The Linotype Comes West
Printers moved around
a good deal in the latter years of the 19th century. They may simply have
been looking for better pay, a friendlier boss, or a more comfortable climate.
They may have moved on because work was scarce where they were and jobs were
available -- or thought to be -- farther down the road. Or they may have traveled
on just for the delight of finding out what was around the next corner. They
took out a traveling card, depositing it with the local union in the next
town when they started to look for work.
Mark Twain had been a printer before his writing won him fame and several
fortunes. Henry George--the "single-taxer" candidate who garnered more votes than a young
Theodore Roosevelt in the race for New York's mayoralty, though not enough
to win--had been a printer and an editor, too, in San Francisco. Horace Greeley,
renowned editor of the New York Tribune, had worked at the type case before
he took to writing editorials. Bret Harte was another. Many more type-stickers
wandered from one office to another. They picked up a few days' work, then
moved on or settled down for a longer stay. The very nature of their trade
required literacy far beyond that of their fellow unionists. They were often
bookish men, fond of ideas and philosophy. For many years, they were almost
always first choice to edit the local union paper. They were invariably
among the spokesmen and leaders of the union movement.
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The tramp printer was often an effective channel of communication in a day
when other channels were slow, indifferent, and less than complete. He carried
word of developments and ideas, useful and otherwise, that had not yet been
elevated to the news columns. Blacklisted workers, forced to move on after
a strike was lost, became "Johnny Appleseeds" of unionism, spreading its
seed as they moved on. So, too, the traveling printer.
As the frontier closed in and cities built up, that kind of mobility lessened.
Not the least of the forces that slowed traveling was the development of
a typesetting machine. It hit the traveler where be worked--in the skill
of his hands in sticking type. A good man at the case could stick up about
1,000 ems, perhaps a little more, in an hour. The reports of the new typesetting
machine multiplied that figure many times.
In 1889, a rumor circulated around San Francisco that the Chronicle would
soon bring one of these machines to its new office. The machine was said
to have been used by the New York Tribune and cost $250,000 to have brought
it to its "present condition of perfection." A test in May, 1889, said the
Pacific Union Printer, measured the output of thirty-three men working 48
hours. Their average output nearly quadrupled that of a hand compositor.
The average cost proved to be 12 cents per 1000 ems--at a time when a
hand compositor earned about 50 cents per 1000 ems.
The International Typographical Union, at its 1888 convention, urged local
unions to "take speedy action looking to their [the machines'] recognition,
endeavoring every where to secure their operation by union men upon a scale
of wages that shall secure compensation equal to that paid hand compositors."
The convention of the following year enacted the union's basic law:
"The International Typographical Union directs that in all offices within
its jurisdiction where typesetting machines are used, practical printers
shall be employed to run them and also that subordinate unions shall regulate
the scale on such machines."
At the outset, apprentices were prohibited from operating the machine, but
in time that work was slowly added to their training. To avoid displacement
of union members special rates of pay were often set for learners--that is,
journeymen who wished to learn to operate them. The ITU strongly discouraged
any attempt, if any printer was inclined to try, to compete with the machine's
increased productivity by reducing hand rates or working longer hours.
The machine came west under less than auspicious economic conditions.
The early 1890s witnessed another severe, prolonged depression. Unemployment
soared and Local 21 closed the city to traveling cards. Commented the Union
Printer, "The job offices are complaining of dullness and some of the newspapers
are not employing as many men as they did a few months ago." Prosperity returned
by the middle of the decade and the city faced the new century under a brighter
economic sky.
In 1894, a machine scale committee of Local 21 laid down the principles by
which the introduction of the typesetting machine would be managed: piece
work on the machines was prohibited; the eight-hour day was to be established;
members of the union "who will be most affected by the introduction of the
machines" were to be given the opportunity of learning to operate them. The
Pacific Union Printer warned members that "to vote against the scale with
the idea that a failure to adopt a machine scale will in the slightest degree
retard the introduction of machines is an absurdity patent to the most
unreasonable."
The committee
set a scale of $27 a week on morning newspapers, $24 on all other classes
of work. The hours of labor were set at 48 per week and were to be reduced
to seven-and-a-half per day or 45 per week within the next two years. The
scale remained in effect until April, 1903. At that time the machine scale
was raised $3 a week. Introduction of the machine was more rapid in newspaper
offices than in commercial shops. Large quantities of composition in relatively
short bursts could be coupled more easily to reductions in hours of work.
In book and job offices, the machine was slower in catching on and employers
raised strong objections to a shorter work day. When Local 21 turned its
attention to that problem, it ran into deep trouble.
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