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Text reproduced with permission from David MacMillan.

A number of sources, some of them quite authoritative, refer to either the Square Base Linotype or the Model 1 Linotype as the 'Simplex' Linotype. (At least one well-known source refers to both of these machines as the 'Simplex' Linotype!) However, there is no mention of a 'Simplex' model Linotype in any American source until 1954. Neither Ottmar Mergenthaler nor the (American) Mergenthaler company ever made a 'Simplex Linotype.'

The term is an alternative name for the version of the Model 1 Linotype manufactured by Mergenthaler Setzmaschinen GmbH in Germany. It is attested in the German literature by 1901, although it does not seem to have been used frequently until relatively recently. It entered American usage in an abridged 1954 translation of a German book on Mergenthaler. Since then, its use has spread and it has caused considerable confusion. There are now sources which claim that Ottmar Mergenthaler built this machine, that the Mergenthaler Linotype Company built it, that it was the Model 1, that it was the 'Square Base,' that it was the Model 1 and the Square Base, and even that it was the 'Blower' Linotype. None of these things are true. The name 'Simplex Linotype' has no place in the description of any American, British, Canadian, or any other non-German Linotype model.

Let's start by showing clearly what the 'Square Base' and Model 1 Linotypes in fact were.

The identity of the machine introduced in 1890 as the successor to the 'Blower' Linotype is secure. It is now commonly called the 'Square Base' Linotype (q.v.) to distinguish it from other machines, It had no special model name at the time it was produced. It was referred to simply as 'The Linotype' or, in very early literature from 1890 'The New Linotype' For example, in 1889 the Mergenthaler company said "We designate this improved machine as the New Linotype." It was called "New" so as to distinguish it from the Blower Linotype, which had only been brought to the attention of the trade in 1889 (MPC, 1890, p.7).

Here is an illustration of the visually distinctive machine introduced in 1890 as 'The Linotype' or 'The New Linotype' which has come to be called, informally, the 'Square Base Linotype':

(Illustration from Pearson, 1935 p.48.)

Similarly, the identity of the machine introduced commercially in 1892 which was at introduction called simply 'The Linotype' but which has become known as the Model 1 is also secure. Unlike earlier machines, it remained a supported machine for many decades, and appears in Mergenthaler Linotype Company parts catalogs (There's nothing quite like a parts book to securely identify a machine). There is some confusion as to the date for this machine since a visually very similar machine was demonstrated in public in 1890 by Ottmar Mergenthaler (at the Judge Building in New York), but Mergenthaler Linotype Company records indicate that the first shipment was in 1892. Here it is as shown in the first ad for it in The Inland Printer, in 1893:

(From The Inland Printer. Vol. 10, No. 5 (Feb. 1893): 458. Digitized by Google from the Univ. of Michigan copy and available via The Hathi Trust.)

Here is the same cut used by the Mergenthaler Linotype Company in their overview of Linotype history in the 1914 edition of Suggestions to Linotype Machinists. In this 1914 source, they indicate that the Model 1 was obsolete, but still available on special order. (The 1916 edition of the same book says the same thing.)

(Mergenthaler Linotype Company (MLC), 1914, p.5)

So when we use the name 'Square Base' we're using a clearly modern name to refer distinctively to a particular machine that had no special name at the time. When we use the name 'Model 1' we're using a name that was officially adopted by the Mergenthaler Linotype Company during the production of a particular machine. In either case we speak unambiguously.

Most of the references from the 1980s onward to a 'Simplex' Linotype are in popular accounts of the history of type. These are clearly all just copying each other and can be dismissed. But there are a few books of greater authority which lend credibility to the idea that there was a 'Simplex' machine. If you were writing a popular work today on the history of the Linotype, and you wished to research as far as authoritative secondary sources (but not actually do real research) you would cite Huss, Goble, Romano, or Kahan. Each says that there was a 'Simplex' Linotype, although they do not agree about which Linotype it was.

Huss (1973)

Richard Huss' 1973 The Development of Printers' Mechanical Typesetting Methods: 1822-1925 remains the only comprehensive study of the subject (Huss, 1973).

