rows of galleys and pages

Looking back from the other side

By Art Meripol

22 February, 2026

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Reflecting on the past
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Image above: Rows of galleys and pages. And yeah, most everyone smoked back then.

Sept 25, 1977. I was a year out of journalism school and working the first of my eventual five newspaper jobs. I was the newest and youngest person on staff. My job was working on the sports desk writing headlines and such in the morning and shooting assignments the rest of the day.

I started at the newspaper before I graduated and I’m sure I didn’t look a day over 14. I would go to a shoot and when I arrived the people often thought I was there to collect for their subscription.

But this September day was the last ‘hot type’ day for the paper, the last of its kind in the state. The NY Times was already transitioning as well. But we were a small-town newspaper.

‘Hot Type’ meant the type was formed from hot melted lead. It was late 19th century technology. It was noisy, physically demanding, slow and a specialized craft.

It may have revolutionized newspapers in the late1880’s but was now disappearing fast across the country as the cleaner quieter faster computer-based ‘cold type’ took over. It was as much of a revolution as the change from film to digital.

Many of the ‘back shop’ men, all men of course, had been working with these linotype machines their whole working career. The machines were very old and often while one man would type another would have tools in hand to keep it working.

Operating a Mergenthaler 'Comet' Linotype
Operating a Mergenthaler ‘Comet’ Linotype
Linotype operator
Linotype operator checking accuracy of a slug against the story.
slugs, or lines of newly formed type side down and stack next to the operator.
slugs, or lines of newly formed type side down and stack next to the operator.
Mergenthaler 'comet' linotype
Mergenthaler ‘comet’ linotype nameplate
Linotype operators at their positions
Linotype operators at their positions

As someone typed a story into the linotype, each key sent the letter up into a matrix to cast lines of text from molten lead into metal slugs, lines of type one column wide. The slug would then slide back down, stacking up to create that story.  Each linotype had a long lead ingot or ‘pig’ hanging over a heated pot on the machine and slowly lower to melt it.  Each stack of slugs would then be placed into a ‘galley’ on a cart and the page would be assembled. At the end of the day all the type would be melted down and reformed into new lead bars.

hanging a lead ingot or 'pig' on a Linotype
hanging a lead ingot or ‘pig’ on a Linotype chain
lead melting pot
lead melting pot
forming 'pigs'
Type is melted down after use and reformed into new ‘pigs’ for tomorrows pages
stacks of lead ingots or 'pigs'
stacks of lead ingots or ‘pigs’ ready to produce the next issue.

The back shop would run ‘proof’ on galley section pages after assembled to look for mistakes. But those guys would always prefer you didn’t find a mistake. They didn’t like having to break open a galley and make corrections.

Page makeup in a galley
Adding ‘leading’ or spacing on a page before locking the galley.
running proof
Worker lays a sheet of newsprint over a. page after inking the page to ‘run proof’. A proof-reader will then look it over for mistakes.
The front page
two reporters looking over the last Hot Type front page as it is assembled.

They wouldn’t normally run a proof on interior pages. In my sports desk job I was expected to go back and read the galley upside down and backwards to check for mistakes. The type was backwards and from the other side of the galley where I was allowed the type was upside-down as well. It’s surprising how often I was ‘accidentally’ kicked in the shins to keep me away. But I did learn to read upside down and backwards.

The galleys would eventually end up as curved metal pages that were wrapped onto the press.

When the pressmen assembled the whole thing and the presses cranked up the whole building would shudder. In the newsroom when the floor shook we all knew it was time to grab lunch and get started on tomorrow’s issue.

Pressment set the press
Pressment set the press up for the days run.
Press Room
The Press room looks chaotic as they load rolls of newsprint before starting the printing.

Some of the back shop men were able to transition to the new process. But there were some who just could not make the change and lost their jobs. It was a great early career lesson to me that change was inevitable. To succeed you have to embrace it.

One of the all-time great experiences is to stand at the end of a press watching the papers come off with a photo you shot hours before staring back from page one. I would often go back when I had a front page shot and watch. The press guys at first didn’t love having me hanging about but soon came to enjoy it when they saw how much it meant to me.

I count myself lucky to have experienced and documented that moment at the beginning of my career. And now it’s fun to look back from this end of my career.

