Famous Days in the Century of InventionStone, Gertrude L. (Gertrude Lincoln)
History
Famous Days in the Century of Invention
Stone, Gertrude L. (Gertrude Lincoln)
Inventions
The grown-up Jimmie felt as he stood by the new press very much as
he felt years before. Could there be a more wonderful machine? Eight
rolls of paper were feeding the monster; eighteen plate cylinders
were revolving, each carrying type enough for eight pages of a
large newspaper; the cylinders, turning at a speed of three hundred
revolutions a minute, were consuming paper at the rate of 108 miles of
paper six feet wide in an hour. Jimmie, then an experienced newspaper
man, watched the four sets of folders pouring out thirty-two-page
papers at the rate of 75,000 an hour, until he turned away, saying,
"Can it be possible that printing will ever be easier? How I wish
Benjamin Franklin could see this press! How he would glory in its
possibilities! It is perfectly true that the printing press is to
literature what the steam engine is to the industries, and what the
locomotive is to traffic."
ANNA HOLMAN'S DAGUERREOTYPE
When Anna Holman was twelve years old she had to sit perfectly still
for one hundred twenty seconds--think of it! two whole minutes!--to
have her picture taken. Now she could have it taken in one hundredth of
the time at one hundredth of the cost.
The only likenesses of people which Anna knew about before she was
twelve were the pictures in the parlor of her home. Two of these were
pictures of her Grandfather and Grandmother Holman, whom she had never
seen. These pictures always interested her, though for a certain reason
she did not like them.
Anna had been told that her grandmother was a great beauty in her day,
and she often tried to see if she could tell how her grandmother had
looked. This she never felt sure she knew, as the picture was only a
silhouette. Of all the different kinds of pictures that people have had
made, the silhouette, surely, is the most unsatisfactory.
These were not uncommon in the days before photography was known. They
were made by using a strong light to obtain a clear, black shadow of
the profile of the sitter, and then cutting from plain black paper as
perfect a copy as possible of the shadow head. Of course, the sitter
was always posed for a direct side view in order to get an outline of
the features; and, of course, in such a picture the expression of the
face was wholly lacking.
[Illustration: SILHOUETTES OF GRANDFATHER AND GRANDMOTHER]
When Grandmother Holman sat for her silhouette and the picture maker
had cut out the little black shadow which her beautiful head had made,
Grandfather Holman said, "It is perfect, Rebecca"; and then when
Grandfather Holman, in turn, had sat for his picture and the picture
maker had cut a silhouette which showed very little but his straight
nose and strong chin, Grandmother Holman said: "It is just like you,
James."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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