A short history of the printing press and of the improvements in printing machinery from the time of Gutenberg up to the present day — Edition Insights

From Wooden Screw to Iron Bed

The earliest press described is a wooden frame with a screw that pressed a platen onto type. Hoe notes that Gutenberg's method was 'simpler than that employed by him can be imagined'—a rare moment of understatement. The transition to iron presses is marked by the Stanhope press, which replaced the screw with a lever-and-knee joint. Hoe then describes Clymer's Columbian press, which used a complex system of levers and a counterweight. The Washington hand press, a later American design, is shown in an illustration. These early machines are all 'bed and platen' types: the type sits on a flat bed, and a flat platen presses the paper against it. Hoe's descriptions are spare but precise, focusing on the mechanical elements that changed.

The Cylinder Revolution

The shift from flat platen to rotating cylinder is the book's central technical drama. Hoe describes the single small cylinder press, where paper is carried around a cylinder that rolls over the type. This allowed faster printing than any hand press. The double cylinder press printed both sides of the sheet in one pass. The stop cylinder lithographic press adapted the principle for stone printing. Hoe's language becomes more animated when describing the rotary press, where type is mounted on a revolving cylinder. The 'type-revolving' press, built for the New York Herald, could print 90,000 four-page papers per hour. Hoe quotes the Herald's own description: 'its consumption of white paper is so astounding that even the imagination grows tired.'

Web Presses and Folding Machines

The introduction of continuous rolls of paper—'webs'—transformed newspaper printing. Hoe's first web press fed paper from a roll, printed both sides, and cut and folded the sheets. The double supplement press added a second web for extra pages. The quadruple press, built for the New York World in 1887, produced 48,000 eight-page papers per hour. The sextuple press, for the Herald, used 16,000 pieces and consumed 26 miles of paper per hour. Hoe describes these machines with a mixture of technical detail and pride: 'the limit of printing capacity in one machine had been reached'—until the next model. The folding mechanisms are given particular attention, as they were essential for high-speed production.

The Firm's Own Machines

Throughout the book, Hoe refers to machines built by his own company, R. Hoe & Co. The 'Double Supplement' press, the 'Quadruple,' the 'Sextuple,' and later the 'Octuple' and 'Double Sextuple' were all Hoe products. He notes that these presses were installed in 'offices of the large newspapers in Great Britain and other countries.' The book is thus partly a company history, though Hoe never uses first-person language. The final press described is the 'Collier's Weekly' press, a rotary art press for high-quality color printing. The book ends abruptly with technical specifications, without a concluding summary. This reinforces its nature as a working document for printers and engineers.

Hoe's history is best read as a technical reference rather than a narrative. The illustrations are essential: the text often refers to them without full description. Readers interested in the social impact of printing will need to look elsewhere; this book stays firmly inside the machine room. The later sections, describing presses built by Hoe's own firm, should be read with awareness that the author is not an impartial observer. For those studying the history of technology, the book offers a rare first-hand account of the rapid mechanization of printing in the late 19th century.

There’s something humbling about reading Hoe’s careful diagrams of those great octuple presses—machines that folded, printed, and stacked in one breath. It makes me think of the quieter memoirs in Engineering reminiscences contributed to "Power" and "American machinist" — Inside the Classic, where the same patient hands that built such wonders wrote down their days, almost like letters home. I find I miss that unhurried carefulness.