Using a 19th-century hand press to teach history of printing technologies

By Jodi Heckel
Photos by Fred Zwicky

Three students gather around an old iron letterpress at the Champaign-Urbana Community Fab Lab, preparing to make a print using 19th-century technology. The press requires all three students to operate it.

One student uses a roller to spread ink across the type sitting on the bed of the press. Another places the paper into guides that hold it in place, then covers it with a frisket—a piece of cardboard with openings cut into it to prevent the ink from staining areas of the paper not meant to be printed.

University of Illinois graduate student Martha Larkin pulls a lever to operate a hand press as students get hands-on experience with historical printing technologies. Ryan Cordell, a professor of information sciences and of English, created a book arts studio in the Champaign-Urbana Community Fab Lab with the refurbished hand press and two other letterpresses to teach the history of printing technology.

The third student turns a handle to roll the plate with the paper into place, then grabs the arm of the press to bring it down onto the paper. As it’s lifted back up, it reveals a crisp black number “8” printed on the paper.

The press has the same design as wooden presses used from the Renaissance through the 19th century, says Ryan Cordell, a professor of information sciences and of English at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a book historian who studies how technologies shape the meanings of texts.

This press was used for U. of I. printmaking classes for more than 50 years. Then it was moved to the School of Information Sciences, where it sat for 15 to 20 years alongside a display about the history of information.

“It was sitting in a hallway as sort of a museum piece. It was in fantastic shape,” Cordell says.

He asked to use it for his classes, and it was moved to the Fab Lab on campus and refurbished with a new cloth belt.

Left: The students at the book arts studio learn to set type. Part of the challenge in doing so is that everything is backward and upside down to the eye, so B’s can look like D’s.

Right: Information sciences and English professor Ryan Cordell passionately explains the techniques of typesetting during a workshop for graduate students in English professor Lori Newcomb’s class.

Left: Esther Kim, right, hand inks the type as Cassidy Short prepares to operate the hand press. The students are learning about 19th-century printing technologies.

Center: Graphic blocks are crafted with a raised and reversed design to work in the letterpress process.

Right: Cordell carefully locks in the lines of type set by the students so the type doesn’t go flying as the press runs.

Cordell has created an experiential book arts studio at the Fab Lab with the refurbished hand press and two other presses. He named the studio Skeuomorph Press, referencing a design element from an earlier object or media incorporated into new media to help users understand its function.

“For me, the point of a printing press like we have at Skeuomorph is to help students understand where the design and assumptions of contemporary media come from,” Cordell says.

The graduate students learning to operate the press are part of a class taught by English professor Lori Newcomb. They take turns at each task to operate the press, placing the newly inked paper on a drying rack before making another print.

Cordell will use the studio for two spring semester classes­—an English class on book arts in which students will design and print their own books, and an information sciences class on the history of technology, from print to programming.

“I want students to literally get their hands on historical technology. Rather than talking about how print worked, students do these things—set print, bind books and use computer technology,” Cordell says.

Other students practice setting type while waiting their turn to operate the press. Cordell takes type that some of the students assembled and adds “furniture” – pieces of wood used to exert pressure to hold the type firmly into place in a frame so it doesn’t move during the printing process.

“We’re essentially assembling a little puzzle,” he says.

Then he uses a “quoin,” a metal bar that can be expanded to lock the type into place. When he’s finished, Cordell picks up the frame and holds it vertically. The students gasp, watching to see if the pressure holds the pieces of type in place or if they fall out of the frame.

Cordell then demonstrates one of the other presses, a clamshell-type device that is a 19th-century innovation, requiring one person to operate it rather than three.

“It’s a very steampunk sort of machine,” he says.

Left: Giant geared flywheels help make the process easier for a press operator to output final prints more quickly. Cordell demonstrated an innovative 19th-century clamshell-type press that required only one person to operate.

Center: A spontaneous round of applause erupts as the students see the results of their work.

Right: The hand press requires that ink be manually rolled over the type evenly and consistently by hand.

Left: Students from English professor Lori Newcomb's class show off their handiwork–a printed sheet with their class nickname. The seminar class, which focuses on categories of human embodiment in Early Modern British literature, included a segment on how printing technology communicated ideas to British readers.

Right: The students break up into teams to practice setting type and running the presses at the Fab Lab.

Cordell puts a splotch of reddish-orange ink onto a metal disk. He pushes a large wheel on the side of the press forward to start it, and then he operates it by pumping a foot treadle to keep the wheel moving. As he does so, rollers move across the disk, become coated with ink and then roll over the type sitting vertically in a metal frame called a chase, inking it.

Cordell uses a lever on the side of the press to move the paper against the inked type. Each student then takes a turn operating the press and printing a sheet of paper with their class nickname, “Early ModBod Squad.”

“One of the reasons I really like doing this work is that it is somewhere between art and engineering,” Cordell says. “It’s creative but also very precise.”