The "Oh! The Sweet Smell Of Printer's Ink: Part I - It's In My Blood" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Sitting at my desk wondering how to begin a story about something that has been a part of my life for almost 70 years.  Came to the conclusion that I would, and should, start at the beginning.  929 North Queen Street in Lancaster, Pennsylvania is where I spent the majority of my childhood.  Next to our semi-detached home sat a large printing company that used Linotype machines to create the lines of type they used to print magazines and books.  I sat by their open back door many an hour watching the pressmen run the presses.  At times they would drop a line or two or three of type by the door and I would retrieve it.  I eventually used these lines of type in my small back yard army pup tent my Aunt Doris bought me for Christmas one year.  I fastened the lines of type together with a rubber band, pushed them onto an ink pad and then pushed them onto a paper tablet.  I was a printer!  Nothing made sense that I printed, but only I would see what I was printing.  I eventually was given a printing set with real small wooden letters, paper, water-based ink and a small press.  I wrote short stories and notes about my neighborhood, set the type and printed it onto paper which I would fold in half like a small booklet.  The neighbors actually gave me a nickel or dime for these pieces of paper a few times a summer.  

A metal job stick, which in this case is holding pieces of hand-set
metal type, sits on top of what is known as the California Job
Case.  The case has compartments for every letter of the alphabet
as well as numbers and punctuation.  The typesetter must memorize
the entire case to facilitate setting type.  This is what I taught when
I first began teaching Graphic Arts. Click on images to enlarge.

When I graduated from Millersville State Teachers College in the mid-1960s I began a career in teaching ...the graphic arts.  You know ...printing!  I loved it!  I taught at Manheim Township High School from where I had graduated five years before.  The wood shop where I taught had a small room with a couple of table-top platen presses, two floor model platen presses and an ATF Chief offset press.  I talked my department head into letting me start a course in graphic arts.  I had the best time teaching my students the basics of backyard printing.  

Here I am helping a student make changes to his job stick.
I am the one with the glasses since I looked like a student
when I first started teaching.

Quite a few of my students eventually became printers, including my two sons who are now pressmen for local printing companies.  My youngest, Tad, works for LNP which is in the midst of a yearlong process to celebrate their 225 Anniversary.  That, dear readers, is the reason for my story today.  In 1794 the first Lancaster Journal was published in a tavern on West King Street in the center of the small town of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  

Here I am running a platen press at a print shop in Lititz, PA.

Not long before Thomas Jefferson made the statement ..."Were it left up to me to decide whether we should have government without newspapers or newspapers without govern- ment, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."  So it was in Lancaster that the newspaper began and to this day survives.  What at one time was known as the Lancaster Journal is now known as LNP.  This morning, on a half-page attachment to the LNP newspaper, it read "Our Big Year."  

The front page of the Lancaster Newspaper
telling of the celebration of 225 years.

Directly inside were the numbers "225" in perhaps 100 point reverse letters with the small letters "YEARS" in 30 point.  It is the start of a year of celebration for the press in Lancaster, PA.  The historic pub where the paper was first published still stands with a sign out front that tells the story of Bailey's Printshop which was both the official printer to the U.S. Congress as well as the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.  Thomas Paine's "Crisis No. 4" was also printed on this spot.  It is amazing to know that I have been a part of the history of this country with my backyard printing press years ago.  During the beginning of the newspaper much of the front page, of a four-page paper,  was devoted to classified advertising, since at the time there was no Internet, television, radio or even telegraph to bring up-to-date news to its readers.  

Sign in front of the building where the
newspaper was first printed and where
the offices are today of LNP.

The Lancaster Journal was founded by William Hamilton and Henry Willcocks and published for the first time on June 18, 1794.  The mission statement of the newspaper still rings true today with, "Not too rash - yet not fearful - Open to all parties, but not influenced by any."  The newspaper was published once a week and it should be noted that one of the founders, William Hamilton, began as an apprentice in the Philadelphia print shop of Benjamin Franklin's grandson, Benjamin Franklin Bache.  Lancaster can be pleased that this gentleman journeyed to our small town and opened what has been my reading material for as long as I could read.  There have been a few changes over the years to the physical appearance of the newspaper with the the medial "s" being used until almost 1800.  

The same building can be seen on the right. There is a
banner telling the age of the Lancaster Intelligencer
above the building.

In this case the letter "s" looked as if it were an "f".  Also, the top portion of the front page, known as the "flag" or "nameplate" was changed from time to time.  Everything from clean, simple typefaces to Gothic script were used.  Today the stylized three letters "LNP" tell the name of the publication.  Today's story is the first of three that will appear with more to come as the newspaper will  publish a weekly page from the past.  Should be interesting to see the news as it appeared in Lancaster 225 years ago to present.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.  

PS - My story title holds true for me, since there are very few publications that I do not pick up, open and smell the ink.  Very intoxicating to a really old printer.

A pen and ink drawing of the front of the newspaper office.

The newspaper office as it appeared in the 1940s.