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A Print Devil can be a 9 year old person who knows nothing,
walks down a dirt road, stops at a print shop and asks if they need help?
The answer comes back YES.
Printers don’t talk everyday words like 9 year olds speak
No S-I-R R E E E E E E E E . . .
I used words like hay bales, corn cobs, oats,
glass milk bottles, halters, reins, tugs, double tree,
hitch pin, clevis, horse shoes, ice corks, milk pails, saddle,
milk crates along with a steam spinning milk bottle brush that
spit steam inside the bottle while being cleaned.
The printers used words like picas, points, didots, cicero,
line rule, leads, slugs, hell box, type notch, reglets, quoins,
leaders, galleys, gutters, turtles, quoin key, space bands, vice
jaws, hot metal, matrices, distributor box, metal pot, 1st
elevator, 2nd elevator, clutch leathers, hell box, quadders,
distributor box, mixers and on and on.
I was telling my
mother about all these words and said the word “hell box” which
caused her, while pealing potatoes, to turn around and point a
knife at me and said their ain’t no such thing as a “hell box.”
You better get back to milk bottles, oats and horses. Next day my
dad stopped at this print shop and did in fact find out that
there was a “hell box.”
For a kid who knew “gee” and “ha” to get
horses to turn left or right and how horse apples got from stalls
to the pile in the farm yard, this Print Devil thing was a whole
new world!
. . . from Print Devil to ? ? ?
His first exposure to
graphics and printing was hand setting newspaper headlines for a
North Eastern Wisconsin Newspaper. It was called being a
"printer's devil."
All Foundry Type had a NICK on the front edge of each character.
After setting the first line and before inserting any lead
(space between lines) the compositor would make a quick check to
see that all characters in the line were set correctly. If one
character showed up with no nick - it’s time to turn the
character around so the nick shows before inserting the lead
space – usually a 1 or 2 pt lead.
Each letter in the headline was an individual character molded from
lead, more commonly known as foundry type. The process was called
"hand stickin’" type." You set the characters of foundry type, side by
side, upside down for the headline in a long metal tray referred to as a
stick or type galley. (metal tray made of heavy steel with 1//4” sides on
3 sides – leaving the end of the tray open so type could be slid off of
galley tray into a form. If the line of characters were too long for the
space intended in the newspaper you would distribute those
characters back into the type drawer and go to the next smaller size
type face and reset the line again. After a couple days of this, you got
to know which type would fit into a given space.
The makeup person would determine the length of line and typeface
that should fit. He would place a white chalk mark on the metal galley where the line should end.
The foundry type (above) came in many different sizes – from 5 pt. (like classifieds ads in newspapers) to 148 pt (like 2”
high headlines in newspapers.)
The average size of text in news stories appearing in a newspaper is 8 pt type.
§ § § § § § § § § §
The next lesson to learn is were all these characters were stored in the below drawer. Capital letters wern’t too hard
BUT the lower case etc. were a total mess. I never got a real explanation on my they were all mixed up. I did find out that
the “e”, being a most used vowel required a larger space for storage.
California Job Case Type drawer(below) has 89 separate spaces for storage of characters
Some spaces for lower case letters were larger — used more often in composition
Larger type sizes were divided into two drawers — with larger spaces
When selecting a drawer of type, you always pulled the drawer directly below your selected type drawer 1/2 way out. Then if you had to get to numbers in the top row of your type drawer and pull the drawer out too far – it would fall to the
next drawer – not all the way to the floor, creating one hell of a mess – which was called “pied type.” Those who pied a
drawer got the opportunity to clean (redistribute) the characters to the correct square storage area within the drawer
On Their OWN Time!
Type (fonts) characters were stored in large drawers called California Job cases. These drawers were 32" wide x 17" deep x 1
.5" high which were divided into many different size spaces. Larger
spaces for vowels and spacing materials. Smaller spaces for
consonants, numbers, ligatures, punctuation and special characters.
Most drawers of type had 89 separate spaces. The larger type was
divided between 2 drawers. Caps in one drawer and lower case, the
other. You would stick all caps required for the headline, close that
drawer and select all lower-case to complete the headline. As many
as 60 drawers were in a type cabinet.
