The new North-west. [volume], April 22, 1893, Image 6

About The new North-west. [volume] (Deer Lodge, Mont.) 1869-1897

Image provided by: Montana Historical Society; Helena, MT

                
And there's more than. poetry in it, too;
there's good business reason.
Enough white paper is run through the
Werner printing machines every day, re
ceiving tihe impression of the undying
words of the Encyclopaodia lBritannica, to
make two railroad carloads, or nearly 80,
CO0 polunds, and finished copies of the
3riitannica to the number of 9,000, all
wrapped and boxed for shipment, can
leave the works every evening of the 300
and odd working days in the year. This
is without question the largest daily out
put upon any one work ever made or capa
ble of being made in this country or in
ally countlry inl the world.
The Fil,.t Step.
Now, in the production of ltsese books
the first step, of course, is tile making of
the plates. Thero mnust be a plate for
ýý ý 1 d ý ý i il( uPýýii ý'ý +º ý . _- ý_ - ý ice
I' I -i
-1 4 i
I .
VIEW OF TTIP FOLDING, SMASfI'IG AND COLLATING RooMrs oF TII r WFILER WORIS.
aenc page, Iromn wien Inst page can be
printed. In order that such a work as the
Britannica may be complete, without
error of commission or omission, the 22,
000 and more plates for the 22,000 and
more pages, must be made, examined and
indorsed as correct, before one solitary
page is printed. As before stated, the
plates for the mammoth work were all
made in the unprecedented time of eight
nmonths. All of them, except those in
present use upon the printing machines,
are now stored on one floor of Weiner's
safety storage vaults.
The process of type production has by
recent improvements at length been
brought to high perfection, and most
satisfactory results have been reached.
Those who have become familiar with
, -s a 1L1 L L augetI, 0110 set 01r 7110 suriacsO Deting
- _ý_
1-LOW r TH01 1100I{ SEWIOrG-i00o1 AT THIS WJDPIR WORKS.
earlier attempts at reproduction, such as
Webster's dictionary reprints, etc., may
have become prejudiced against all pho
tographic reprints, but they will meet a
revelation as to the possibilities in this
line when they see the perfection attained
in this work. Printers are naturall the
most exacting critics whom booksellers
have to meet, but the fact that no class of
men are more generally represented on
the STANDARID edition subscription lists
than are the printers, attests the fact that
they find little to criticise in the mechan
ical execution of the work.
The process of making these plates is
more or less known to most people. First,
the pages of the original are photographed.
-i 2 ' g111 I , / / -
V E G T R
\ ThW 01 rrnF PP"ISHI1EIG DF1PARTMIE1~T AT THE WERNER. WORE9~
page for page, on prepared zinc, and then
all the space on the zinc which does not
contain a letter, a figure or a word is
etched, or eaten out by a chemical prep
aration,and the outlines that remain after
all the blank surface of the plate has been
eaten off make, as you readily see a per
feet reoroduction, orthography, punctua
tion and all, of the page photographed.
Then these plates, which are about an
eighth of an inch thick, and above thesur
face of which the letters of the page rise
about the twentieth of an inch, are laid
by until they are needed to print from.
MIaking Ihe Paper.
Before we get to the bookmaking proper,
in the mechanical course of the Werner
edition of the Britannica, from on idea to
a completion, there is one other important~
stage. We have the plates; now we want
the paper. Herewith are given two views
taken in the paper mill. One picture
shows the great vat into which thie pulp or
rag is dumped, to be thoroughly cleansed
and cut up into little pieces. all of which,
thus thoroughly prepared, passes through
the complex cottrivance shownl its the see
ond cut, the paper-making machine, tc
come out of it at the opposite end, the sub
stance of all merged into one great sheet
of white paper, which turns its irumacu
late, seooeingly unending way over a cyl
indrical axis until it forms a great roll of
hundreds of pounds' weight.
Tlal lg the 1:ooks.
These two fundluental elemenmts in the
making of the Ellcyclopaedia-lthe plates
and tile paper-are now brought together
on one of the 1l0 printing machines
wnhich occupy tile irst floor of the mWer
ner works. In ordinary printing from
plates the zinc surface is fastened to a
metal body so as to give it what is called
the "typo height," before the plate is
brought to the printing machine. 'T1hen
the form is made up for printing exactly
as if the plates were so ituch type. Sulch
a practice tmakes inl tnecessatry to
change and remtake no, fornics for
every now set of 3:2 pags, or wrhatever
the size of the form happens to be. In
printing the Encyclopaedia a :~2-page form
is used, and ill order to save time. instead
of fastening the surfaco of the plates to
the bodies before bringing temrn to tlhe
press, a form of 32 bodies is made up right
on the bed of the press all(! iS noltor
changed, one set of zinc surfaces being
taken off these bodies and another set of
surfaces being arranged upon them and
held in place with four little clamps,
which come up at the touch of a spring
and hold on to that surface just like a
boy's four fingers grasp the top of a fence
when he is climbing before the nose of a
neighbor's orchard doz.
