ORIGINAL PRINTING PRESS (plural) U.S.A. ?
Just finished a long, very sad stint, Re Smelting Lead 10/16 grade (tin/antimony) for the Monotype.- 3 hours at night rate electricity, 1/3 day rate.!!
Quick look at B.P. resulted in interesting trawl for info.!
Keyed in to Google? Westward March !! U.S.A. WHAT Printing Press,s went Westward. - Drew a blank on that score, but did access a terrific article, 25 pages long, (yes did read in its entirety) massive amounts about which State had Printing Press,s and Newspapers First, little bone of contention apparently.! in some States. - In the 25 pages not one word about the actual Machines, amongst the B.P. forum any clues, Please, where to look, maybe.
One little snippet, in the 25 pages, fleeting mention of Printing Press & Newspaper involving the >Chippewa< Indians,
**need very little prompting to Play Gordon Lightfoots Edmund Fitzgerald** i.e. First line.
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down.
Like to establish What Machines were on the Westward March, some may have had origins in the U.K. Thank You Mick.
Until they got out onto the Great Plains West of the Mississippi River, most, or all, of the earliest presses in the states were Common presses, and many of those were built by Adam Ramage of Philadelphia (some 700 to 800 of them) or a few of the others by half a dozen press builders in the East — mostly in Philadelphia and New York. To add to the confusion, most wooden presses, no matter who made them, are reported as “Ramage” presses by historians! To add more to the confusion, the same physical presses might have been moved half a dozen times as the earlier printers upgraded and sold their Common press to another aspiring frontier publisher, who repeated the process. I suspect that by the time the earliest British-made Common presses were passed along they didn’t travel far before they gave out from so much use — few arrived in the Americas brand new. But there was quite an active industry in the Eastern states producing printing presses, first of wood and later of cast iron to replace the wooden ones.
Bob
A. L. P. Thank You, Good start, still like to verify, if possible any links, however tenuous, to the likes of the *Cropper Minerva* and similar to *Franklin* and others. *?*?* See below *?*?*
Understand, (up to a point) that in Films the Wanted >Dead or Alive< style posters on the obligatory Treadle Platen are maybe *poetic license* and probably wrong time frame, including the very condensed Main Line (screamers) !!
*?*?* Do own a small archive of, tatty, ancient, Letterpress related items, including reference to the Gordon (possibly) Alligator Press, - No Ink Disc, just a slightly Convex Ink Ramp.
The alligator terminology (apparently) from the tendency to SNAP shut, quite why, over and above other M/c,s not stated, unless it be the Early Treadle design.?
Bob, Thanks again. Mick.