A tour de force description of a recently replaced technology

Chronicle of the Early American Industries Association, Inc., The, Sep 2000 by Ellenport, Samuel

Barbara Rhodes and William Streeter, Before Photocopying. The Art & History of Mechanical Copying, 1780-1988. (New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll Books, 1999) Hardcover. $75.

It is striking to see how quickly an established technology can be overcome by one which does a similar function with more efficiency of labor or technique, or has a markedly lower cost. For more than a century, slide rules graced the desks of almost every scientist, giving way to hand-held calculators in a few years. Similarly, fax machines quickly replaced telexes or telegrams, flat records replaced cylinders, offset printing replaced letterpress. A technology that may have lasted hundreds of years as the norm can give way to another in the blink of an eye. A corollary to the replacement of one technology by a more efFicient one is that the speed of the change reflects the speed with which the former technology is forgotten. While we may still enjoy artifacts of a bygone time, actual details of how the technology functioned are often casualties of progress or are lost in the corners of our cultural closets.

Before Photocopying, written so capably by Ms. Rhodes and Mr. Streeter, is a tour de force in its description of a recently replaced technology. The book is divided into two sections, each of which is fascinating and enlightening. The first section is written by Ms. Rhodes. Her long and detailed essay called, "Materials and Methods" carefully details the impact made on the world of commerce by the ability to make copies of documents, invoices, and letters: the life blood of trade. Until 1780, when the copy press was invented by James Watt, all copies of documents were made laboriously by hand. Thereafter, with Watt's machine and innumerable knock-offs of his invention, copies were made relatively quickly with comparative ease and minimal costs. It was the beginning of that sea of paper which has threatened to drown us for over two centuries.

Watt's invention was based on offset technology. A document handwritten with a special ink would be placed against a dampened, unsized sheet of paper and both would be squeezed in a copying press; the pressure transferred some of the document's ink onto the blank sheet. If care was taken, this process could be repeated several times and multiple copies could be made from one document. The impact on commerce and communications was enormous, and is documented ably and concisely by Ms. Rhodes. Indeed, the success of this technology was such that copying presses were used through the early twentieth century While the technology of the typewriter was not enough per se to supplant the use of the copy press, the combination of the typewriter and carbon paper proved overpowering. By 190 the manufacture of copy presses had ended.

The second section of the book is written by Mr. Streeter. As only a passionate collector can, he describes the construction and details of the presses used for copying. Mr. Streeter traces the various companies which made not only the presses, but the supplemental materials which went along with them: the copying books, patents, inks, lever constructions, and so on. There are pictures galore of the different presses, showing their shapes and identifying marks and construction. Seventy United States manufacturers are listed by name, along with pictures of presses by unidentified makers.

The story told by Ms. Rhodes and Mr. Streeter of the invention, materials, and methods used in the copying process are well described, and make for fascinating reading. To say the research in Before Photocopying is exhaustive is meant as a compliment. (Their research, by the way, was underwritten in part by a grant from the EAIA.) It is difficult to imagine a more complete treatment of a forgotten technology which made such an impact on our industrial and commercial development. The index and bibliography are extensive, and the glossary of terms is very useful. Hard-to-find dollar equivalents are also included so that one can put into a true perspective the value of the dollar in the years from 1780 to 1939.

While the first half of Before Photocopying can be read as a story of the development of communications and business, the second half is an invaluable tool of discovery regarding technology Taken together, this book is a superb effort by two authors who know their topic thoroughly and have that uncanny ability of sharing their knowledge in an interesting and informative way.

EAIA member Samuel Ellenport, whose primary collecting interest is the history of bookbinding, is a bookbinder and the owner of the Harcourt Bindery.