EARLY CHARLESTON NEWSPAPER PRINTING


This is not an in depth history of Charleston Newspapers, but early newspaper printing. The men and especially the equipment that made the Charleston newspapers possible.  While we focus on the Mail, both papers used about the same equipment available at the time.

Let's start here:

Charleston Newspapers Printing  History





Charleston Newspapers Printing  History



Charleston Newspapers Printing  History




Charleston Newspapers Printing  History

Charleston Newspapers Printing  History




Charleston Newspapers Printing  History






Charleston Newspapers Printing  History





The Charleston Mail on Virginia & McFarland St. Years later they will move directly across the street into a new building

Charleston Newspapers Printing  History






The early Pressroom

Charleston WV early Newspapers




Very early Linotype

Charleston WV early Newspapers




The new building for the Daily Mail

Charleston Newspapers



Meanwhile, the Gazette was a few blocks away on Hale Street.

Charleston Newspapers History





The Equipment

Here's how it worked:

Naturally you cant read this, so click HERE for a large image.

Charleston Newspapers Printing  History


The machines needed to print a newspaper

Here are the early machines that were used to turn-out the newspapers at the turn of the Century.

Charleston Newspapers Printing  History

Of course the Linotype was the most important invention in the history of printing next to movable type.





Charleston Newspapers History





Possibly the most complicated machine ever built, the Linotype took a special kind of person to operate it.

Charleston Newspapers Printing  History


The best video demonstrating the Linotype can be found HERE



Larger newspapers and printing shops often had rows of Linotype operators.

Charleston Newspapers

The noise was deafening, and so deaf people were often preferred to operate the machines.






The Charleston Newspapers used Linotype machines well into the 60s.

Charleston Newspapers




Charleston Newspapers
This is my copy of "The Tribune Book of Open Air Sports"  It was the worlds first book completely printed using a Linotype machine.



The Press


Charleston Newspapers


This was the latest technology in Presses for the Charleston Mail in 1914. There was nothing else like it anywhere around.
It could print 24,000 newspapers in one hour.

But time marches on, and by the 70s, the new Offset Presses came on the scene...



So let's take a look to see what happened on 1974 when the newest in technology finally arrived....


THE GOSS METRO PRESS

Charleston Newspaper History





Click this link for Part 2 and the Goss Metro Press.






On to the 1911 Photos

Back To Main Index






© COPYRIGHT


All content including articles and photos on this website Copyright 2013 by J. Waters.  All images on this website are used with permission or outright ownership of J. Waters.

All newspaper articles are courtesy of the Charleston Gazette or Daily Mail for the express use of the author. You do NOT have permission to use any image, article or material without permission from the author.  You do NOT have permission to pull photos from this website and post them to Facebook or any other website.  Any material used without permission will be subject to creative copyright laws.