The Paper Problem: With the newfound ability to assemble content and produce pages quickly and efficiently, existing papers increased their circulation numbers substantially. The demand for the paper on which to print the news inevitably grew as well. This created a need to use a less expensive paper stock to match the increased production rates. […]

Despite achieving the means to print in mass quantities, the publishing industry’s productivity was largely constrained by the need to set type by hand. By 1880, the Linotype Printing machine was invented. The machine used a keyboard, which allowed an entire line of type to be laid at once. The requisite time and effort to […]

Until the first part of the 19th century, the composition and typesetting were accomplished by painstakingly placing each individual letter into a “galley” by hand. The galleys were then placed into a “chase” that was the size of the final page. Since each letter was placed individually, there was no method for standardization or uniformity.If […]

The newspaper industry in the United States has evolved considerably over the last 300 years. Each development in the typesetting methods, printing process, and paper stock created unique challenges in adapting the digital image of old newspapers to a searchable format. Digitization Of Historical Newspapers & OCR (Optical Character Recognition) “What history buffs want is […]