Will Bradley, His Chap Book: An account, in the words of the dean of American typographers, of his graphic arts adventures ...Bradley, Will
History
Will Bradley, His Chap Book: An account, in the words of the dean of American typographers, of his graphic arts adventures ...
Bradley, Will
Bradley, Will, 1868-1962; Printers -- United States -- Biography; Printing -- United States -- History
Country newspaper shops train and use local help for straight matter.
For job work, ads and presswork they depend upon itinerant job
printers, who seldom remain as long as six months in any one town.
When the _Iron Ore_ job printer leaves you are sorry. He has been a
kind and patient teacher. You are now twelve. Mr. Newett employs a new
devil and you set jobs, advertising display, make up the paper and are
responsible for all presswork. Your wages are increased to six dollars
a week. When the motor power fails, as it does frequently, you go out
on the street and employ off-shift miners to operate the press by means
of a crank attached to the flywheel.
At this early date the print shop is above a saloon and in one corner
of a big barn of a room that had been a lodge hall. In winter it is
heated (?) with one stove. You go to work at seven and quit at six. The
outside temperature is below zero. You and your devil forage in the
snowdrifts of the alley back of the building and “borrow” packing boxes
to get kindling for the stove and boiler.
The _Peninsula Record_, across the street, is a four-page tabloid. It
is printed one page at a time on a large Gordon. The owner and editor
is John D. West. He offers you eight dollars a week. You are not that
important to Mr. Newett--and the extra two dollars will enable you to
begin saving after paying board and buying your clothes.
In a few months _Iron Ore_ moves into a new store-building. You
are now thirteen and Mr. Newett offers you ten dollars a week and
the acknowledged position of job printer. At fourteen this wage is
increased to twelve. At fifteen you are spoken of as foreman and are
receiving fifteen dollars a week--in ’85 a man’s wages.
This is the early Eighties. Small towns such as Ishpeming are “easy
pickings” for traveling fakers. Their advance is always heralded by the
exchanges. They clean up at the expense of local merchants. All editors
warn them to keep away. _Iron Ore_ print shop is on the ground floor.
The editor’s sanctum is at the front. His desk is at the big window. It
is nearly nine o’clock on a Friday night--“make-up” time. Mr. Newett
has written his last sheets of copy and is reading proof. At the corner
of Main and Division, diagonally across from the office, a faker is
selling soap. In one wrapper he pretends to place a five dollar bill--a
version of the “old army game.” He is standing in a market wagon and
has a companion who strums a guitar and sings. Attached to an upright
and above his head is a kerosene flare. Mr. Newett walks leisurely
to where there are several guns and fishing rods in a corner. He
is an inveterate sportsman in a land where game, deer and fish, is
plentiful. Selecting a rifle he walks to the door and casually puts a
bullet through the kerosene tank, then returns to his proof reading.
Thoroughly likable, this pioneer editor--a fine boss, a true friend!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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