A foundry, principally for German type, was established at Germantown,
Pennsylvania, about the year 1735, by Christopher Saur, (or Sower,)
a printer, who executed in German the first quarto Bible printed in
America, as well as other valuable works in the German language. Three
editions of the Bible were printed—viz., in the years 1743, 1763, and
1776, the latter two by his son. In 1739, Saur published a newspaper in
Germantown.
An abortive attempt was made about 1768 to set up a foundry at Boston by
a Mr. Mitchelson from Scotland, and another in Connecticut in 1769 by
Abel Buel. In 1775, Dr. Franklin brought from Europe to Philadelphia the
materials for a foundry; but little use of them was made.
John Baine, a type-founder of Edinburgh, sent a relative to this country
with tools for a foundry at the close of the Revolutionary War, and soon
after came over himself. They carried on the business till 1790, when Mr.
Baine died, and his kinsman returned to Scotland.
A Dutch founder, Adam G. Mappa, settled at New York about 1787, and cast
Dutch and German faces, as well as Roman styles and several Oriental
alphabets. Want of capital prevented his success, and many of his
matrices passed into the possession of Binny & Ronaldson.[7]
In 1796, type-founding was commenced in Philadelphia by Archibald Binny
and James Ronaldson, natives of the city of Edinburgh, where Binny had
carried on the same business. Their assortment was not extensive, but it
embraced the essential founts,—Brevier, Bourgeois, Long Primer, Small
Pica, Pica, and two-line letters. They were obliging and attentive, and
in twenty years made a fortune. They improved their foundry according
to the increase of printing and the consequent demands of the trade,
extending their assortment from Pearl, of 180 lines in a foot, to
12-line Pica, having 6 lines. Binny made an important improvement in the
type-mould, by which a caster could cast 6000 letters in a day with as
much ease as he before could cast 4000.[8]
According to Holmes’s _American Annals_, about 200 newspapers were
printed in the United States in the year 1801, of which 17 were issued
daily, 7 three times a week, 30 twice a week, and 146 weekly. There
must also have been at the same time as many as 60 offices engaged in
miscellaneous printing. The whole business had increased threefold in
eleven years. Another type-foundry was put in successful operation in
Baltimore, about 1805, by Samuel Sower & Co. It had in it some moulds and
matrices which had been used by Christopher Sower, who had printed in
Germantown, near Philadelphia, and cast his own types. He printed with
German characters; but now the foundry was revived with excellent Roman
and Italic letters, and among other extraordinary things it had the size
called Diamond, with a smaller face than had ever been cast before. It
was the smallest type in the world.
The demand for type was very brisk till the war of 1812 commenced, and
the foundries were generally three or four months in arrears in their
execution of orders.
The names of the newspapers published in the United States in April,
1810, are given in Thomas’s _History of Printing_, and amount to 359,
of which 27 were daily papers, 38 were printed twice, 15 three times,
and 279 once in a week. Add those required for general printing, and the
whole number of offices could not be less than 500,—being an increase of
240 in nine years, and some of them using several thousand pounds of type
for book-printing.
In 1811, Elihu White established a type-foundry in New York. He had been
long engaged, in connection with Mr. Wing, in the manufacture of printing
types at Hartford, Connecticut, upon a plan of their own invention,
by which twenty or thirty letters were cast at once; but, abandoning
that invention, he adopted the old plan of casting, and, having a good
assortment of faces and bodies, his removal to New York was a great
convenience to its printers, and they gave him a very satisfactory
support. But the principal business in type-founding still continued, as
formerly, to be carried on in Philadelphia.
In 1813, another type-foundry was begun in the city of New York, by D. &
G. Bruce, principally to cast types for their own use. They had carried
on book-printing for seven years, and had now become acquainted with
the stereotype art,—Mr. David Bruce having visited England in 1812 and
acquired it by purchase and actual labour. For ordinary printing, it was
customary to bevel off the body of the type at the face end, or shoulder,
as it is usually called, which unfitted it for making a strong stereotype
plate in the most approved way: hence the necessity for casting type
expressly for stereotype. Their first fount was Bourgeois, with which
they cast two sets of plates of the New Testament, (the Common School
Testament,) and sold one of these to Mathew Carey, of Philadelphia,
retaining the other for their own business. But these were not completed
till 1814. In 1815, they cast the plates of the 12mo School Bible, on
Nonpareil type, prepared, like the Bourgeois, at their own foundry
expressly for stereotyping. They thus gave the first stereotype School
Testament and School Bible to America; but not the first stereotype
book. John Watts, of England, also commenced stereotyping in New York in
1813, and completed the Westminster Catechism that year, a volume of 120
pages 12mo. David Bruce invented the planing-machine for equalizing the
thickness of stereotype plates, which is now used in every stereotype
foundry in the United States. The process of stereotyping is, however,
entirely different from that of ordinary type-founding, and it is,
therefore, generally carried on as a separate business, or connected with
the composing department of a printing-office. Twenty compositors and two
proof-readers will furnish full employment for one moulder, one caster,
and three finishers, who will, among them, complete, on an average, 50
pages of octavo per day.
