58 TUGboat, Volume 36 (2015), No. 1
Book review: History of theLinotype Company
Boris Veytsman
Frank Romano, History of the Linotype Company.RIT Press, 2014.
480 pp. Softcover, US$39.99.ISBN 978-1-933360-60-7.
Few inventions changed the cultural and politicallandscape as
profoundly as those involving cheap andquick copying of words.
Gutenberg’s movable typemade books available to multitudes of
people withenormous consequences for civilization. However,manual
composition was still too slow and expensiveto mass-produce cheap
newspapers. The inventionof hot-metal typesetting by Ottmar
Mergenthalerand his contemporaries made printing much fasterand
cheaper. It is difficult to fully quantify theconsequences since it
coincided with the advent ofradio, and both these events had a
similar effect: thedeep penetration of news into everyday life.
However,there is little doubt that newspapers and cheap bookswere
very important in the history of the last century.For about one
hundred years — until the advent ofdigital typesetting — Linotype
machines ruled theworld of mass-produced copy. While newspaperswere
the first adopters of the new technology, manyothers followed; as
Frank Romano writes in his book,during World War II every US
warship larger thancruiser class had a Linotype machine on
board.
The Mergenthaler Linotype Company, estab-lished in 1886 (as
Mergenthaler Printing Company)has a rich and interesting history.
It included tu-multuous arguments with the eponymous
inventor,lawsuits, patent fights, mergers, acquisitions — andalso
technological innovations, hard workers, greatartists and daring
visionaries. Besides developmentand promotion of hot-metal
typesetting, the company
created an enormous number of typefaces,
pioneeredteletypesetting (again of huge importance for thenewspaper
business), experimented with phototype-setting and contributed to
digital composition. Theexperience of its engineers with precision
mechanicaldevices allowed the company to venture into otherareas,
including the production of bombsights andother armaments
(especially during the wars).
Frank Romano, now an Emeritus Professor withRIT, worked at
Linotype for eight years. He haswritten a brilliant book about the
company — not adry list of milestones, but rather a work of love
andappreciation. The book includes, in excerpts or infull, rare or
previously unpublished documents, suchas the autobiography of
Ottmar Mergenthaler, man-uscripts, letters, earning reports, court
filings, news-paper articles, brochures, author’s own
interviews,and many others. The book is lavishly illustrated,with
hundreds of reproductions of samples, advertise-ments, photographs,
books and other materials thatLinotype published over 127 years of
its existence.
Romano’s foremost interest is in the people at Lino-type. The
book has many vivid biographical sketchesof extraordinary
individuals who worked for the com-pany or otherwise influenced it:
from Ottmar Mer-genthaler himself to the reclusive investor
GurdonWattles (by the way, a role model for Warren Buffett).The
people described in the book do not appear ascartoonish figures on
a backdrop of Linotype’s his-tory: Romano has a rare ability to
portray all hispersonages, even those mentioned only briefly,
asalive and real. The human side of the history is hisstrongest
feature.
Another interest for the author is evidently thefinancial side
of company activity: he writes aboutits mergers, acquisitions and
loans with attentionto detail. If one wants to know the net income
ofthe Mergenthaler Company in 1967 or how many
Boris Veytsman
TUGboat, Volume 36 (2015), No. 1 59
founders’ shares were issued at the company incor-poration, the
information can be found in the book.The author also describes the
lawsuits Linotype wasinvolved in, including those about font
copyright,which are still very relevant in the US.
The book devotes many pages to the influenceof the company on
the art of typography. Romanoreproduces cover pages and spreads of
the famousLinotype manuals, which defined the trends for
con-temporary typesetting. He describes the huge workthe company
did in the design of typefaces. Amongthe people of Linotype
described in the book areChauncey H. Griffin, Harry L. Cage, Paul
A. Ben-nett, Mike Parker, and many other figures in theworld of
font design and typesetting.
Having worked at Linotype from 1959 to 1967,from mail boy to
assistant ad manager, Romanodevotes a chapter of his book to his
personal remi-niscences. It describes the life at the great
companyin the Sixties with loving detail: from the quality offood
in the nearby restaurants to the generosity ofexpense accounts to
the typical day in the ad depart-ment. This chapter is great
reading for any lover ofhistory.
Romano also briefly touches on the history oftechnology:
hot-metal typesetting and other rele-vant inventions, such as
punch-cutting machines anddouble-wedge spaceband. I wish, however,
he hadbeen as detailed here as in other parts of his book. Ifeel
the book could have been improved by the inclu-sion of historical
drawings, e.g., from the company’spatent applications.
The book has many useful appendices, includinga detailed index,
lists of typefaces originated or usedat Linotype (both alphabetical
and chronological),a time table and a large bibliography. This
makes
the book indispensable for amateur and
professionalhistorians.
The book is designed by Marnie Soom and type-set in New
Caledonia and MetroNova. The fonts arevery legible, and the
illustrations are excellent.
Despite all the above, I confess I have severalgripes with the
book design and typesetting.
First, the paper size is 10.5′′ by 8.5′′. This widebook is
difficult to read except when sitting at a desk,and even more
difficult to leaf through. The book istypeset in three columns with
rather narrow margins.More generous margins could have been used
for thenotes, which are now put at the end of each chapter.
I also do not understand why the book is typesetragged right.
Narrow unjustified columns produce astrange look since the sizes of
the gaps are visuallycomparable to the column width. With the
raggedright margin, the indented first line of a paragraphsometimes
looks centered (an example of such aparagraph can be found in an
illustration above).Interestingly enough, justification was one of
thecrucial problems for the early Linotype machines,solved only
when the company bought John Rogers’sfirm with its patent for the
double-wedge justifier. Asdiscussed in the book, before this
purchase LinotypeCo. even tried to refuse to pay Mergenthaler
hisroyalties unless he invented a way to circumventthis patent,
arguing that his machine was uselessotherwise.
Last, but not least, it is not a good idea to breakthe line
between “Mr.” and the person’s last name,as it is sometimes done in
this book.
Despite these minor gripes it is a very goodbook. I think it
might be especially interesting fora TEX audience. Some of the
metaphors used inthe description of TEX’s algorithms come from
theworld of hot-metal typesetting. It gives a differentperspective
to read about the mechanical justifiers, orthe literal setting of
the slug. Many digital fonts weuse now originated at Linotype, and
it is fascinatingto see how they were created.
I also think this book is essential reading foranybody
interested in the history of typesetting andfonts.
� Boris VeytsmanSystems Biology School and
Computational MaterialsScience Center, MS 6A2George Mason
University,Fairfax, VA 22030
borisv (at) lk dot net
http://borisv.lk.net
Book review: History of the Linotype Company