Took picture of this Linotype machine on display in a front window of the Clearfield Progess Newspaper building, Clearfield Co., PA. The poster reads: "For many years, the linotype was an integral part of the newspaper business. With growth of the offset printing process and the change from hot metal type to computers and other complicated machinery, the linotype machine is, as the Model T Ford, a museum piece. The Linotype is a Comet 300 model built by Mergenthalen Linotype Company, NY.
Several of my ancestors were or became coal miners after they immigrated to America and settled in western PA. None of their descendants are coal miners today. Mining was and still is a dangerous occupation, and I can understand why my ancestors wanted to get out of the industry.
In the early 1930s, my father's biological brother, Russell Stryke, nee. Strike, was a composing room foreman at the Alexandria Gazette in Virginia. He traveled to Ramey, Clearfield Co, PA, and convinced his aunt, Martha Streich Kramp, who was fostering his younger brother, Robert, that he could apprentice him to the printing trade. So, my father, at the age of 16, learned to be a linotype operator at the Alexandria Gazette, and later at The Washington Evening Star, and finally at the Government Printing Office, Patent Section.
As a young boy, I remember going downtown in the District of Columbia (Washington, DC), to the Evening Star building and meeting my father at his job in a room full of Linotype machines. All the surfaces were black with ink and the room smelled of ink. I can understand why it is said that a printer has ink in his blood. Dad showed me how he sat at the keyboard and clinked the keys so that individual letters made out of hot lead fell into a tray at his side. Eventually a mold of the composition would be formed and taken to the presses where it was inked and pressed into the rolls of newsprint.
Incidentally, I was at the Clearfield Progress to obtain the recent obituary of Thomas H. HAAS, son of John G. Haas and Cora Mae EMIGH. Thomas died earlier this year at the age of 79 years.
Family History is where you find it.
20 comments:
Interesting - my grandfather was a linotype machinist - born in Lewiston, North Carolina and later made his way to New York, where he worked for the New York Herald Tribune.
Hi There!
A writer I know is looking for a former Linoptype operator to interview him about some aspects regarding working on these machines. I am a former Mergenthaler employee. I am trying to help this writer find a former Linotype operator.
Is your father still alive and able to answer a few questions on the phone?
Thanks so much,
Andrew Jason
andrewjason@msn.com
305 710 8324
Sorry Andrew, wish I could help you find a former linotype operator, but my Dad died 36 years ago. They were still using the outdated Linotypes at the Government Printing Office, in the 1970s, when my father passed.
I am a former linotype operator. My training began in 1952 at Redondo Union High School in Redondo Beach, California at the age of 12. I opened my first typesetting shop in Van Nuys, California where I owned a Model 5 and a Model K(?) Mergenthaler linotype machines and i Intertype machine typesetting machine. My preference was always with Intertype machines as they just seemed to work better. I did 90% of the maintenance and had a roving machinist to do monthly service. Sold the business in 1973.
I now manufacture multi-focal contact lenses and have been doing so since 1974.
What a wonderful blog to see and read. My father was a linotype operator in Pittsburgh, PA. He was born in 1921 and raised in Pittsburgh. He attended Connelly Trade School, took part in WWII in Germany and after his return worked as a linotype operator and repairman for the rest of his life. I still remember the stories he would tell me about the machines breaking down or acting finicky. He was a wiz with any type of machinery and was always able to repair them, far better than even the union machinists who, because of their protectionist union culture didn't really want him touching the machines. He worked for William G. Johnston Company in the North Side of Pittsburgh until it closed it's doors. Sometime after that he worked for Friediani printing company and became friends with the owner and his sons. I'll always appreciate the fact that they hired my dad and kept him on, allowing him to have some dignity in his later years. Sadly he passed away in 1988. To this day I still love both of my parents and think of them often.
Carl
Carl, thanks for sharing your story about your Dad and his experiences with linotype machines and the printing trade. It makes our personal family histories unforgettable
My grandfather, father, brother, and myself were all Linotype Operators...
My grandmother was the first female linotype operator at the Chicago Tribune.
For my 16th birthday, I wanted, and received a Mergenthaler, Model #16 Linotype Machine . . . It was in a de-greasing tank, and the first time I saw it, it was hanging from a contraption above a tank of chemicals. I helped re-build the machine. Took a 2-3 years.
I was thinking of the machine today...got me to do a search on "Who or what, was a Linotype Machine Operator?"
Ended up here....
hi there - I am doing some research on the Linotype machines, it would be great if I could have the opportunity to speak with either Hydrok, or Duke Harding. If either/both of you would let me know the best way to get in touch with you I would really appreciate it. I wont take up too much of your time. Thanks so much!
I was a Linotype operator during the 60s when employed by a newspaper group in the UK. You can find a picture of me at my machine on this link which is taken from my web site http://www.mike-ohare.com/about/
I was a linotype operator in Tasmania, New Zealand and Queensland Australia in the 50s, 60s,70s and 80s
I consider myself in the group of young Linotype operators still alive. I´m 68 at the present time and started working in these machines at the age of 14, doing daily maintenance. My father taught me the principle steps and began working at 19 and kept a model 5 in beautiful working conditions until 2006 when computer finally took over. I had to move my shop to another facility and environmental zoning rules denied the use of the machine in most areas.I not only became an operator but in the process learned how to fix them. Once you operate one of these wonders, and do some mechanic work successfully, learning to operate any other printing press will not become a hard task. I operated offset presses, the Heidelberg windmill just by going over the instruction manuals. Little teaching was needed, only the conviction that once you learn the Linotype, anything else will be easy.
