James Burke : The Day The Universe Changed: "Matter Of Fact", 4 of 5 (CC)

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Episode 4 of James Burke's ground-breaking series "The Day The Universe Changed" which explores the evolution of Western Scientific thought starting from the fall of Rome. See channel page for purchase options.

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[rickey5353]

In 1973-1974 I attended a commercial art college; a mere 37 years ago. At the time everything was still hand drawn, mainly newspaper and magazine advertising illustrations. Computers have changed this trade with the same impact as the printing press had changed the handiwork of the scribes.

[JamesBurkeWeb]

That is true. Which is why "the powers that be" are so desperately trying to bring it under control and tame it... IMHO.

- JBW

[NJEsperantist]

This one is my favorite Episode. I used to be a letterpress printer.

[JamesBurkeWeb]

Jeez! Exactly how old are you! (just kidding).

But seriously, I didn't know that letterpress printing has been in use so recently (I mean even within the last 80 years).

Where, and for which company was it? I'd be curious to know about that. And also how it worked... I mean you didn't have to actually place the letters by hand did you?

- JBW

[NJEsperantist]

I'm only 45. I had a job in a little mom and pop shop that had 4 letterpresses.  We had a steady diet of numbering forms, printing memorial cards for the local funeral parlors and a host of other tasks including theater tickets for the schools and such, so yes, I hand set type just like my grandfathers did a hundred years ago. The letterpress need all but died out with the advent of desktop publishing though.

[JamesBurkeWeb]

Wow... I bet one could get a lot of cash for those machines from an antique dealer.

- JBW

[MrBunnerabb]

@JamesBurkeWeb

I think ,at this juncture, it's more that we've abandoned manufacturing, the arts as a salable commodity, money as a hard good marker and tossed everything down the digital rabbit hole and tried to monetise the simulacrums it spat out - after the fact.

To, as we speak, little benefit to the broad and mind section of the economic engines it has obliterated.

You can only move around information in a series of malleable maths for so long and call it the salvation of mankind.

[RedDaVincy]

English killed the Latin writer ♫

[televisionsux]

I placed the letters by hand. It was the mid 1980's. I worked for a chain of dept stores with 7 locations. We printed their SALE signs.(22x28) Anyway you'd get your metal bars, lay them across the body of a metal frame, handpick your wooden letters from a letter board, put them on the metal rods, with spacers between words when needed, ink up the rollers and manually slide the inked rollers over the letters to create "The Sign".

Very crude and even back in the 1980's, but it worked.

[televisionsux]

This is one of my favorite episodes for the very same reason. AS I look at the crude methods of the early printing press, I realize we were (us printers) part of this link in the printing chain. Now I have a blog. Nonetheless a link in the chain of books and words and info, It does not matter to me that I am a link, and link to through my blog, millions of other bloggers as insignificant as it may seem right now. Just sayin'

[NJEsperantist]

Depends on the buyer I guess. In the early 1990's they got rid of one for junk. Before that you could probably sell them to a south american country. Nowadays, I think Computers took away even that market. There are those who run letterpress as a craft, but those are smaller presses, for greeting cards and the like.