A German immigrant named Ottmar Mergenthaler invented it in the 1880s and continued to promote and expand its use until dying in Baltimore in 1899. The Linotype's power involved transferring a line of text (typed with meticulous care by a Linotypist onto a special 90-key keyboard) to a sheet, creating a "line o' type" that could be rapidly printed onto many subsequent pages, thanks to the genius of matrices and hot metal.

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A massive legion of dexterous Linotypists quickly rose up, their responsibility to type out the finished newspaper text in order to allow for quick, relatively easy printing. By 1895, London newspaper proprietors assembled to form an association of the new typesetters. Their ranks swelled throughout the 20th century, with 25,000 of the machines in use by 1911 and 33,000 by 1916, according to The Linotype Bulletin (yes, seriously) and a "complete and practical treatise" on the Linotype written in those respective years. People began to appreciate the industry as its own institution within journalism. In 1929, a Boy Scout visited a newspaper plant to earn his Journalism Merit Badge and called the Linotype "one of the three wonders of the modern newspaper plant," spending several paragraphs explaining the process. Four decades later, by 1954, the number of Linotype machines in operation swelled to 100,000. The invention had become a critical part of producing newspapers, ads, books and more.

Furthermore, typesetters' wages were "relatively prosperous" in mid-century America, according to a Linotypist's long account in a 1979 issue of Texas Monthly. As interesting as the profile itself happens to be, little can match the punch of the subhead: They travel from town to town. They drink hard, they work hard, they are dedicated to their craft. They're typesetters. Oh yes they are. The author of the piece, Pat Hathcock, later adds, "Typesetters have always been drinkers. Benjamin Franklin mentioned it. Thorstein Veblen mentioned it. My wives even mentioned it." Those practicing Linotype even acted as unauthorized editors of the newspapers, apparently, according to a 1972 New York article, a reflection of their spontaneous character. "With me, if [the Linotypists] don't like what I'm writing, they change my opinions," a writer for the Yiddish paper The Forward explained to a colleague who had noticed a spelling change in one of his articles.

Hathcock recollects learning the trade in the 1950s and 1960s, first on a dummy keyboard before he could "contend with the added complications of the matrices and molten metal." He began work in Oklahoma, earning $65 a week ("I haven't had so much buying power since"). Linotype had its own magic due to the ease and flexibility of the trade. Take note, for instance, of the people Hathcock called "the travelers":

I became aware of "travelers" -- men who moved across the country from print shop to print shop. They spoke nonchalantly about every good-sized town in the country, and they always delivered their judgments in terms of the bars, women, and hotels, as well as the print shops and newspapers. Men who have traveled that much (and most travelers were men) have a sophistication that transcends formal education, an ease in any surroundings, and a brash confidence in their skills.... They had more nicknames than the Mafia -- Two Star, Dirty Shirt, the Silver Fox, Speedy, Ten High, the Wandering Jew, Pete the Tramp.... One of my friends, a Scotsman, has set type everywhere in the world that English is spoken.

Yet by the time of Hathcock's 1979 profile, the world of Linotype was fading, as the writer acknowledges. He talks about a union's attempts to train members in other areas of printing, "unable to do much more than slow down the flood of new processes."