Printing the Pages.
The plates in place, the white shoots are
fed to the printing machines. T[lhe steam
is turned on and tlhe teeth of the cylinder
takes the sheet between its iron jaws,
turns it over on its tongue, as it were,
presses it on the plates which are down
there where the palate might be, and turn
ing over again gives you back your erst
whi:e white sheet, all printed on one or
both sides, as tile case may be, and then
licks its lips before biting at another
sheet, and putting it through the same in
itiation to its membership in the Britan
nica Encyclopaedia. " Sixty presses are
doing just this every second on the Wer
ner edition.
Before leaving the counting-room at
Werner's let us look at those big machines
over there that are running on tihe maps
for this work. Their ongoing is the same
as the others, only they are printing in
colors, two colors at* a time. Here are
some sheets that have just been thllough
the machine. with two colors dabbled over
the surface of the paper in st ois'that look
as if. a 4-year-old "motllher's darling" had
got out his Christmas present box of paints
and tried to make some animal pictic-res
"all by hisself" for papa. '
And -you must not laugh at them, any
more than you would at the child, for
there's that next printing machine putting
two more colors on the same sheet, and
now those datlbs are changed to' gen
uine maps of that state which, like those
first two colors, used to be considered
"doubtful"--Indiana. Every city and
town is shownt; every color gets into
its proper crooks and crevice ; the "ti.is
ter" is perfect and the pressman is proud.
FOLDING THE SHIEETS.
Of these 140 machines there are various
styles, but each one is a magnificent typo
of its class. There is not an imperfect
one among them. When a machine gets
old and worn a newer and surer one takes
its place-just about as men do in the race
of life.
When the sheets have dried, tisially
withinl 24 hours, they are elevated to the
second Iloor of the Werner works, where
are tile folding, binding and finishing de
partmnents. The next thing to do with
these big sheets of 32 pages is so to fold
them that when the tops and sides of
every two leaves are cut they will read in
sequence, as 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, and so on to
32. This work is done on machines ma
nipulated by nimble fingers, quick witted
young girls; and, by the way, before I for
get it, I want to say that all the girls at
Werner's are pretty and young, and if
they show the same devotion elsewhtre in
after years that they do in their work
now, the young men of Akron are in luck.
A girl who runs a "folder" has a pile of
these printed sheets before her; she takes
one off the pile, whisks it over to the nip
pers of the machine just.as does the press
feeder down stairs; then she runs her eye
over it for two little punctures that were
made in the sheet for her guidance when it
went through the printing mac hine; into
these two punctures she jabs two little pin
points Ithat I didn't notice until the ir little
black heads shlt tllrough the white surface
an eighth of an inch. Now the sheet is in
the right place forsure. The folder starts,
tie nippers take the paper, and in a wink
tihe sheet, folded nicely to single page size,
falls into a tray beneath the machine.
You will see girls running these folders in
one of the pictures here. While you are
reading tis description she has folded
twetnty to thirty big sheets.
Sunashing theo Shools.
A boy takes a pileof tie folded sheets
out of this tray and proceeds to "stmash"
tllhem. "Pressing'" would be a much more
accurately descriptive word for what lie
ldoes, but I bhelieve bookbinders have a use
for that word elsewhere in their business.
lie places the pile in another tray. aind
tlieu two flat surfaced clamsps, operaled
either by hydraulic or steanl poe-er, anld
tile tWernter worklts have both iinds, colme
toward each other with the pile of ipages
between them, pressing the wind right out
of the pile, and making it temporarily as
solid as a marble block. In a minute or
less the oressure is relieved, the pile being
tied tightly together so it can't spring up
again to its old-time height. Thus is the
"srllashling"i doine.
(G:ltheriiig the Shlleets.
Next comes the "gathering," and this is
the right word for it this tistme. Around ont
a circular board. just like a rmn of a sailor
hat of heroic size with the top kicked off,
is placed those "smashed" piles of pages.
