Wisconsin School for the Deaf - Tattler Yearbook (Delavan, WI)

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A HISTORY OF PRINTING By Farris Kioncler Printing means the making of letter . character or figure on paper, cloth, clay or stone. It is one of the most important industries in the world. All printing was first done by hand. In the earliest times, the Egyptians used to do their printing by engraving chnrncler and symbols on soft tiles or on bricks. These were then hardened by baking. If they wished to keep a record or n picture of a person, they drew figures on blocks of clay. The Chinese are known to have printed from engraved blocks at least fifty years before Christian times but they still use this same method now. A long time ago, the Romans used engraved stones and metal for stamping signatures and money. They were a very intelligent people but they were afraid to use printing because they thought it might cause the people to rebel a-guinst their government. Several hundreds of years passed between the beginning of Chinese printing, or the use of Roman stamps, and printing with movable typo as we know it to-day. Dugold Stewart, an English writer, said that printing should be thought of as slow improvement instead of being the result of one single invention. When we see printing growing better, and when we think of how slowly it began, and how long it took printing to Improve, we think Mr. Stowurt knew what he was talking about. Engraving upon wood was the first way of printing in Europe. Blocks were engraved for printing playing cards ns cnrly as the fourteenth century. The “Poor Man's Bible was printed in n way like this. This held about forty leaven printed from many different blocks. So wc can see that it took a great amount of work. Printing with movable type was invented by Johannes Gutenberg of Germany and I auren» Coster of Holland between 1420 ami 1440. We don't know for sure which of these two inventors was tint, but the discovery l» usually given to Gutenberg. Gutenberg was the first one to cut type from metal nnd Inter he made mntrico and molds from which the types were token. Gutenberg formed n pnrtencrship with Faust, • jeweler. The first book which Gutenberg printed was a copy of the Latin translation of the Old Testament. People call thin book the Masc-arin Bible because many years afterwards a copy of it was found in the librury of Cardinal Masarin in Paris. Gutenberg was born about the yonr 1400, at Moinx, a German city on the Rhine, near Frankfort. His parents were once rich people who took a leading part in the affairs of that city. We do not know much ahout Gutenberg's hoy-hood days, but when he was a hoy. he was vory ambitious and would try anything once. The trades at that time were run by guilds which were like clubs. Gutenberg learned two trades instead of one. The first trade he learned was that of polishing stones and mirrors. This took him from five to seven years to learn and he received no wages during that time. Reside that, ho had to pay o certain amount of money for his teaching. The other trade was that of mnking wood type. It would seem rather easy to do this, but he was forced, although he didn't wish, to give up trying to make moveable type from wood. He seemed to be on the right rood to success when he came to print from lead type, hut he found that it took much more pressure than wooden blocks. This caused a great deal of trouble. The trying to find a metal to make type from took weeks and months. We have never found a better way of making metal for type. The metal is called type-metal nnd was one of the great discoveries of Gutenberg. The Linotype was invented by Ottmnr Mer-genthnlcr. of Baltimore. It is a wonderful machine. It has a keyboard with ninety keys upon which letters nnd characters arc designated like that of a typewriter. By touching a key. the mat-ricc, into which thr letter or character h indented. is caused to drop into line by a revolving cam roller. When the operator ha.- set all the letters and characters the line will hold, it in transferred to the casting part of the machine. There it is properly spaced or justified by means of spacebnnds. The mold Is then filled with metal and a solid lino of type is made. The matrices nro distributed to their proper place above the machine called the maguxinc. The type thut hu -been set is moved to a small galley where o proof of it is taken for the proof-reader. The type in then passed to the make-up man who make- it ready for the presses. The slugs cast by this machine are not distributed but are thrown into a melting jwit to be remelted. The melted lend in the melting pot used over again after it bin been cleaned nnd cast, into nmull blocks called pigs. The average speed on tho machine is around 4,500 urns an hour, but an expert operator can net 7,600 or more t?ui per hour. The cost of a machine is from $3,500 up. Tho first printing press in America was set up in the city of Mexico in 1500 and the first printing pres In the United States was placed in Harvard College, Cambridge, Mass., in 1030. This mny bo considered the beginning of the fa-

