by John Howells and Marion Dearman
(Discovery Press, copyright 1996)

Journeyman Printers

The fledgling printer  was expected to leave the shop where he learned the trade, to make room for another apprentice.  More often than not, the new printer had to leave his home and travel to another town to find work as a  printer.  The more print shops a journeyman worked, the more techniques and “tricks of the trade” he learned, and the more rounded a craftsman he became. 

Only after he’d acquired a full proficiency of the trade could he proudly call himself a journeyman printer.  It is no coincidence that the terms "journey" and "journeyman" implied traveling in those early days of printing technology.
 

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