First. the pile that reads 1 to 32, thel tile
pile that reads 32 to 04, and so on until
801 and odd pages are all o0 their respec
tive piles. A girl sits just outside the
pieriphery of this wooden, paper-laden
circle. Slowly the circle turns, something
as dloes the turntable of an engine round
house, only sonmewhat faster.
The girl reaches out, picks the top "sig
nature," as each set of 32 pages is called,
ofl tihe first pile; tilhat gives her pages 1 to
32: then one from the second pile, 33-t-4;
she holds thtis second folho in hler hand on
top of tile first folio picked. By the time
the circle turns round, you see, she has a
complete book in her lap, with the pages
in order.
She may have made a mistake,-so the
first inspection of the book is made. Qper
atires have to train for this "gatheiing"
work, and for the first two weeks of their
employment with this great lateral wheel,
going round and round before theil' eyes,
they have about the sanie volcanic expe
riences as people with sensitive interiors
have on ocean voyages the first few days
Out.
Sewing the Pages.
When the inspectors find the books, so
gathered, in proper order as to pages, the
encyc'opaedias in this formative state are
carried down the room to the Smythe sew
ing machines, which do really the niost
wonderful work in the whole bookmaking
process. At this machine the operator
drops first folio, 1 to 33, on a short project
ing rod, so that the folio straddles the rod
at page 16i,the central page of the folio.
The rod bends back, just as you would put
your arm across your breast by bending
your elbow, nine or ten metallic fingers
there on the machine's breast catches the
page; the rod goes back again; the opera
tor straddles pages 33 to 64 on it at page
48; back to the breast again, and in a
twinkling the signatures are sewed to
gether by those steel fingers. This ma
chine's sewing work makes what is known
as a flexible back.
You remember of some books you have
read that on pages along toward their
center the ends of every line where the
pages meet are almost fnacoessible +-r the
eye. Those words on the end of a line are
in a ravine, as it were, that runs through
the book, and unless you lay the book
open on your chair and sit on it for a day,
and then give it a back-action twist, you
will have to guess at some of the words as
a mineralogist would guess at the nature
of the rocks down along the deep sides of
the ravine I spoke of. Not so with tthe
Encyclopaedia and other books made by
Werner. They open back the first day
just as easily as though you had used
them for years. Each one of these ma
chines stitches 1,000 complete Encyclo
paedias every day. The signatures' are
sewed together in 12 several and different
places, making the work extraordinarily'
strong.
Cutting the Pages.
Now that the books are sewed, they are
ready to have their pages trimmed, and
are brought to the cutter, where eight of
the books are placed on a cutting machine
that differs from the ordinary cutter in
having a circular iron bed turning auto
matically, instead of a stationary bed, and
as the knife comes down the bed presents
first one of the four sides of the pile of
eight books; the knife trims that clean,
then the bed turns, and a second side is
presented; down comes the knife; then
the third side likewise, and within a few
seconds you have eight complete books
ready for the next stage of the work.
3larbling the Pages.
Right here comes the prettiest feature
of the construction, though it is impossi
ble to adequately explain it. This feature
is the marbling, that is, the coloring, of
the three exposed sides of the book's
pages in those rainbow hues that so puz
zled you as a child. You took up your lit
tie dictionary or Franklin's reader, or
whalover it was, looked at the beautiful
edges when the book was closed. 'h-"en
you took one page alone, looked at its
edges and couldn't find anything. Didn't
you do that now? And so you got your
first lesson that in union there is beauty
sometimes as well as strength. This mar
bling is done by dipping the sides of the
book into a prepared bath. That's about
all you can know about it. The fellow
who prepares the bath just sprinkles
one color after another over the
surface of the bath in the most off-hand,
promiscuous way imaginable as you
think. But look at the book when lie
shall have dlipped it, and you will find lth
i-J
INTEl hlOR OF CORRESPONDENCE 0OO\I A TILE I R COMI XAP Y OFFICES, C1IC0G0.
coloring as symmerntrical as can be, with
little or no change in the contour of the
colors from book to book, though he
makes a new bath every few minutes.
luttin thime C'overs Oi.
When tile marblingt is dry, tile back of
the book is glued anti at layer of cheese
cloth andt cardboard la:yed over the backl
to give the book flexibility. In thie meat
tinme, through the cot-se of these pro
cesses, two more itllslpetio!ts have bteec
made to see that no leaves arse misplaced
andtl that there are dto breaks or other de
feelts in the paler.
After this lhe books are ready for the
covers. manly of viwhich have already been
prepared right hero on this eantoe floor.