In 1818, or soon after, a type and stereotype foundry was established in
Boston, and another in Cincinnati, principally through the enterprise
of the late Elihu White, who, having the means of multiplying matrices
with facility, took this method for the extension of his business. Others
followed his example, and type-foundries were established in Albany,
Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Louisville, and St. Louis, with several additional
in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. The business, in fact,
was overdone, and failures and suppressions took place, as competition
reduced the prices of types.
The mode of type-founding has within forty years undergone important
changes, which must no doubt be considered improvements. First among
them is the introduction of machine-casting, in which a pump forces
the fluid metal into the mould and matrix, and gives a sharper outline
to the letter than was formerly given by the most violent throw of the
caster. The old practice of casting a single type only at a time remains.
The first idea of this machine originated with William M. Johnson, who
obtained a patent for it in 1828. Elihu White put it into use in his
type-foundry, and persevered in using and trying to improve it as long as
he lived; but he did not succeed in removing the greatest fault, which
was a hollowness in the body of the types cast by it, that inclined them
to sink under the pressure of the printing-press. The first successful
type-casting machine was invented by David Bruce, Jr., of New York, and
was patented March 17, 1838. The patent was sold to George Bruce, and
the machines were used by him until 1845. David Bruce meanwhile patented
another machine in 1843, which, with new improvements, patented two years
later, gave entire satisfaction, and is now in general use in American
foundries. By Bruce’s machine, three times the quantity of type that
was cast by Binny & Ronaldson’s improved mould is now cast in a given
time, and nearly five times the quantity that was cast by the common
hand-mould eighty years ago. This improvement has passed into Europe, and
been adopted by most of the German type-founders; but in Great Britain
for some time it found little favour. A so-called “automatic machine,”
for casting and finishing type, invented by Johnson & Atkinson, is in
operation in London; but its rate of production seems to be less than
that of the American machine, while, from its multiform operations, the
proportion of imperfect type turned out must of necessity be considerably
more.
The protection now afforded by the patent laws having checked the
piratical production of matrices by electrotyping, (except in plain
faces, a practice still pursued by unprincipled type-founders,) the
leading founders in this country have been encouraged to produce types of
new styles which in beauty and ingenuity surpass those of foreign origin.
There are now three type-foundries in Boston, seven in New York, one in
Buffalo, four in Philadelphia, four in Baltimore, two in Cincinnati,
four in Chicago, two in Milwaukee, two in St. Louis, one in Richmond,
one in St. Paul, one in Cleveland, one in Kansas City, and three in
California—in all, thirty-six. Some of these foundries not only supply
the printers of the United States, but most of the printers in Canada,
some in the British West India Islands, Mexico, South America, China,
India and Australasia. American type, in quality, style, and finish, is
equal, if not superior, to any made in Europe.
The following are the prices at which plain types have been sold for the
last seventy-five years, given at ten different dates, and naming only
the principal and most useful sizes:—
+----------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| |1806.|1811.|1819.|1827.|1831.|1841.|1860.|1866.|1876.|1893.|
+----------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
|Pica |$0·44|$0·55|$0·44|$0·42|$0·36|$0·38|$0·32|$0·56|$0·46|$0·32|
|Small Pica| ·48| ·58| ·48| ·46| ·38| ·40| ·34| ·58| ·48| ·34|
|Lg. Primer| ·56| ·66| ·56| ·50| ·40| ·42| ·36| ·62| ·50| ·36|
|Bourgeois | ·66| ·76| ·66| ·58| ·46| ·46| ·40| ·66| ·52| ·38|
|Brevier | ·76| ·86| ·76| ·70| ·56| ·54| ·44| ·70| ·55| ·42|
|Minion | 1·03| 1·13| 1·00| ·88| ·70| ·66| ·48| ·76| ·58| ·46|
|Nonpareil | 1·40| 1·75| 1·40| 1·20| ·90| ·84| ·58| ·84| ·66| ·52|
|Agate | | | | 1·44| 1·10| 1·08| ·72| 1·00| ·76| ·60|
|Pearl | | | | 1·75| 1·40| 1·40| 1·08| 1·40| 1·20| 1·20|
|Diamond | | | | | | | 1·60| 1·80| 1·62| 1·60|
+----------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+