If I made mistakes in my descriptions of the process forgive me. It’s been 49 years.

Final hot lead type
Back Shop worker sits next to a bin of slugs that made up the last hot type newspaper
The coming of the computer that replaced the Linotype
The coming of the computer that replaced the Linotype

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About The Author

By Art Meripol
Journalism degree. 13 years as a news photographer with a sideline as a concert photographer before 24 years as a magazine travel photographer and the last 13 years freelance for editorial and corporate clients. Official photographer for the US Civil Rights Trail. Now moving away from client work and trying to figure out what's next by returning to film.
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Comments

Matthew Bigwood on Looking back from the other side

Comment posted: 22/02/2026

Great, evocative piece. I started in newspapers in the UK in the mid 80s, the year computer type setting was introduced. There's nowhere better to work than at a newspaper, though the industry has been sadly decimated and is a shadow of its former self.
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Art Meripol replied:

Comment posted: 22/02/2026

You're so right! There was no better fun to have than being a young newspaper photographer back then. The stories I can tell, the things I got to do and see and the great learning experience of daily shooting a community, what fun.

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Michael Zwicky-Ross on Looking back from the other side

Comment posted: 22/02/2026

An excellent piece Art, thank you for sharing your photographs with us
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Art Meripol replied:

Comment posted: 22/02/2026

Thanks for taking time to read it Michael. Glad you enjoyed.

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Simon Bohrsmann on Looking back from the other side

Comment posted: 22/02/2026

Hi Art,

You take me back! Linotype, hot metal, lead, proofs, cigarettes, the vacuum chute thing and so on. I started as a copy boy. My name was "Boy!" and I was 17. Skipped university and competed for a cadetship on the (Sydney Australia) Daily Telegraph. Your images seem otherworldly in the neater, tidier, cold metal future that was just around the corner. But the stories remain the same. I remember the warmth coming off an armful of the first papers from the night's print run. We'd take those up to the subs and every paper was a new thing.
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Art Meripol replied:

Comment posted: 22/02/2026

I forgot all about the vacuum chute! So much came back to me looking at these old negatives. And I forgot about how a stack of warm newly printed papers. What great days. I still had long hair and it was all in front of me. We lost a lot when technology erased those jobs.

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Simon Bohrsmann replied:

Comment posted: 22/02/2026

Yes indeed, long hair, flared trousers, wide ties … so good to see others from the same era on here. No point in trying to explain to our kids . Thanks Art

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Walter Reumkens on Looking back from the other side

Comment posted: 22/02/2026

Great photos and a very interesting description of the newspaper printing process. The fact that 49 years have passed since then makes it even more worth reading, Art. Thank you!
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Art Meripol replied:

Comment posted: 22/02/2026

Where'd those years go? Too fast for sure. Thanks Walter. It was all mechanical, a craft and art as much as science.

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Ibraar Hussain on Looking back from the other side

Comment posted: 22/02/2026

Excellent piece, so very enjoyable and evocative
And lovely historical captures
Great stuff Art
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Art Meripol replied:

Comment posted: 22/02/2026

Appreciate that Ibraar. Just a 22 year old kid with an OM-1 having fun. Didn't know I was recording history. Now I better understand that all of us record history every day.

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David Pauley on Looking back from the other side

Comment posted: 22/02/2026

Fantastic piece, Art! Despite having consumed a good amount of newsprint over the decades, I never stopped to think about how the paper was put together, or how many changes were happening already in the seventies and eighties. I remember when USA TODAY began and how strange it was to see their color masthead and color photos. I don't think the NYT or other major dailies followed them into color for a decade or more. I also remember waiting outside newsstands in Manhattan around midnight for the early edition of the Sunday paper to come in. (My version of your waiting for your front page photos to roll off the press). They had all the features and special Sunday material ready and would just wait for the front section to arrive. Eventually when I became I subscriber most of that extra Sunday content would come to the house on Saturdays. Now I can't recall the last time I held a daily in my hands. I get a few publications on print still -- the NY and London Reviews of Books, an art-focused magazine called the Brooklyn Rail, but these feel like dinosaurs. (Actually I'm the dinosaur!). Your piece gave me a lot to think about. I also loved the photos (of course) and the writing—which has a lovely clarity that shows your roots as clear as anything. Really enjoyable.
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Art Meripol replied:

