This type
of press uses the relief on a rubber printing plate to hold the image
that needs to be printed.
  1892 – Eastman Kodak Company is founded
George Eastman changes the name of his company to Eastman
Kodak Company, which later becomes Kodak.

 1893 – Addressograph
Addressograph International starts manufacturing
the Addressograph, a machine that allows business to quickly print
a series of addresses on envelopes, invoices, quotes or other
documents.

 1894 – First European Linotypes

De Nederlandsche Financier in Amsterdam, Holland is the first
newspaper on the European continent to start using a Linotype.

 1895 – Harris presses

Charles and Alfred Harris found the Harris Automatic Press
Company to market the first printing press with an automatic sheet
feeder. The press is nearly ten times faster than handfed presses.
‘Yellow Kid’ by Richard Outcault is the first comic strip to use text
balloons.

 1896 – Lanston Monotype Machine Company

The Lanston Monotype Machine Company, founded by Tolbert
Lanston in Washington D.C. in 1887, builds its first hot metal
typesetting machine. In contrast to the Linotype which casts
complete lines of type, the Monotype machine forms individual
letters. That makes it easier to correct spelling mistakes by adding
or removing an individual letter.
  1898 – First car ad
The July issue of Scientific American includes an advertisement for
the Winton Motor Carriage. This is generally considered to be the
first ad for an automobile.

 1900 – Kolbus starts producing bindery machines

The KOLBUS ‘Rupert’ is a book spine rounding and surface
pressing machine that will remain in production for 55 years. It is
the first in a long line of KOLBUS book bindery machines.