WASHINGTON, May 11, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following is the daily "Profile America" feature from the U.S. Census Bureau:
TYPE CASTING
Profile America — Monday, May 11th. Today is the 161st birthday of a German-American whose name may not be familiar, but whose invention had a profound impact on the reading habits of all Americans, and indeed, the world. His name was Ottmar Mergenthaler. His invention, the linotype, allowed one person to set type for printing by simply pressing keys on a keyboard, bypassing four different operations at much greater speeds. It was first used in 1886 by the New York Tribune and remained in industry use into the 1980s. By 1890, about 8.4 million Americans read a daily paper. Now that figure is over 44 million. Printing and related support activities engages well over 27,000 establishments in a nearly $83 billion a year business. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at www.census.gov.
Sources: Kane's Famous First Facts, 5805
Mergenthaler and the linotype: https://www.asme.org/engineering-topics/articles/technology-and-society/ottmar-mergenthaler
First use: http://www.historyofinformation.com/expanded.php?id=3444
19th Century daily readership: Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, p. 810
Daily circulation: http://www.naa.org/Trends-and-Numbers/Circulation-Volume/Newspaper-Circulation-Volume.aspx
Printing establishments/NAICS 323: http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=BP_2012_00A1&prodType=table
Value of shipments/NAICS 323: http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ASM_2013_31GS101&prodType=table
Profile America is produced by the Center for New Media and Promotions of the U.S. Census Bureau. These daily features are available as produced segments, ready to air, on the Internet at http://www.census.gov (look for "Multimedia Gallery" by the "Newsroom" button).
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SOURCE U.S. Census Bureau
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