Linotype machine

A keyboard-operated typesetting machine that assembles text from reusable matrices and casts each completed line as a solid slug of type metal.

Matrix (typesetting): A reusable brass mold bearing a letter or character used to cast type. Keystrokes release these molds, which assemble into a line before casting.
Ottmar Mergenthaler: A German-American inventor who developed the Linotype machine. His designs made practical mechanical line casting possible.
Newspaper: A periodical publication reporting news and other information to the public. High-volume newspaper production benefited from setting whole lines faster than hand composition.
Typesetting: The arrangement of text for printing or display. The Linotype mechanized a major part of the traditional hand-setting process.
Spaceband: A wedge-shaped adjustable spacer used to expand word spaces in a typeset line. The operator raises spacebands to justify a line before it is cast.
New York Tribune: A New York newspaper founded in 1841 and influential in nineteenth-century American journalism. Its editor, Whitelaw Reid, backed Mergenthaler’s development and early installation of the machine.
Hot-metal typesetting: Typesetting methods that cast metal characters or lines from molten type metal. The Linotype became the best-known machine for composing and casting complete lines.
Compositor: A printing worker who arranges type into pages or other printable forms. Linotype operators took over much of the manual composition once performed by compositors.
Line casting: The process of casting a complete line of type as one metal slug. It turns the assembled matrices and spaces into the Linotype’s printable output.
Whitelaw Reid: An American journalist and newspaper editor who led the New York Tribune from 1873. He supported the Linotype project as a solution to slow newspaper typesetting.

Linked from 7 pages