Huss correctly identifies and illustrates the Square Base Linotype. (He dates it to 1889, which is close; it was in development in that year, but did not ship until 1890). It is No. 116 in his catalog.

But Huss, in his catalog entry no. 124, uses the name 'Simplex' as the primary name for the Model 1. He also dates it to 1890, two years before its actual introduction, but Mergenthaler himself says that a version of this machine was exhibited in 1890. Huss calls this machine: 'Simplex Linotype (Model 1).' Huss cites no source for his identification of this machine as the 'Simplex,' and of course the illustration that he shows, from (Scientifc American, 1894), does not call it that. (The caption in the photograph used in Huss, reproduced below, is by Huss; it does not appear in the original 1894 article in Scientific American.)

Goble (1984)

The definitive scholarly study of the history of the Linotype remains George Corban Goble's 1984 doctoral dissertation, The Obituary of a Machine (Goble 1984). Goble writes of the successor to the Square Base: "This was the Model 1, sometimes called the Simplex." Goble is usually meticulously well-documented, but in this case he cites no source for this information. The machine he illustrates in conjuntion with this is indeed the Model 1; he reprints the illustration from the 1894 article on it in Scientific American (Scientifc American 1894).

Romano (1986)

Frank Romano, in his generally very good 1986 book Machine Writing and Typesetting, confuses the 'Simplex,' the Square Base and the Model 1 completely. First he illustrates a Square Base machine but provides the caption "The Simplex Linotype (1890) provided the pattern for all later linecasters" (on the fifth unnumbered page of plates following p. 74).

Yet on the tenth page of plates, he illustrates a Square Base machine again but supplies the caption: 'The 1890 Square Base Model 1 Linotype.'

Romano never actually illustrates a Model 1 Linotype. He provides no source for his use of the name 'Simplex.'

Kahan (2000)

Almost all books since Huss and Goble, while well intentioned, are simply copying Huss or Goble (or more commonly each other). One exception to this is Basil Kahan's extremely well researched biography Ottmar Mergenthaler (Kahan, 2000). This is the best biography of Mergenthaler yet written, and Kahan takes particular care to debunk several persistent Linotype myths.

Kahan uses the name 'Simplex' as the basic name for the Model 1. In his section 'The Simplex Linotype' in his chapter "The Linotype - A Technical Summary" he says:

"This ['The Simplex Linotype'] was the definitive model shown in the British Printer advertisement of figure 28. Although the Linotype was regularly enhanced during the hot metal era, all subsequent models conformed to the same basic design. The first model of this Linotype was built in February 1890 and displayed at the Judge Building in New York, but did not come into regular use before 1893 in the USA and 1895 in the United Kingdom."

"In time this machine became known as the Model 1, but the name can be misleading because the terms: Square Base, Simplex, and Model 1 are sometimes treated as synonymous. ..."

What Kahan says is correct in detail. The machine which became known as the Model 1 was shown, in prototype form, in Feb. 1890 in the Judge Building in NY. (We know this from Mergenthaler's (auto)biography (Mergenthaler, 1989, p.56-57.) Kahan's date of 1893 for commercial use is plausible. The Mergenthaler Linotype Company's 1971 salesman's book cited by Goble (1984, p.431), gives a date of 1892. The serial number list (of unknown provenance) gives a shipping date of August 1, 1892 for the first Model 1 (with serial number 579). But the first ad in The Inland Printer did not appear until February 1893. And Kahan is certainly correct that "the terms: Square Base, Simplex, and Model 1 are sometimes treated as synonymous"! The problem is that nowhere does Kahan present any evidence that this machine was ever called the 'Simplex.'

Here is Figure 28 from Kahan. It shows the English version of the Model 1 Linotype. The name 'Simplex' does not appear.

So when was the first use of the term 'Simplex Linotype' (to designate any machine)? One of the few advantages of the 21st century is that we now have the ability, thanks to Google Books and other digitization projects, to do reasonably comprehensive text search of historical literature. In such a search (done in 2013) I was unable to discover any use of the name 'Simplex Linotype' in any American source prior to 1954. Ottmar Mergenthaler never applied this name to any machine. It appears in no Mergenthaler company literature. It appears in no trade journal. It appears in no advertisement (not even in classified ads). It appears in no third-party book (not even in comprehensive histories of composing machinery).