The laking of the rover is comparativecly
sitple and pltain. Rlettil omaklu board is
covered ovesr with Eng:lish silk cloth, or for
4.i y ! by 'te b~ i ýk T1 'i ' ~iii il ii
_ , j zI ` I jI'" 4 1 fill ii;
ý I 1: 1 _ S' S- h i ý/ý ,r ',ý ,7ýý + ý' ..I;ýi !
h 5 - a 'e ii
Iii- 1Irr 7l
\ii v o r XMI 11011 1 10
V'IEW OF PIP-, STAMPINII AN ~D Tai BO(SS SINU-t0 0?I AT THE WEU\~cEII A"1 \YOR~j.
dearer books seal or sheepskin of the best
quality, wlhich is stored in the supply-rount
just at hand, is used.
The lettering on the cover is put on with
gold leaf; then the cover is placed in the
embossing machine, which raises or de
presses the lettoring as desired.
Near'ly Ready.
The pages, glued and backed, having
been placed il thile cover andi properly
joined there, thei book, with a row of its
counterparts, is placed in a drying or fin
ishing machine, where they are left some
hours under pressure, in order to ;ivto
thtem proper strength and shape. The
next day, maltybe, the pressure is reiieved
and the book is sent to the wrappers and
boxers.
Then it goes with the rest to the ship
-·--- --- -----------
~
------ L
~-=------ r--,
~l~-~L~~ZT -e~
-;------------- - .,
,i~--~------m=--..·i-l ·;i~L= d.
/·L~-~-~Z- C· -;-:
..·LI_--~~~L---· d "e-j
--------·
IJ
~C4
·;·· '~ .r
~Y--- ~-L----· ~ =~
---- .~
·2~-~ ·----
- -·
~9rr, ~II
;P~·7 TC.
~ ··· .~
c~-;6;L~ jiji~Y~i
~i· ..
.~.ih:1 i·5Q
Lih :IY)~ :·
·, r~
:~ ;I~~ iii~n
rur·cc~r-~ r
Ilr ~fc~i~;~-
~·I
~~;:n
B'a
~~8~;i
~
~3~ fE~ft~jSc~i~l~^p~·
:i, ·~ ~;
c
;2~4~;
T·· =.
VIEW OF TIIE ~yOnl(S OF TIII: ~ER:TeR CO~P~~uy A'i' IlliRO~, OIIIO, TtIE L~rrO~HT n0011-II.\KISC ESTABLISIIallX'T IN THE ~~RLD.
ping departments down stairs, by 1he rail.
road: the car containing it is addressed
to the STANDARD.
And here's your Encyclopedia Britan
nica ready for reference.
Sp:endid ltunagement.
To men employed in tihe bookbinding
trade there will be nothing extraordinary
in the story of this routine. The Encyclo
pedia Britannica is made about as other
books are made that are made as well;
but to the ordinary, untechnical patron of
this great work the knowledge of the pro
cesses by which his encyclopedia has been
made usable by him will be of interest,
and, besides, it is not the routine at TWcr
ner's that impresses one so much as the
mnagnitudo and completeness of every
thing. You can get a book bound in many
places, but to get books composed in type,
plated, illustrated in pen and ink sketches,
half-tones or lithographs, printed, bound
and shirpped to the number of 0,000 a day,
there is but one place in this country-the
Werner works at Akron, Ohio.
fThe man who is at the head of this
unique manufactor y is P. E. Werner. He
has in these works the noblest monument
a man could desire to his character, his
energy, his intellect and his enterprise.
tlo is a tIan who has madte his own way
in the world by the force and the breadtil
of his progressive personality. iHe is only
40 years old.
The works, not only in their idea and
scope, but in their architectural complete
ness. are of his origin andt design. Here
has been described tile working ill only
hllosei dliiepartii ent of ithe ltianutIfatory
tlllhroh which the &h ritalcllnnica e lraisses.
Nearly half of its dlwrsifiecd precincts have
nlot beten explored in detail. 'The type
stlting roomrs, the lithoigraphing depnri
iment, lie art roomns. h le photlographic
sit.tl io ndl the itluxsiiotls buiisiiess ollices,
(ormn a consieler.ble and noost interestiug
portion of this vast institution. 'The dis
dilplitne of tlie place is perfeet. :Evcryolie
itlOW.S his business andt does it without
fuss or fickleness. TIheire alre noi labor
troubles ihere. (Good wcrk receives proper
romlincration, mid good men get proper
treatnlent. The faclory is pierfect also,
as 10 the light and ventilationt,and is kept
as neat as a good housewife's kitchen.
']'le (Colossuiis of t book llkllting trade
is the lWerner torks.
