The Rapid Electrotype Company of Cincinnati was organized in July,
1899, and incorporated under the laws of Ohio in May, 1902. It has
been in service over a fifth of a century.
Prior to the organization of The Rapid Electrotype Company,
electrotyping was, on the whole, a localized business. The Rapid
Electrotype Company pioneered in the service of making and
distributing newspaper advertising plates--electrotypes, aluminotypes,
stereotypes, and mats--direct from its factory in Cincinnati to
newspapers and dealers throughout the United States.
The originality of this service, intelligently rendered to advertising
agencies and advertisers, was one of the reasons for the increase of
their capacity from only five thousand square inches of plate matter
daily in 1899 to one million square inches per day in 1921, and from
an organization of only nine men to one of over two hundred and fifty,
working in day and night shifts.
Their new factory is unquestionably the largest of its kind in the
world, especially designed and equipped for the making and
distribution of newspaper ad plates of all kinds. Over forty-five
thousand square feet of floor space is devoted to this service, and
with their highly developed co-operative facilities they occupy a
unique place in the advertising plans of many large national
advertisers and advertising agencies.