How quaint the early printing press would appear to us of to-day! It was used with very little change for one hundred and fifty years. The "forms" of type were placed upon wood or stone beds surrounded by frames called "coffins," moved in and out by hand with great labor, and after each impression the platen which had pressed the paper down upon the type had to be screwed up again with a bar. The presses which Benjamin Franklin used were made with wooden framework of the simplest possible construction. Iron frames were first used in England just one hundred years ago.
Franklin, in his Autobiography, tells the story of his attempt to set up a printing establishment in Philadelphia. At first he found it difficult to obtain any work, but finally he was given the job of printing forty sheets of a "History of the Friends." The price offered was low, but Franklin and his partner, Meredith, decided to accept it as a beginning.
Franklin set up the type for a sheet each day, while Meredith "worked it off at the press" the next day. The type had to be distributed every evening in order that it might be ready for the next day's composition. Therefore it was often late at night before Franklin finished his day's task, perhaps eleven o'clock or even later.
Other little jobs came in to delay the printers, but Franklin was determined to do a sheet a day of the history. One night, just as his work was done, one of the forms was accidentally broken, and two pages "reduced to pi." Franklin, late as it was, distributed the pi and composed the form again before going to bed.
Such industry and perseverance were sure to bring success in the end. Though, in the clubs and markets, every one was saying that the establishment must fail, since the two other printers in town had barely enough to do, yet Dr. Baird was nearer right; he used to say: "The industry of that Franklin is superior to any I ever saw of the kind; I see him at work when I go home from the club, and he is at work again before his neighbors are out of bed."
To-day we have a great variety of printing presses which embody both science and art in skillful fashion. These range from the smallest size of hand presses, through numberless grades, varying in size, strength, power, rapidity, and ease of running, to the modern newspaper press and folder and the wonderful color printing press. One of the newspaper presses will print at one impression, from a single set of stereotype plates, papers of four, six, eight, ten, twelve, fourteen, or sixteen pages, at the rate of twelve thousand per hour, all cut at the top, pasted, and folded, with the supplement inserted at its proper place. With duplicate sets of plates, it will print sets of four, six, or eight page papers at the rate of twenty-four thousand per hour.