This article was originally published with the title “A Double Type Composing Stick” in Scientific American Magazine Vol. 63 No. 26 (December 1890), p. 408 doi:10.1038 ...

My generation was the last to use them. The composing stick solved the problem of assembling a page of type, often consisting of over a thousand upright pieces of lead.

In the 1400s, German inventor Johannes Gutenberg developed a movable type printing system for publishing Bibles. His technique became the worldwide standard, and two centuries later, in Strasburg ...

Peter Campbell’s memories of working in a print shop reminded me of my days in the University Library in Kumasi, Ghana in the 1960s (LRB, 26 December 2024). Tucked away in the stacks were faded copies ...

Colonial publisher Benjamin Franklin used this composing stick and lead type to publish his newspapers. Franklin founded America’s first foreign-language newspaper, the German-language ...