The 'Simplex Linotype' did not exist in America, ever.

(As an aside, I can discover only one reference to a 'Simplex' Linotype in any English language source prior to 1954. In the classified advertisements of The British and Colonial Printer and Stationer in 1915 there appears an notice of the sale of a printing establishment. The contents mentioned include a 'MODEL ONE SIMPLEX LINOTYPE'. It is possible that this was a German machine. It is also possible that this ad was written by someone familiar with the German Linotypes who was mistakenly identifying an English Model 1 Linotype.)

The history of the name 'Simplex' begins in the German literature. What follows in the section here is pretty detailed - that's deliberate, as I'm simply trying to line up all of the data points. In summary:

1. By 1901 the name "Simplex" Linotype was being applied, at least informally, to the German-made derivative of the Model 1 Linotype.
2. In 1934, it began to be applied in German secondary sources to American machines from 1890 and 1892 which had never been called 'Simplex' Linotypes.

The German licensee of the Linotype patents, 'Mergenthaler Setzmaschinen-Fabrik GmbH, Berlin' was founded in 1896. I do not yet know if its first product was a derivative of the Square Base Linotype or of the Model 1, but a derivative of the Model 1 was in production by at least 1901. Later German Linotype production and engineering differed considerably from American practice.

The earliest occurance I have so far been able to discover of a 'Simplex' Linotype occurs in a 1901 advertisement placed by this firm in the Archiv für Buchgewerbe (Archiv für Buchgewerbe, 1901). It isn't actually an instance in which the company uses this name for its own machine. Rather, it is an ad which illustrates the German derivative of the Model 1 and also reprints a letter from a customer which reports positively on their "Zweibuchstaben-Linotype-Setzmaschine ('Simplex')". ('Zweibuchstaben' = 'two-letter matrix').

The image that this advertisement uses to illustrate the machine is the stock cut of a Model 1 Linotype that I presume was distributed by the Mergenthaler Linotype Company. It appeared frequently. Here it is from a later source, my 1918 copy of John S. Thompson's Mechanism of the Linotype. It is identical, down to the pattern of the floorboards.

Figure from thompson (1918).

> PDF version of a JPEG conversion of this scan.
> Here is the original 1200dpi RGB PNG (26 Megabytes): thompson-mechanism-linotype-002-model-1-1200rgb-crop-3707x4598.png

So we know that by 1901 at least 'Simplex' was an a name being applied in Germany to the derivative of the Model 1 Linotype manufactured in that country.

I have been able to discover only nine other references to a 'Simplex' Linotype prior to 1954. All but one are in the German literature (the exception is in French). There are certainly more to be found; one difficulty is that much German literature in this period was printed in blackletter, and OCR software has a hard time with that. It is interesting that all but one (two if you include the 1901 item above) occur a decade or more after the German Model 1 must have ceased production.

All of these were found using Google Books, and for all of them only 'snippet' views are available. My citations, therefore, will be necessarily brief. Translations, given in [square brackets], are via Google Translate. I am well aware that many of the translations are, to be polite, not idiomatic. Between the OCR and the machine translation, this is a terribly mangled view of the past, but it's better than nothing.