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marked graves along the trail bore mute testimony of those who would never reach the coast. They passed through the Rocky Mountains by way of South Paw an easy gateway to the West. When the Meeker porty reached the Snake River, cholera broke out again in the terrible dust. They had a hard time crossing the river in its deep canyon. On socing an enterprising young man calking his wagon box with tar, the Meekers did likewise and soon their goods were safely across. For several days Mr. Meeker helped people across the river in his wagon box. thereby earning at least a hundred and ten dollars of which only two dollars and seventy-five cents remained on his arrival at Portland. Five long, tiresome months of travel had brought them about eighteen hundr«d miles from the Missouri River. After reaching The Dalles, they found a great crowd of weary and worn travellers. Some went by boat down the Columbia to Portland. A few of them were thinking about their old homes or their dear ones who slept in graves along the trail, but most of them were hopeful of what the future held for them. Soon after the Meekers were established in their new home in the Puget Sound Valley, a letter came from his parents asking when someone could come for them. Mr. Meeker’s brother wont to work in the timber to earn enough money for the trip to Iowa that winter. Some months later hearing that his fumily was in want on the trail not far away, Mr. Meeker left his wife and child and went out horsoback through Notches Pass to holp his parents over the mountains. One day he saw many wagons being lowered over a steep clilT. The travellers had not enough rope to reach the bottom so they killed three steer and cut up their hides into strips to lengthen the rope. Twenty-nine wagons were safely lowered down the cliff, only one being broken to pieces. On reaching hi father’s camp Exra Meeker learned that his mother and brother had died and were buried along the trail. Cutting log , roots and rolling stone away to make a road for the wagons through the forests, the pnrty reached Puget Sound. In a covered wagon drawn by an ox team u he had traveled west in 1862 Mr. Meeker planned to follow the old trail to Washington to enlist President Roosevelt's aid and that of Congress in marking the Old Oregon Trail In memory of the brave women nod men who had endured the hardship of travel. He left Puyallup. Washington, on January 29. li»Ort. for Seattle to raise funds for his trip. At Olympia where the old trial was about two miles from the city, he placed a stone marked The Oregon Trail: 18-13—67.’ Collecting money where he gave addresses, he bought monuments to place on the old trail. Some towns had already put stones in place. On stopping ut South Pass Mr. Mt-efci-r planned to place a monument there later. A few miles on. the Devil's Gate and Spl'.t Rock were old landmarks. A monument was erected in the beautiful city of Kearney, which had been known as old Fort Kearney. Passing through farms and wheat fields which had been a desert In 1862, he found towns where none had been in the old day . New roads, not curved or winding but intersecting each other at right angles, marked township lines. After many hardships Omaha was left behind and his route led him to Indianapolis, New York, Trenton. Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington where Mr. Meeker received warm welcome. One day, driving hi- ox team through the city of New York, a policeman sent him to the station, and tried to drive the team, but being ignorant of oxen, he had to free .Mr. Meeker who went on through New Jersey where he visited relatives. At last he reached Washington. President Roosevelt was very much Interested in .Mr. Meeker’s idea and was willing to help build the new highway to the Columbia called The Oregon Trail.” Mr. Meeker shipped hia outfit most of the way back to Portland aa he was longing for his home life after being gone for twenty-eight months, lie had succeeded in covering the old trail. The ox team trip was repealed in 1911, and in 1915 he made the trip in an automobile. Nine years later he flow across the continent in an airplane. In the summer of 1928 once again this undaunted pioneer of almost ninety-eight started East in a Ford cur but wan taken ill in Detroit where he remained in a hospital for two months. In December he passed away in Seattle where he had been taken. Had Exra Meeker lived to be one hundred year old, he would have been the central figure in the celebration of the Covered Wagon Centennial which was observed by the American people from April 10 to December 21 In 1930.

