The Linotype Machine

The Linotype machine industrialized the printed word. Before Ottmar Mergenthaler’s 1886 invention, every page was assembled by hand, one metal letter at a time. The Linotype let an operator type at a keyboard while brass matrices dropped into place, then cast the entire line as a single slug of molten metal — hence “line o’ type.” A newspaper that once needed armies of hand compositors could now be set by a handful of operators, and the daily press exploded in size. Edison called it the eighth wonder of the world. Phototypesetting and then computers, cleaner and faster, retired the hot-metal machines through the 1970s and 80s.