Happy Birthday to the Modern Printing Press

On April 14, 1863, William Bullock was awarded a US patent for the modern printing press— the first rotary printing press to self-feed the paper, print on both sides, and count its own progress. His press revolutionized the newspaper business, as it meant that they no longer had to rely on an operator who manually feed individual sheets of paper into a press. (Sadly, according to wikipedia, “a few years after his invention, Bullock was accidentally killed by his own web rotary press.”)
Below is a picture of Bullock’s press. I didn’t know about Bullock until about a week ago, when I read a nice post about him on the Afterimage blog, which also has links to more info on Bullock.


William Bullock’s rotary printing press

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