1. 1900. This is a note of absence. Carl Herrmann's comprehensive Geschichte der Setzmaschine (Herrmann, 1900), which has an extensive section on the development of the Linotype and which specifically mentions Mergenthaler Setzmaschinen-Fabrik in Berlin, does not mention any 'Simplex' Linotype.
2. 1909. Klimsch's jahrbuch [Klimsch's yearbook] says "wahrend die bekannte Zwittermafch ine (Simplex Stile B Linotype), weldie [sic] von der Canadian-American-Linotype Corporation zu Toronto auf den Markt gebracht wurde" [while the well-known hybrid machine (simplex styles B Linotype) weldie, was brought by the Canadian-American Linotype Corporation to Toronto on the market].
   • This early reference is notable for two additional things. First, it refers to the 'Simplex Style B Linotype.' (Two other sources will refer to a 'Style B' Simplex Linotype.) Second, it links this to the Canadian Linotype Company. I have been unable, however, to discover any Canadian Linotype 'Simplex' or 'Style/Model B'.
3. 1923. Die herstellung von büchern, illustrationen, akzidenzen u. s. w [The production of books, illustrations, commercial printing, &c], p.54: "Das Tastbrett ist das gleiche wie bei der Simplex- Linotype. Der Wechsel bei einer Garnitur der Matrizen erfolgt durch einen Handgriff am Sammelelevator (s. Abs . 97). Der Wechsel zwischen den beiden Garnituren geschieht durch Betätigung ..." [The keyboard is the same as in the Simplex Linotype. The change in a set of matrices is carried by a handle on the collecting Elevator (see paragraph 97). The change between the two sets is done by pressing ...]
4. 1925. Höhne, Otto. Geschichte der Setzmaschinen [History of Composing Machines] (Leipzig: Bildungsverbandes der Deutschen Buchdrucker GmbH, 1925.)
   • It is not yet clear to me if this Otto Höhne is the WWI and WWII flying ace or some Otto Höhne. However, he was writing books on machine typesetting through at least 1936 (Die Maschinensetzer-Fibel (Berlin, DE: Ulrich & Co., 1936)) and 1941 (1000 Technische Ratschläge für Linotypesetzer (Preussische Verlags- und Druckerei GmbH, 1941), reprinted in 1951 (Berlin: Verlag des Druckhauses Tempelhof, 1951)).
5. 1928. Deutsch-amerikanische Buchdrucker-Zeitung [German-American Newspaper Printers'... ?], p. 355: "... die sich für jeden angehenden Maschinensetzer ergibt, wenn er zum ersten Male vor dem Tastbrett der Setzmaschine sitzt. ... Man betrachte nur einmal eine der altehrwürdigen Simplex-Linotypes — es sollen noch einige in Betrieb stehen ..." [which are prospective for each machine translator is when he sits for the first time before the keyboard the typesetting machine. ... One only look at one of the venerable Simplex Linotype - there are still some available in operating]
6. 1932. Papyrus, Issue 13, p. 667: "Une entreprise allemande, Rudolf Sëbel, de Darmstadt, devait, sur l'instigation d'un consortium de Berne, lancer cette machine sur le marché sous le nom de 'Machine à composer de Darmstadt D. La Simplex Style "B" Linotype, ..." [A German company, Rudolf Sebel, Darmstadt, was, at the instigation of a consortium of Berne, run this machine on the market under the name 'machine consist of Darmstadt D. Simplex Style " B" Linotype]
   • I have been unable to discover anything further about Rudolf Sebel, Darmstadt or of any Darmstadt or Berne based Linotype company.
7. 1934. Archiv für buchgewerbe und gebrauchsgraphik... [Archive for book trade and use graphic ...]: "Die Simplex-Linotype trat nun ihren Zug durch die Betriebe an und 1892 waren bereits 600 Maschinen in Betrieb; fünf Jahre später war die Zahl auf 7000 gestiegen . Im Jahre 1897 hielten die ersten Linotypes ihren Einzug in die deutschen ..." [The Simplex Linotype now began its train through the farms and by 1892, 600 machines were already in operation, and five years later the number had risen to 7,000. In 1897, the first Linotype made their entry into the German ...]
   • This, along with the Typographische monatsblätter entry below, is the earliest instance of a source referring to the 'Simplex' Linotype not as a specific German model but rather as an American model (of 1892, and thus the Model 1). So it would appear that the mistake of calling the Model 1 a 'Simplex' dates to 1934, 32 years after its commercial introduction.
8. 1934. Typographische monatsblätter: Typo, photo, graphik, druck [Typographical month leaves: Typo, photo, graphic, print] "... der Matrizen in Kanälen oder Röhren, den Gießapparat, die Gießformen, das Tastbrett und das Austreiben der Zeilen auf Formatbreite mittels Keile. ... Die Linotype, deren Name bei dieser Vorführung geprägt wurde, hatte Matrizenstangen mit mehreren Schriftbildern, die in ... 1890 verließ die heute unter dem Namen «Simplex Linotype» bekannte Maschine mit dem schrägliegenden Magazin und der ..." [the matrices in channels or tubes, the molding apparatus, the molds, the keyboard and the expulsion of the line width to size by means of wedges. ... The Linotype whose name was coined during this demonstration, matrix rods had multiple typefaces in the ... 1890 left today under the name 'Simplex Linotype' machine known to the inclined magazine and the...]
   • This item, also from 1934, compounds the error of the Archiv für buchgewerbe item, above. It applies the name 'Simplex Linotype' to a machine of 1890 (necessarily an American machine). I do not know whether they intended to reference the 'Judge Building' demonstration machine shown in that year or the Square Base Linotype, but calling a machine of 1890 the 'Simplex' is the start of the error of thinking of the Square Base (commercially introduced in 1890) was the 'Simplex' Linotype.

