The Linotype Machine: Forgotten, Remembered, Beloved

By Lanndis De Lallo
July 23, 2018

When Ottmar Mergenthaler invented the Linotype machine in the late nineteenth century,
he produced the first leap forward in printing technology since Gutenberg’s printing press, four
hundred years earlier. Although Mergenthaler’s invention advanced society’s access to
information exponentially (the Linotype could produce printable type six times faster than a
person), his invention is a forgotten relic and his genius is forgotten along with it. Only those
who have taken a special interest in printing technology have even heard of the Linotype, fewer
have the slightest idea how the complex machine works, and even fewer still know the brilliant
man who invented it. However, as Douglas Wilson’s documentary ​Linotype: The Film​ (2012)
displays so poignantly, for the few who call themselves Linotype operators, historians, or
enthusiasts, the connection they’ve made with this archaic machine is unique, profound, and
everlasting.

In ​Linotype: The Film​ (2012), Wilson asks the interviewees to pronounce its inventor’s
name and every person utters is a different iteration. This quirky inclusion near the beginning of
the film introduces the fact that even among the machine’s operators, historians, and experts,
Ottmar Mergenthaler, though integral to our history, is as mysterious as the machine he invented.
What does this say about us? In a society so entrenched in an information influx, we often forget
yesterday’s story the moment we read today’s headline. The disappointing irony, in the story of
Mergenthaler and his Linotype, is that he was a forward thinking visionary; “as an inventor,
Mergenthaler’s priority was quality and he wanted time to improve the design... True to his
personality, [he] focused on improvements” (Wilson). However, because of Mergenthaler’s early
death at the age of forty-five, he never lived to see the impact his machine had on society, and
how his genius helped satiate our insatiable desire for information for the better part of a century.
Wilson speculates in the accompanying article he wrote about the history of the Linotype, that if
“he had lived longer, his name may have been as familiar to us as that of Thomas Edison or
Henry Ford.” Wilson’s passion and admiration for the Linotype and his inventor is evident here,
as well as in his film.

To understand the small but devout group of operators and historians’ interest in the
Linotype machine, it is important to explain why it was revolutionary. Unlike cold metal
machines, which utilized precast type that had to be redistributed by hand to continue the
composition process, the Linotype was equipped with “matrices, rather than pre-cast type, which
could be assembled for the casting of a justified line... in the machine itself, and... return the type
after printing to the machine’s metal pot for recasting” (Gaskell). Because the Linotype operator
could not only type keys much faster than he could place individual typefaces into a composing
stick, but he could continue typing line after line, without the interruption of having to assemble
the justified line himself, the process of creating print was as streamline as it had ever been.
Although the Linotype was the most automated printing machine of its time, it took an attention
to detail and according to modern day Linotype devotees, a profound appreciation for the
technology to operate it.

From its inception, the Linotype elicited a sense of artistry; ​The Manual of Linotype
Typography​,​ originally published by The Mergenthaler Linotype Company in 1923, compares
the operation of the Linotype to a pianist playing a piano perfect in workmanship and tone,
explaining that the “same is true of the Linotype machine. Mechanically, the Linotype is capable
of producing the best in typography—artistically, it is limited to the ability of the man who lays
out the copy and the skill of the operator” (Orcutt). This is most likely why former operators and
current enthusiasts and historians of the Linotype feel such a personal connection to the machine.
Unlike today, where digitization and technology’s ever quickening obsolescence keeps us at a
distance from the technology we operate every day, Linotype operators developed a thorough
understanding of the machine they used every day for their thirty year careers in the printing
industry. They listened to the musicality of the machine’s whirs and whistles and thumps, and
they learned exactly when to move their limbs away to avoid a blast of hot metal to the leg.
According to Timothy Trower, a dedicated Linotype operator, ‘it takes a special breed to run [a
Linotype]... just crazy enough to think it’s fun, and just smart enough to keep it operating.”

Although it may be heartbreaking to see some of the last Linotypes in existence tossed
away and useless, ​Linotype: The Film​ has immortalized the Linotype through the personal
accounts of those who love the machine, and whose stories would have otherwise been lost. If
Ottmar Mergenthaler knew what became of his machine, hopefully he would be proud of the
invention that changed the world, and although he may be disappointed in the ultimate fate of his
machines, surely he would understand that just like he was always looking forward, we too must
find the next revolution over the horizon.
 Bibliography

Gaskell, Philip. A New Introduction to Bibliography. New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press, 2009.
Linotype: The Film.​ ​ Directed by Douglas Wilson. Performed by Carl Schlesinger and Guy

Trower. United States, 2012. DVD.

Orcutt, William Dana, and Edward Everett Bartlett. ​The Manual of Linotype Typography,

Prepared to Aid Users and Producers of Printing in Securing Greater Unity and Real Beauty in
the Printed Page​. Brooklyn, NY: Mergenthaler Linotype Company, 1923. Accessed July 22,
2018. https://archive.org/details/manualoflinotype00merg.

"About the Linotype." Linotype: The Film. Accessed July 22, 2018.
http://www.linotypefilm.com/.