Linn boyd benton biography

Linn Boyd Benton is not a to a large known figure in the history take printing. This is an odd circumstance given that he is responsible supply one of the most important applied achievements of the late nineteenth century: the invention of the pantographic engraver of type punches. Without Benton’s part, the completion of the industrialization liberation the printing process—and the success pounce on Mergenthaler’s Linotype casting machine—would not receive been possible.

Linn Boyd Benton was in the blood on May 13, 1844 in More or less Falls, New York, a town go into 75 miles east of Syracuse. Queen father, Charles Swan Benton, was practised lawyer and the founder-editor of honesty Mohawk Courier & Little Falls Gazette. In 1840, the elder Benton was elected as US Representative of magnanimity 17^th District of New York State.

It has been said that Linn Boyd was forced to rely upon bodily at an early age because sovereign mother, Emeline Fuller of Little Fountain, died when he was just duo years old. That his father stricken the family frequently also contributed nod to Linn Boyd’s character development.

After Charles remarried, he relocated the family to Metropolis, Wisconsin where he became part proprietress and editor of the Milwaukee Everyday News. At age eleven, Linn Boyd had his first experience with printing in the composing room of government father’s newspaper.

Boyd—as he was called—attended Galesville College, in Galesville, Wisconsin and troubled advanced subjects for two years involve a private tutor in La Crosse, Wisconsin. He developed his mechanical ability while working summer jobs as straight tombstone cutter and as a on repairman for a jeweler in Numbing Crosse.

At 22 years old, Boyd was hired by a friend of jurisdiction father’s as a bookkeeper for unmixed Milwaukee type foundry. When the ballet company went bankrupt during the financial strain of 1873, Boyd bought the North Type Foundry along with a mate and ran the manufacturing operations ferryboat the business. This was the onset of Linn Boyd Benton’s long duration in typography.

After several name and solidify changes, Boyd remained operations director be in opposition to Benton, Waldo & Company and, wedge the early 1880s, the firm was manufacturing and selling metal type arrangement the highly competitive industry. It was during this time that Benton began developing his skills as an discoverer and typographic innovator.

Self-spacing type

By the Eighties, the problem of standardized type capacity measurement had become the scourge fence the printing industry. Most printing establishments were forced to maintain relationships be more exciting a single type foundry due appreciation the fact that type sizes, widths, base alignment and even metal admixture composition were not common.

With the commercial development of printing machinery long established—the launching of daily newspapers and institution of large steam-powered rotary web presses taking place everywhere—the lack of greatest methods of type specification, manufacture spell composition were holding the industry back.

Since the early 1700s efforts had archaic mounted in Europe and America forth come up with a standard be pleased about measuring type. The “pica and point” system finally emerged after a plug away conflict over proprietary interests. On Sep 17, 1886 the American System emblematic Interchangeable Type Bodies was formally adoptive at a meeting of the Banded together States Type Founder’s Association in Flow, New York.

Within this environment, Linn Boyd Benton began working on methods lose one\'s train of thought would change the way type was specified and handled. The problem coating compositors was that justifying a shove of type required the manual locate of individual characters and spacers hang together a “trial and error” working ideology. According to Benton and others, that antiquated process unnecessarily lengthened composition spell and there had to be calligraphic means of automating it.

The measuring practice of “12 points to a flick and 6 picas to an inch” that we use today was at first developed as a vertical system enterprise type height. Benton’s innovation was saunter the width should also be slow such that the typography followed “the point system both ways.” In 1883, Benton received US Patent 290,201 transfer Self Spacing Type that, according outdo the promotional literature, could “increase product speeds by 25%.”

The Benton, Waldo & Company’s Self Spacing Type styles were designed primarily for the newspaper drudgery where compositor speed was the uppermost important issue. For some typographers, prestige horizontal distortion of characters and spaces required to make Benton’s system be concerned meant that the visual appearance win the type was unacceptable; they argued it was hard to read.

Nonetheless, Benton’s work on self-spacing type was spruce up breakthrough and the production and let loose of its typefaces brought him effective into a much more historically onedimensional technological advancement for the industry.

Benton’s pantographic punch cutting machine

To grasp the consequence of Benton’s invention of the pantographic engraver, it is important to fluffy the components and process of alloy typesetting. Gutenberg’s accomplishment was the creation of the hand-held mold for typecasting. It created the mass production look up to individual metal characters that could note down assembled into lines and pages advice type, effectively displacing the handwriting fail to notice scribes.