I truly want to share some experiences with other fellow operators of my era or maybe the older ones that are still alive.
No body else, except Linotype operators, will ever know or understand what these machines meant to us. How so many moving parts could work in such harmony and seldom times brake down, as long as they had proper daily maintenance according to the manufacturer.
E.G.G.
Miami,Florida
I was a Linotype operator, mostly on small-town dailiea and weeklies in Texas in the 1950's. I am now 82 years old. Never a machinist but a decent operator. I know a lot about the culture of small newspapers of that era. I also worked in a yearbook fspublishing firm in Dallas and a company that printed law briefs and court transcripts ln Houston. There were lots of jobs for people with skills. Haeold haroldsewell8232@yahoo.com
write me. a lot to tell
I started in the hot metal business at 13 melting metal. I was taught to run a Linotype machine by my older brother. After some other jobs I went to the Milo Bennett Linotype School located at Vincennes University having moved from English, Indiana. I learned the keyboard there and got a job at a newspaper. I ran a Linotype machine at various job shops until 1999 when the last hot metal company I worked for went bankrupt. We called them 'iron pianos'. Great memories.
Thanks for Posting about the hire and find unskileld workers I have also post some info to Thanks for Posting Job in Delhi, I have also post some Find Machine Operator In India
This is a fascinating thread about Linotype machines. I will add my story. Born in 1934 I started a six year apprenticeship at The Seattle Times newspaper in 1952 -- the following Monday after graduating high school at the age of just turning nineteen years of age. I went through all the phases of printing and the last two years were spent on Linotype. The first year I spent on setting news type on what was know as straight matter. We had a total of about fifty Linotype and Intertype (brand names). Approximately half of the machines were straight matter machines and the other half were ad machines for setting ad (guts -- slang for mixed type used in display ads). The ad machines took a lot more thinking mainly because they housed two banks of matrix magazines and were known as "mixers" because type of different styles from both side-by-side magazines could be mixed as required in the style as designated for a particular ad. I think one needed to know a little more to operate the ad machines because to set type for an ad the operator needed to be constantly moved around from on machine to the next depending on what the ad copy mark-up required. It was very interesting and we ad operators took a great deal pride in what we did. Well this era came to an end and newspaper printing changed to process known as pasteup (which is a whole different story that I will not go into). The pasteup era ended too and changed to typesetting being done on computer. As for me I spent approximately the first thirty per cent of my working life in hot type printing -- the second thirty per cent or so in pasteup -- and the remaining years on mostly a Mackintosh computer creating display ads in type. During the changeovers in the way type was set -- because I had been training thoroughly in each of the processes I worked on all three processes sometimes in the same day. I found this very interesting and was happy that I had this (in my mind) historical opportunity to perform this. When I finished my apprenticeship I took what was known as a traveler's card (a union card permitting me to work at any union print shop) and spent a year working in San Francisco and Los Angeles as a Linotype operator). It was an interesting experience. I returned to The Seattle Times and eventually retired after spending a total of forty seven years there. My son jokingly refers to me as a dinasaur -- and he is right. Linotype operator are extinct. Morry Korman -- 81 years old and still kicking.
Read your article with interest and especially your comment about the District of Columbia (Washington, DC), Evening Star. I am writing a love story of my husband and I and how we lost contact but found each other 15 years later without google. He was working as a linotype trainee for a newspaper when we met and worked in the printing business for 20 years. I have hundreds of letters that he wrote while I was in Texas and he in Arkansas and in one of them he told me he had a job offer in Washington DC and was exploring that possibility. It probably had no connection and I have no idea what company the job was with but it did catch my attention. He eventually went into public works until he retired in 2013 and passed away in 2015. Thank you for letting me reminisce through your blog.
I started working with Linotypes in 1974 and am still traveling the U.S. servicing them to this day: March 30, 2020 There are still many in operation around the country and it keeps me busy. I also service Ludlow machines which took my wife and I to Ireland in 2007 and 2011 to service 8 Ludlows at three different book binders. I started working for a Check Printer in 1971 and quit in 1979 to go intop business for myself and am still enjoying the craft almost 50 years later. I am now in the process of training my nephew to take over for me as there is still a need for this service. I can be reached at info@dshms.net if anyone wants to talk about these machines.
My name is frank. I served a 6 year apprentice on linotypes, intertypes Elrond’s etc. traveled the country with a journeyman’s card for years. Any other machinists still alive. I was not an operator, just a machinist
One of the largest printers in the world is the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. Hundreds of linotypes were used for decades, some into the 80's. I'm aware of one of the operators still very much alive and working with their new system MEPS. My other close friend who worked on one has recently died. Amazing machines. One of the languages used by our team was to produce bible literature in Ukrainian.
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