Above the 2 rows of type drawers are vertical stacks of 1 and 2 pt. leads use as space between lines of hand set type. Many different lengths - from 6 to 24 picas. Above them, the angle storage squares
held different brass spaces used for spacing between characters
within the words - to justify the lines of type in a composing stick
when required
This print devil had to stand on a stack  of three CoCa-Cola cases to reach the top 4 drawers.
(That's when a short bottle of Coke cost 5¢.
The cooler for the Coke was a large square tin box w/ folding covers.
¼ chunk of ice was delivered, via horse drawn wagon, every other day for 10¢.
(Print Devil got to empty a pail of water from cooler every 2 days)
“Hand set” type is composed up-side-down on a type galley. (picture right)
Place the galley onto a proof press, roll ink on face of
characters with brayer (roller), place sheet of paper on type
then move (large roller) impression roller across paper.
Large roller in Proof Press picture (below)
Type will read correctly – (upper half of picture - right) > > >
Proof press
(left) was invented around 1810
Type shops in the country used them until photo composition
arrived in the 1960’s
Present day hot metal type shops still use them
(believe it or not– hot metal typesetting is alive and well)
The trade is taught at
Linotype University
located in Denmark, Ia.
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What the hell is a HELL BOX?
The Hell Box keeps track of lost type and broken parts.
Never know what you’ll find in there!
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 Cold Beer Here!
Another of the devil's daily duties was take two empty pails to the corner pub, (Ye' Olde’ Oak Tavern on the square – Marinette, WI.) and have them filled with beer.
A ritual performed each day when the newspaper was "put to bed." (Placed onto the press)
All comp room personnel would locate their mug, gather around this huge flat stone table (below)
where pages were "made up" (imposed/assembled) and partake in swilling of the beer.
The barkeep traded 2 pails of beer for 2 FREE newspapers —
compliments of the newspaper publisher.
Printers, Typesetters, Proof Readers etc. that were waitin’ for the
Print Devil to return from Ye’ Olde’ Oak Tavern.
The “makeup” flat stone tables are in foreground
1875 Hand Cranked Flat Bed Press
Tramp Printer — Ever hear of them?
How about Drifters?
 Read on to learn more
Tramp Printers would traverse the country from East to West Coast and North to South, depending on where the best weather was. One could show up at any newspaper or commercial type shop and request work. It was difficult to find good people who could hand stick type and be a good speller. They were never turned away. Always showed up with no money.
Most of the shops had a Chapel Chairman. Like a Union steward today. The
worker would converse with the Chair who in turn went to the owner or
publisher and cut a deal for the Drifter to work. If the pub/owner refused,
then another permanent worker would take a day off and have this worker
take his place. The problem with a permanent worker taking a day off, he
would visit the other shops in the area and possibly take employ at a
different location. Then when the Tramp left town – his former employer
would be short of GOOD help. People who could hand stick type were
always in demand. Owners would hire a housewife before a male. Women
had smaller fingers and could hand stick type faster than most males.
However in those days the rules were different for women. If they had
children, they stayed at home tending to them.
The tramp drifter wouldn’t stay for long. Maybe a week or so.
The local saloon always had food for them and a place to sleep. The tramp
drifters never left town without settling their tabs at the local saloon.
They might be back in 6 months.
 Long before Gutenberg's invention entered the scene, Germany was already a
center of European book culture. Books were hand-made by monks in
monasteries, who toiled for weeks over a single manuscript and were primarily
responsible for copying religious documents. Illuminated with gold and
beautifully illustrated with colorful drawings and designs, these books remain
some of the most important medieval cultural artifacts in Germany.
Guttenberg
and one of his assistants
page still under construction
Forward to 1955 —
This print devil joined the U.S. Navy. Started as a Seaman Apprentice (same as printers
devil — do the crappy work) and was whisked away to Adak, Alaska to operate a TV station
for the entertainment of troops. (the devil worked at WLUK-TV 11 Marinette, WI. while in
high school) Air Force, Marines and Navy plus some dependents were stationed there..
Television, small 12" screens that produce black/white pictures on a glass tube along with
speakers that blurt out sound and have more snow on the screen than picture.
Adak is so far out of touch with the real world that map makers created a westward jog in
the International Date Line so the last island on the Aleutian Chain, Attu, would be included
within the continent of North America. Adak Island is 5 or 6 from the end of the chain.
See Hot Metal Typesetting machine
hot metal type setting machine by Wood Side Press
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