As a youth in Germany, Ottmar Mergenthaler was apprenticed to his uncle, a watchmaker. “Above all, watchmaking taught me precision he later wrote. The Linotype has been described as similar to a watch. Every piece moves in perfect harmony with the other pieces to form an intricate whole — like clockwork.
The first Linotype operator was a woman. Julia Camp, a speedy typist, operated the keyboard when Ottmar Mergenthaler demonstrated his prototype machine to investors at his Baltimore shop in 1884.
The Friedenwald Company of Baltimore was the first book printer in the world to install a Linotype. Mergenthaler had consulted with its manager while building his machine.
Are local printers funded the Ottmar Mergenthaler School of Printing in 1923. It became part of the Baltimore public school system and combined with two other schools in 1953 to form Mergenthaler Vocational Technical High School, known as MERVO. It still exist today.
Newspaper composing rooms filled with Linotypes were extremely loud and fast-paced. It was common for deaf people to be employed as Linotype operators because they weren't bothered by all the commotion.
The Linotype starred in a Twilight Zone episode, “Printer’s Devil.” A failing newspaper publisher sells his soul to the devil, who goes to work for the paper as a Linotype operator and reporter. He types stories on the Linotype, then later, in the day, the events in the stories occur, allowing the newspaper to scoop the competition. One day, the publisher reads off the Linotype that his girlfriend (who spurned the devil’s advances) was gravely injured in a car accident. Can he use the Linotype to type a scenario that will save her life?
End of the Line (otype): Phototypesetting, or “cold type,” first appeared in the 1960s. It used a photographic process to generate columns of type on scrolls of photo paper. Phototypesetting machines, which fit more easily in the offices, and were soon enhanced by computers, replaced the Linotype by the 1980s. But their reign was short. By the end of the 20th century, computer-aided phototypesetting was replaced by fully digital systems that produced entire pages. How long will it be before this technology, too, is replaced?