I write this section with some misgivings. There has certainly been no lack of misinformation on this topic, and I am loathe to add to this with idle speculation.

Yet it is interesting to note that several of the German sources prior to Mengel speak of the 'Simplex' as the 'Style B' Linotype:

1. Klimsch (1909)
2. Höhne (1923)
3. Papyrus (1932)

If there was a 'Style B' machine, there must have been a 'Style A' before it. With a complicated machine such as the Linotype, it never hurts to claim that your new model is simpler than your old model. This further suggests that far from being the 'Urmutter' of all Linotypes (as Mengel put it in 1954), the Simplex model was not even the first German Linotype.

On the other hand, only one of these references (Klimsch, 1909) is even close to the date of manufacture of this machine, so in the absence of any real evidence nothing should be made of this.

1954 was the centenary of Ottmar Mergenthaler's birth, and the German Linotype company (by then Linotype GmbH, Berlin and Frankfurt am Main) commemorated it by publishing Die Linotype Erreichte das Ziel by Willi Mengel. (This title translates to "The Linotype Reached the Target.") (91 pages, with a tipped-in color portrait of Ottmar Mergenthaler as a frontispiece and a tipped-in monochrome illustration of a modern four-magazine German Linotype just before the Contents at the end.) In the same year, an abridged translation of this book, with an additional introduction by Lin Yutang (a well-known Chinese scholar who took a special interest in mechanical typewriters). This was published by the Mergenthaler Linotype Company in Brooklyn as Ottmar Mergenthaler and the Printing Revolution. (63 pages, with the frontispiece of Mergenthaler but without the photograph of the German Linotype.)

Mengel's book was well-received. A favorable review of the American edition appeared in The Inland Printer in July of 1954.

In the book the 'Chronicle of the Linotype', Mengel refers twice to a 'Simplex' Linotype. Quoting here from the American edition (p.61):

1. "1889 Mergenthaler constructs his last and best machine, the Simplex in its final form.
2. "1890 The Simplex machine is exhibited in the Judge Building in New York City."

In the main text, he presents a drawing of a German version of a Model 1, along with the claim that this is the Simplex Linotype of 1890, the "first mother of all Linotype models which later developed" ("Sie is die Urmutter aller Linotype-Modelle, die später entstanden.")

Here it is as it appeared in the American edition. The translation, while not exact, is idiomatic and not far from what Mengel said.

This is the first appearance in English of a claim that Ottmar Mergenthaler built a 'Simplex' Linotype. It appeared over half a century after his death.

As we have seen earlier, 'Simplex' was an alternative name applied to the German version of the Model 1 Linotype at some point between 1896 (when the German company was formed) and 1901 (the earliest attestation I can findd). The 'Simplex' Linotype is a derivative of the Model 1, not the Urmutter of all Linotypes.

The other error that Mengel makes has compounded the confusion. The Model 1 Linotype did not ship until 1892. In the 1890-1892 timeframe, the Square Base Linotype was shipping. By conflating the post-1896 German 'Simplex' Linotype with (a) the 1889 prototypes of the Model 1 and (b) the prototype exhibited in 1890 in the Judge Building by Mergenthaler, Mengel set a trap. Later authors, seeing '1890' and knowing that the 'Square Base' machine was shipping in 1890 have assumed that it was the 'Simplex.' (Though I admit that I cannot fathom how anyone came to think that the 1886 'Blower' Linotype was the 'Simplex.')

