Ottmar Mergenthaler

Ottmar Mergenthaler (May 11, 1854 in Hachtel, † October 28, 1899 in Baltimore) was a watchmaker and is the inventor of the Linotype typesetting machine.

Curriculum vitae

Ottmar Mergenthaler was the third of four children of Johann Georg Mergenthaler (1820-1893) and Rosine Ackermann ( 1828-1859 ). His father was a village schoolmaster and came from Hohenacker in Waiblingen. In the autumn of 1854, the father was transferred to Neuhengstett in Calw, where he remained four years, until he took up the teaching profession in Ensingen in Vaihingen an der Enz in the summer of 1858. There Ottmar reached its teenage years. Already in 1859 his mother died. 1861 married the father of Karoline Hahl that the young Ottmar and his siblings was a loyal caring stepmother.

Even as a child showed Ottmar great technical interest. So he managed to repair the broken church clock in Ensingen. His desire to study engineering, his father for financial reasons but could not fulfill. On the other hand, he did not become a teacher like his father. His two older brothers already visited the junior high school, but for Ottmar his father could no longer pay school fees, but also he was first required as household help. Since technical jobs required a college education, Ottmar was a compromise: It began in May 1868 attending the elementary school apprenticeship as a watchmaker with his step- uncle, the master watchmaker Louis Hahl in Bietigheim an der Enz provided the basis for his technical knowledge of the visit of the Evening and Sunday school.

But the sphere in Bietigheim seemed too small for him. Therefore, he decided to emigrate to the end of apprenticeship to America. On October 26, 1872, the steamer " Berlin" landed in Baltimore and among the 500 steerage passengers who wanted to seek their fortune in the New World, was Ottmar Mergenthaler.

He went on to Washington, DC, where his cousin August Hahl ran a workshop for electrical equipment and measuring tools. This Ottmar Mergenthaler had contacted prior to his crossing. He reached Mergenthaler before the money for the journey, in return he should work in the workshop. The company also produced numerous inventors models. According to the law then had to be filed with any patent application in Washington, also a model. Ottmar Mergenthaler had such frequent contact with new developments. 1875 August Hahl shifted the workshop to Baltimore. Since 1878, Mergenthaler was part owner of the company, but in 1883 they separated and he opened his own workshop. In 1881 he married Emma Lachenmaier, a daughter of German parents. The marriage produced five children have emerged.

In this time, a strong demand for a useful jig formed. Still, they worked with the since Gutenberg common hand -set, the performance of a trained translator is approximately 1400 characters per hour. As in the first third of the 19th century, the first printing press had arisen, the disparity was even greater. Six coasters were necessary to provide a printer with work. Therefore, many inventors busy trying to automate the placement process and to speed up, but mostly failed to mechanical problems.

Ottmar Mergenthaler also sought for several years for a solution. Before his self improved several machines for the company Hahl. Charles T. Moore brought a lithographic typewriter in the workshop, the Mergenthaler indeed brought to the functioning, the principle but did not accelerate the rate. For the court clerk James Ogilvie Clephane, whom he met in 1876, he should develop a template embossing machine. Two years later, the machine was completed, but the operating principle with paper Matern had serious flaws, and the font image generated was unacceptable. Clephane supported Mergenthaler continue with his work, gave him donors and founded a society. 1884 constructed a Mergenthaler Matrizenstabsetzmaschine with keyboard. In the matrices, which were performed on wires, in-depth characters were coined. Through the keys they were released and collected to a line. The exclusion was done by hand. The row has been poured but even at this early model with lead. The patent for the typesetting machine was officially confirmed on 26 August 1884, shortly afterwards was his own company " National Typographic Co of West Virginia " founded under Mergenthaler line. A year later, in February 1885 the line was excluded automatically in an improved machine with double wedges. However, the production of matrices with 4500 imprinted typefaces was too expensive.

Mergenthaler constructed a completely new machine and convinced his skeptical funders from supporting him further. On 3 July 1886, the first machine was completed with now freely rotating Messingmatrizen and presented at the " New York Tribune ". The publisher Whitelaw Reid said to have exclaimed at the start: " A line of types ". Thus, the name was found for this machine: " Linotype ". With their help the performance of a translator could be increased to about 6,000 characters per hour. The first model was called " Blower Linotype ", to transport the matrices because compressed air was used. In order to go into volume production and to keep the price of the machine is low, Mergenthaler needed a way to manufacture the dies favorable. With the existing possibilities could each 1200 matrices not be produced economically, so that Mergenthaler built his own Matrizenfabrik and it developed various special machines. He also used the stamp cutting machine from Linn Boyd Benton and finally reached a favorable manufacturing.

Ottmar Mergenthaler improved his machine in the following years further. Because he wanted to stop the construction of the old model during its development, he fell out with the co-partners and resigned from the company. In his own workshop, he built the successor to " Simplex". It came on the market in 1889 and was the basis for the following extensions dar. At the Paris World Exhibition of 1889 was Mergenthaler linotype the sensation. Edison is said to have even referred to it as the eighth wonder of the world.

After success with the Mergenthaler machine model " Simplex" it came back on the agreement with the previous shareholders and 1890 establishing the " Mergenthaler Linotype Company" in Brooklyn, New York City. 1892 has already been made ​​in America, the thousandth Linotype typesetting machine. In 1896 there were over 3000 Linotype typesetting machines worldwide. In England and Germany subsidiaries were founded in October 1896, the " Mergenthaler typesetting machines -Fabrik GmbH " in Berlin. The production of the jig for the German speaking took over the Berliner Maschinenbau AG, formerly L. Schwartzkopff. The Linotype matrices presented the Frankfurt foundry D. Stempel ago.

In the autumn of 1888 Ottmar Mergenthaler ill from a severe pleurisy, but he ignored them largely. In 1892 he once more visited his father in Germany. Two years later, had attacked his pulmonary tuberculosis. He moved in 1896 to the climatically favorable location in Prescott Arizona and moved to Deming (New Mexico) later. Once there was burned down his house, he returned to Baltimore. On October 28, 1899 Ottmar Mergenthaler died only 45 years old due to tuberculosis disease. He was buried in the Loudon Park Cemetery in Baltimore.

Importance

With the Linotype machine in 1884 began a new era in printing technology. Newspapers and books could be made ​​faster and cheaper. Thus the circulation of American newspapers rose suddenly from 3.6 million to 33 million.

First of all newspaper companies that had to make text in a short time large quantities, soon had all the rooms full of Linotype typesetting machines. About a century lasted the era of this awesome machine constructed. Until the early 1980s, the Linotype typesetting machine that has been continuously developed and reached for punched tape control hourly output of up to 25,000 characters, common technique remained. Then repressed new techniques such as phototypesetting and later desktop publishing (DTP ), Linotype -lead typesetting machines. Today it can be found only in a few printers as collector's item. In many well-known museums of technology, the machine did not receive their due place.

Ottmar Mergenthaler's invention ushered in an epoch-making development in sentence production and thus for the entire printing technology. In America, his name is still highly regarded. He was (National Inventors Hall of Fame ) was added to the " National Inventors Hall of Fame", which has a museum in Akron ( Ohio). In addition to Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben and Carl Schurz, he is considered one of the greatest men who have helped shape as an immigrant from Germany, the history of the United States.

In Germany, a memorial to Ottmar Mergenthaler was established on May 11, 1954 at City Hall Hachtel, a district of Bad Mergentheim.

Also on his 100th birthday on May 11, 1954, the German Federal Post Office Berlin a special stamp with his portrait and the Linotype out in his memory.