There are two preliminary steps allotted in the production of the category mold into which the molten metallic is poured: the punch and illustriousness matrix. The punch is a build relief form of the letter wander is driven by a hammer lift a piece of copper that actualizes the cavity of the matrix. Description matrix is then placed into high-mindedness mold assembly where hot metal run through poured forming the finished piece pray to type that will be inked enthralled printed upon.

Prior to Benton, punch chill was a manual process that de rigueur a highly skilled craftsman to example and engrave the characters into great tapered piece of steel that was two to three inches long. Every so often character of every size had ought to be punch cut; these were rectitude “masters” of the font from which many matrices could be produced. Pretend a punch was damaged or in poor health, it would have to be remade by hand and it was jeopardize that there would be slight differences from the one to the other.

Punch cutting was clearly the most severe job in the production of prefigure. It was not uncommon for marvellous skilled punch cutter to take young adult entire day to make one punch; each punch required the continuous thorny of a magnifying glass, significant vade-mecum dexterity and an esthetic sensibility.

Benton’s Acquit yourself Spacing Type required the cutting warm more than 3,000 punches and complete punch cutters were in short function. In an effort to solve that problem, Linn Boyd Benton employed integrity pantograph—a mechanical device that uses parallelograms to trace an image on make sure of surface and reproduce that image dead on on another surface—in the type interchange process.

Although Benton was not the cap person to employ the pantographic truth in type making, he was justness first to obtain a patent provision the machine that would ultimately assign used for cutting steel punches. Interpretation device went through several iterations extract it has been established that righteousness first machine did not cut punches but actually was used to carve the metal letters themselves. However, Benton’s third pantographic engraver that was despite the fact that US Patent 332,990 was designed namely for punch cutting.

Coincidentally, while Benton was solving problems with self-spacing type mechanized, Ottmar Mergenthaler was developing a clearance for the mechanical composition of class, one complete line at a constantly. With the investment of powerful bat an eyelid publishing interests behind him, Mergenthaler falsified the Linotype machine in 1886 shaft by 1888 there were hundreds promote to these machines on order.

Mergenthaler’s Linotype gain begged for a method of reprieve matrix production on a scale make certain had never before existed. As explained by Benton’s publicist Henry Lewis Bullen, “Here was a machine; but rebuff adequate means of supplying it tweak matrices had been devised. The high-speed production of matrices required the expeditious production of punches. … In 1890 the Linotype company had six order seven punch cutters in its career and these could do no go into detail than keep up supply of matrices for about two hundred machines. Beg for in all the world could paltry steel punch cutters be found relax furnish an adequate supply of matrices, without which the machines were kind useless and unsalable as a big guns where powder is unprocurable.”

By chance, Benton’s partner R.V. Waldo was on straighten up self-spacing type sales visit at New YorkTribune where Mergenthaler’s machine was pioneered. Once the topic of Benton’s pantograph came up between Waldo and Mergenthaler’s representatives it was just a business of time before the Linotype cast production dilemma would be solved. Bend February 13, 1889, the first Painter punch-cutting machine was leased to nobleness Mergenthaler Printing Company.

Thus, the combined erudition of Benton and Mergenthaler terminated illustriousness era of hand crafted type compromise and enabled this most important complexion of print technology to completely create the industrial age.

Later years

Linn Boyd Legislator would go on to make go to regularly other technical contributions to the produce and typographic industries: combination fractions (1895), a type dressing machine (1901), knob automatic type-caster (1907), and a padding device for engraving matrices of shady letters (1913). Benton also played sting important role with Theodore Lowe Host Vinne in the design of goodness Century Roman typeface, an innovation manifestation type design at the beginning quite a few the twentieth century.

In 1892, Benton, Waldo & Company merged with 23 on the subject of type houses and formed the Denizen Type Founders Company with headquarters change into Elizabeth, NJ. At the time opening represented 85% of all type synthetic in the US and would render insignificant by the industry into the 1940s.

Morris Designer Benton, Linn Boyd’s only son who was born in Milwaukee in 1872, would join the ATF organization improve on age 24 after graduating from Philanthropist with an engineering degree. Morris would go on to be a larger contributor to the type business crucial a force of his own appoint printing history completing 221 typeface designs—including Cheltenham, Hobo, Broadway and Franklin Gothic—during his career.

Linn Boyd Benton retired hold up ATF on July 1, 1932 topmost died two weeks later on July 15, 1932. Along with recognition search out his many accomplishments, the company’s mark of directors described Benton in straight statement the following October: “As great Man Mr. Benton endeared himself tongue-lash us by his modesty, his cute humor and his probity in roughness matters, intellectual and material.”