Mengel's book was popular, and the seed of error that he planted in it quickly grew.

The American edition of his book appeared by July of 1954 (when it was reviewed in The Inland Printer). By August of 1954 at the 96th Convention of the International Typographical Union (St. Paul, MN 14-20 Aug). A resolution (No. 138) which was 'A Tribute to Ottmar Mergenthaler' was passed. In part the text of this resolution claims "[whereas] On July 3, 1886, the Blower Linotype helped set the New York Tribune and after four years of development the Simplex Linotype was produced and regarded as a successful innovation in producing the printed word,…" (American Federation of Labor (AFL), 1954).

In an instant, a nonexistent machine - the Simplex Linotype of 1890 - was enshrined in the official documents of the American printing establishment.

To understand this article better, the question 'Why would someone bother with using this term?' requires an answer.

The term 'Simplex' has three different contexts:

1. The term 'simplex' is German for 'easier', 'simple'.
2. In the beginning of the Mergenthaler Linotype Company, the term 'Simplex' did refer to Linotype equipment you bought together with your machine. 'Simplex' equipment came with one magazine, one set of mold liners and one ejector blade. 'Duplex' equipment came with two magazines, possibly another set of mold liners, and another ejector blade. 'Triplex' equipment came with three magazines, and possibly three mold liners and ejector blades. These terms became obsolete when it became easy to change the magazines on the machines, starting with Linotype 5 in 1906. Explanation about the Simplex equipment can be found on this page.
3. There was another typesetting machine carrying the name 'Simplex'. More about it can be read on the page about the Simplex typesetter. It is not uncommon to find references in literature to both machines in one article (for example, in articles comparing type machinery or summarizing imports and exports). The text "[…] Simplex, Linotype, […]" does appear, but this does not in fact indicate a 'Simplex Linotype.'

As illustrated in chapter 5, The first usage of this term in relation with a machine was in an ad. The term could have been choosen to advertise how good the machine actually was. Would this be the case, the term could have been intended as:

1. a reference to the typesetting process (using a keyboard was easier than setting type by hand),
2. a reference to how the model 1 was easier compared to the blower Linotype,
3. or in the context of the ad; it could refer to an easier mixing of two Faces thanks to the use of two-letter matrices. After all, the focus of the ad was on the 'Zweibuchstaben', the 'two-letter matrices'.

In later mentions,it could also have referred to 'the simpler machines of the old days'.

But more probable is that the ad referred to the 'simplex' equipment, meaning one magazine, one set of mold liners and one ejector blade. In the time of the add, this was a common way to indicate the equipment bought with the machine. But after 1906, when the machines had evolved further, its original meaning probably became unclear. Later writers probably thought that the term related to a certain machine, which caused the misuse of the term and a lot of confusion.

We will probably never know for sure, except if better sources are found.

This literature review pointed out that the name 'Simplex' was first used by a customer in an ad from 1901. Chance is high that he just referred to his 'simplex' equipment that he had aquired together with his machine; meaning one magazine, one mold liner, and one ejector blade. But it is not clear if that was his intented meaning. After that, the term was used another couple of times, without clear reference to its meaning or to a specific machine. Only from 1934 on, the term became a clear reference to the 'original' American Model 1, 32 years after the commercial introduction of the American Model 1!

Errors were copied from other sources. In 1954, it was used in a German book German Linotype company written by Mengel Willy for the centenary of Mergenthaler's Birth. This book was translated to the English language, through which the error made its entrance in America and was taken over by several other publishers.

It is clear that the 'Simplex' Linotype was never made in America, and that the term should never be used to indicate any American Linotype model.

This was originally published at https://www.circuitousroot.com/artifice/letters/press/compline/technology/models/linotype-us/simplex/index.html#afb-38-7-282 and is republished here with permission from David MacMillan. Maarten Renckens made some adjustments and wrote chapter nine and ten, titled 'the meaning of the term simplex', and the 'conclusion'.

1. AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR (AFL). (1954). The reports of the 1954 convention of the International Typographical Union. Published by the ITU and also reprinted in the Report of the Proceedings of the Annual Convention of the American Federation of Labor, Volume 73. 1954.
• I'm accessing both of these through Google Books snippet views; the snippets for the latter are more satisfactory.
2. ARCHIV FÜR BUCHGEWERBE. (1901). Band 38, Heft 7. (Leipzig: Verlag des Deutschen Buchgewerbenvereins, 1901): p. 282.
• This issue has been digitized by Google from the Princeton University copy of Band 38, part 2.
3. GOBLE, GEORGE CORBAN. (1984). The Obituary of a Machine: The Rise and Fall of Ottmar Mergenthaler's Linotype at U.S. Newspapers. [Ph.D. Dissertation]. Indiana University.
4. HERRMAN, CARL [sic, not Karl]. (1900). Geschichte der Setzmaschine und Ihre Entwickelung Bis Auf die Heutige Zeit. Vienna: [by the author], 1900.
5. HUSS, RICHARD. E. (1973). The Development of Printers' Mechanical Typesetting Methods: 1822-1925. Charlottesville, VA: Published for the Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia by the University Press of Virginia, 1973.
6. The Inland Printer. Vol. 133, No. 4 (July 1954): 96.
• At present I have deduced the existence of this review from Google Books snippet views. I don't yet have this particular number of this journal.
7. KAHAN, BASIL. (2000). Ottmar Mergenthaler: The Man and His Machine. New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press.
8. MENGEL, WILLI. (1954). Die Linotype Erreichte das Ziel. Berlin and Frankfurt am Main: Linotype GmbH.
9. MENGEL, WILLI. (1954). Ottmar Mergenthaler and the Printing Revolution. Brooklyn, NY: Mergenthaler Linotype Company.
10. MERGENTHALER LINOTYPE COMPANY. (1908). The Mergenthaler Linotype. NY: Mergenthaler Linotype Company. [reprint of 1908].
    • Digitized by Google from the University of Michigan copy.
11. MERGENTHALER LINOTYPE COMPANY. (1914). Suggestions for Linotype Machinists. Brooklyn, NY.
12. MERGENTHALER PRINTING COMPANY. (1890). The New Linotype. NY: Mergenthaler Printing Company, [n.d., but 1890 on internal evidence]
13. MERGENTHALER, OTTMAR; SCHLESINGER, CARL; ed. (1989). The Biography of Ottmar Mergenthaler, Inventor of the Linotype. New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Books.
14. PEARSON, FRANK. (1936). Ottmar Mergenthaler. [a "special historical number of"] The Business Printer. (July-August, 1935). Salt Lake City, UT: Porte Publishing Company, 1935.
15. ROMANO, FRANK J. (1986). Machine Writing and Typesetting. Salem, NH: GAMA, 1986.
• Romano's book is generally a good source, and is notable for its linkage of early Linotype development to early Scholes/Remington typewriter development (through the figures of Clephane and Dodge, who were involved with both). But it does contain a few errors. In addition to the confusion over the 'Simplex,' Romano was deceived by Henry Lewis Bullen and errs in his identification of Benton's pantographs. Neither pantograph he illustrates was by Benton. The one he shows on the left was not "the second machine built by Benton upon which punches for Mergenthaler were cut". It is an English Linotype & Machinery Ltd. pantograph by Barr; the identification of first, second, and third machines by Bullen is a fabrication, and Benton cut punches (briefly) for the Mergenthaler Printing Company, not for Ottmar Mergenthaler. The one he shows on the right is not a punch-cutting pantograph at all. It is an English Linotype & Machinery Ltd. pantograph by Barr for cutting working patterns.
16. SPENCER, LEONARD. (n.d.). Linotype Models. This is a compendium of Linotype model information compiled by the Intertype Corporation in the 1940s. [Online] http://linotype.org/Misc/models.html
17. "The 'Linotype.'" Scientific American. Vol. 70, No. 2 (Jan. 13, 1894): 17, 24.
18. THOMPSON, JOHN S. (1904). History of Composing Mchines. Chicago: The Inland Printer Company.

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