The Performance of the Wooden Printing Press

The speed at which printing was done during the wooden-press era (circa 1436--circa 1820) is of importance from both the economic and the bibliographic points of view. How many usable printed sheets could be turned out in a day depended upon the nature of the work, the level of quality being sought, the industry and craftsmanship of the pressmen, and certain other considerations, notably the design and construction of the press itself. This study contends that: (1) numerous advances were made in printing machinery and methods during the wooden-press period with concomitant increases in productivity, a position with which some historians of printing do not agree; (2) the technique of printing a complete folio side during one pass of a sheet of paper through the press, thus speeding up the printing process, was probably developed much earlier than is now generally believed; and (3) most of the claims concerning production rates which were published while wooden presses were still in common use should be regarded with a great deal of skepticism--because the individual writer's familiarity with everyday printing procedures may have been peripheral, his terminology was vague or obscure, or the conditions to which his statistics applied were not described. It is suggested that as much pertinent background material as possible be gathered about a specific printing plant and its methods of operation, and that certain guidelines furnished in this study be taken into account, before attempting to estimate the productivity of that plant.