Discussion

By Carlos Silgado on Sep 03, 2021

Yes!

By Bryan Gordon on Sep 03, 2021

Amen! You go get them Frank. If the invention of moveable types was the most important invention of the second millennium AD, the Linotype machine was not far behind. The Lino allowed you to typeset at least ten times faster than hand compositors. The Linotype spurred on the growth in literacy as it helped lower the cost of printed products. Dumping the used slugs in the melting pot was a lot easier than distribution into a California job case. Amen!

By Dov Isaacs on Sep 03, 2021

The problem with trying to do such a show about the Linotype is that probably 90%+ of living Americans wouldn't know what you were talking about if you mentioned the Linotype. If you look at what “machines” have already been featured on the History Channel show (and similar ones), what is in common is that the machine or product (such as telephones, radios, televisions, automobiles, tractors, etc.) is immediately recognizable to the viewer and indispensable in today's modern life.

Whereas the Linotype had a critically important role in lowering the cost (in time and effort) of printing (and publishing), it was only one, albeit exceptionally important, of a large number of technologies, products, and devices. Quite frankly (sorry about that), I know someone with a whole big museum featuring a good number of those products and devices!

The other aspect of that History Channel program is that it portrays a race between two or more competing inventors/entrepreneurs to succeed in either being the first to invent, manufacture, or even out-market the other with similar products, Examples: Ford versus Chrysler versus GM, Marconi versus Tesla. etc. The show isn't a documentary, but rather, a dramatized rendition of what may have actually occurred with the competing inventors/entrepreneurs. Linotype versus what? Otto Mergenthaler versus whom? (Maybe Frank can play the role of Otto?!?)

Actually, I can see a show on America's major contributions to printing as a two hour segment of PBS' “American Experience.” Start with Ben Franklin, throw in the typewriter, add the Linotype, introduce digital printing as the natural follow-up to the Xerox copier (with subsequent work at Xerox Parc), show how PostScript and PDF along with the Apple Mac, PageMaker, and digital cameras (invented by but also spurned by Kodak) brought publishing and print to everyman's desktop. (Maybe Frank can be featured as the expert witness to this revolution!)

- Dov