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mous University Press which Is one of the Inrgext book-making companies in America. The first press was just a woollen frame for holding the form in which the type was placed. It looked much like u cider pre.v . After the face of the typo had been carefully covered with ink the form was shoved under the screw which was worked down by a lever. When the -crew was worked down, it pressed the paper evenly upon the type. The screw was then raised, the paper taken off, and in this way a copy was printed. In putting ink on the typo, they had no brayer like wc have now. They used a hall made of leather and wool covered the outside. It was rolled in ink and was then rolled over the type. Work with u press like this was very hard because only a few copies were printed a day. It was very slow work. Tho firvt American press, invented by Richard Hoe of New York, in 1840, is thought to be the first successful press in America. This press, with some new improvements that have been added from time to time, i» tho kind of newspaper pres. used now. At first these presses were with two, four or eight cylinders. In 1860 on eight-cylinder press was made for the New York Sun which printed 10,000 sheets an hour on one side. Before this time, stereotype plate which printed on both sides had beon conaidcrod good for newspaper work on account of the time that was saved. Stereotype plates for this pres ore cast in mold which are in the form of a half-cylinder so they can bo easily clamped on tho cylinders in the press. Folding and counting machines were later invented to fasten to the prex . The speed with which the daily papers are printed on these presses is almost more than we can believe. A new press made for the New York World can print, fold, cut and count 90,000 eight-page paper an hour or 16,000 u minute. The paper runs through the machine ut the rale of thirty-two and a half mile per hour. The t r»t book printed in America was from tho press in Mexico and was called A Spiritual Ladder to Ascend to Heaven. The old press at Cambridge is of great historic interest. The first issue from this press was the Free Man’ Oath. The most famous work of the pres was the first edition of John Flint's Indian bible, This took three year to make. There are only two or three copies of it now and these are valued at nearly S'J.000 u copy because they are so old. From these small beginning printing in the United States ha grown to a large also and now it is one of the most important industries of this country. It employ thousand of men. Many million of dollar are spent every year on printing material, paper, and other supplies that printer need. Those who know very little about printing and the operation of the presses would be very interested if they would visit some of the printing office . The work i very interesting and I am sure that any of you would then wish you were u printer. I intend to make it my life work. I have worked at printing for two years and still find it Interesting, especially the composing part of the job. •OQO 00°’ ONE YEAR AT THE W. S. I). AND WHAT IT HAS DONE FOR ME By Loretta Oryall My home 1s in a small town in Onoidn county. Tho name of the town I Monieo. I have lived there ever since I lost part of my hearing, which wan at two years of age. I live on a farm, n very small one. which would hardly be called a farm by some people. My health was very poor during the first years of my life, but now it i of the best. No matter what happened. I nlwuys attended school. If then was a rain storm. I could wear a raincoat. If there was a »m»w storm, 1 could ■kl. When 1 was five year old. I started in the first grade, and 1 have kept on in school, never missing or failing a year since. For the first eight years I went to n small rural choo! about one-half mile from home. That school had about twenty pupil . I left the eighth grade and that school In the spring of nineteen twenty-nine. Shortly after school wo out, the Oneida county nurse. Mis Florence Hoesly, called on my parents and asked them to allow me to attend this school for my high-tchool course. My father decided that he wanted me to stay home one year and take the freshman year in the Monieo State Graded School, three and one-half milea from home. Then I could decide where I wanted to go for the last three years. I had my choice between three schools; this school, the Antigo Day School for the Deaf, or the Rhinelander Public High School. 1 found out all 1 could about all three schools while I was at home. I visited in Rhinelander, and rend all 1 could about this school and the one in Antigo. At first, I had an idea I would like Rhinelander, because my sister would he with me there for about one year. But