PRESIDENT INTERVIEWED.
O)ur Iteporter lPrys lnt, the Publisher's
Sec'ret.
"How can the ~eicrner company afford to
sell i .i ; Lncy,,lopiaedia i: ita:itica--ihose
3 tlug books of about 830 pauges eacht-at
the sutrprisingly low terms quoted to the
Sr.\NDARio riadeltrs'." was the qulestlion in
tatil-hanlre lthat I theard most frequenltly Ibe
otIe f Ic1f Aua:(oad:o last week, regarding
this enter'pritse. "llow canl the concern
make aniy ninev a- t sil el Pr-ies'
And so thie irst cllance I ihat I put the
query to tbo president of the company di
rect.
"Well," said he, "tho terms do seem
low, don't they? But we are simply sow
ilg the seed now, and ought not complainl
if we do not realize our profit until harvest
time. W. wanetto get our edtlition behfore
the people, and would bh satisfied if our
plan of ittrodhiction simply paid fdr itself;
our profit will come when regular retail (i
prices are resumed, and when a demand
for these books has been created. But -4
there is little margin left for us even at
these introductory rates. The secret is
luantity, my boy-quantity. You get -
drops of water pretty cheap when you
buy a whole lake. You can get out books
pretty cheap when you finish and deliver *
thousands of copies complete every day,
al!d without any diminution in the qualihty,.
either."
"Your seed-sowing simile is poetic
elough," I suggested, "but
Is It L'ractical?
It seems to us in 'Montana that you are
putting such enormous quantities of your
hooks inlto the state at introductory rates
that everyone who wants Britannica ivill
be supplidd before you resumo regular
prices, and so the 'harvest time' of which
you speak will never occur."
"That remains to bq seen." he replied,
with a satisfied smile, and then the smile
merged into an expression of a different
signilicance which reminded me that I
had gone beyond the reporter's preroga
tive, gall, in prying into tihe secrets of his
business, but had really been so bold as
to suggest that perhaps the gentleman
did not understand his own business. I
apologized for my blunder and hlie con
tinued :
"You may look the world over and you
will not find another book-making estab
lislhnmcnt as extensive or as prosperous as
the 'Werner conmpany. Now, what the
Wernec company is may be attributed to
its practical knowledge of the book busi
ness, and what its officers know abqut
the book business is due to their willing
ness to take some chances in experiment
inu. W'e weoe rot long in discovering that
all puolications could be dlivided into two
classes: (1) Books of a day; that is,
oi oks that lind a ready sale for a few
months and then ar:' never heard of
again. (2) Standard books-works of
ipractical and enduring value.
"A ;reat demand can sometimes be
created for a book of the first class, but
whlien this demand is smet, that ends it. If
the lpblishers havo made too large ani
estimato of the public's wants, the books
are left as dead stock on their hands un
less they choose to job them out to grocers
or dlruigtists vwho advertise 'a complete
copy of Looking Backward given away
with every cake of soap,' or something of
that sort. It has become the settled policy
of our house to mublish only books of
staple and practical value-books that are
worthy of trem'endous sales-and there
fore books that lind ever increasing de
mand. In handling this class of books
tile publisher never has any dead stock
left on his hands to charge up to loss and
gain.
"Biut what is more important to the pub
lisher is that the advertising done on ai
hook of this class reaps its reward in geo
metric ratio, for every book that is put out
ecomnies
Itself nan Asvertisemennt,
and will soon result in anotiher order from
st)ite one who has seen his neighbor's
book or heard himt speak of its merit."
"Biut you must adtmit," I venstured,
"that there is a limit to this geometrio
ratio."
"Certainly; it is limited by the number
of intelligent people in a community."
"Well, then, it seems to me that you
will not be long mi reaching your limit in
Montana. tWhy, everybody is subscribing
there, tile manlager told tlo when I left
that thie S, T.N).\ttt) had already disposed
of one carloat atd and had ordered a second,
though the offer was not yet two weeks
old. At that rate it it will not be losing until
there are no nioro neighbors to want
books."
"Yes, anti we have just received by tele
graph their order for a third carload.
lThat does scent like a large quantity of
ltreature. nut sprctl it over the state and
you will find that every subscribor wi.l
have plenty of neigthbors who are still
without B3ritannica. Now, with a work of
the character of 13ritaunica it is probably
a safe esiimato that if a subscriber has
20 netghbors who tdo not possess this valu
able library, at least two out of thoe20.
who, having seen or perhaps used their
neighbor's set, will in the course of a year