Comment posted: 22/02/2026

At heart I am a newspaper person. I started a 'newspaper' in my elementary school. I worked for my high school and college newspapers. I think I learned to read in a newspaper. My first job was as a newspaper carrier for the Dallas Morning News. For 13 years as a pro I lived that life where all my coworkers were so much at the center of the community. It was hard leaving newspapers behind. It's even harder to imagine that for all practical purposes they're gone. For so many years I spent my first hour of the day reading a paper front to back. People read things that they would overlook now and learned what their neighbors learned at the same time. We were better off. I forgot about those Sunday papers where the feature sections would arrive and have to wait for the 'final' front page. Good to see you still have some print pubs in hand. And yeah, I too feel a bit of a dinosaur. I have often said I'm as good a writer as my writer friends are as photographers. Not great. But at leasts most of my career I had an editor to make me look good. I sure miss having one now.

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Dave Powell on Looking back from the other side

Comment posted: 22/02/2026

Art, this is the most fantastic walk-though I've ever seen. A great historical record! During my Masters studies in science journalism, I had the opportunity to intern in a small press that still used hot type for mini-newspapers. It was fascinating. After I graduated, the magazines for which I worked had migrated to early electronic Mergenthaler terminals that writer/editors were NOT allowed to touch (even though we wanted to). A few years later, on-screen page layout came to desktop monitors, and even THEN, I wasn't allowed to format my own articles' pages. (I still wanted to!) That would eventually change, of course. But even now, when EVERYBODY does that if they wish, some programs still call line spacing "leading"!
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Art Meripol replied:

Comment posted: 22/02/2026

Thank you Dave. I really appreciate your comments. You've obviously lived a lot of those changes too. So many terms of the era live on today without the understanding of where they originated. I've always had a strong curiosity about word etymology. When I moved on to a magazine they were still building pages on big slanting desks with exacto knives and paste. Yet another transition I got to witness. I can't imagine what the current young pros will witness.

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Matthias on Looking back from the other side

Comment posted: 22/02/2026

A neat piece, much enjoyed. Always amazing to see how the world has changed in a few decades
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Art Meripol replied:

Comment posted: 22/02/2026

You're so right. It truly is amazing to see how the world has changed in those decades. And the pace of change just seems to accelerate .

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Gary Paudler on Looking back from the other side

Comment posted: 22/02/2026

Thanks, Art, for beautifully expressing your respect for an obsolete process and the essential, though largely overlooked craftspeople who made it possible, without lamenting its passing and while recognizing the importance of embracing change.
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Art Meripol replied:

Comment posted: 22/02/2026

Thank you Gary. It is amazing that a process so much a part of daily life could be swept away so fast. Glad you noted the thought of embracing change. I'm glad I got a good hard lesson so early.

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Jukka Reimola on Looking back from the other side

Comment posted: 22/02/2026

Wonderful pictures and a story too. I worked briefly at a print in the 80's. We printed all the Finlands yearly phone book editions. It was a noisy, hot, dusty and greasy job. I wasn't yet into photography, so no photos, only memories.
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Art Meripol replied:

Comment posted: 22/02/2026

I hope this brought some good memories back.

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Bill Brown on Looking back from the other side

Comment posted: 22/02/2026

Art, I really loved this. Seeing these photos take me back to my early beginnings in the photo industry. I was at Meisel Photochrome in Dallas. At the time I started there,1976, it was one of the top pro labs in the world. This was the place I was introduced to print finishing. I started as a dust spotter and moved my way up to airbrushing and mural mounting. The murals were spliced panels of something like 50" Kodak roll paper. Some of the biggest I ever did were 12' x 14' for a bank lobby in Austin, Texas. I overlapped and then hand cut the splice then rolled vinyl wallpaper adhesive onto the masonite substrate and rolled out each section. I was the only one doing this. Very tedious and you couldn't mess up. Kind of like the type for the newspaper.

I worked there 3 1/2 years and during that time I met the photographer Bank Langmore. I quit the lab and went to work for Bank as his personal print finisher. Meisel and Bank set me on my life's path. I'm still print finishing so 2026 marks my 50th anniversary. I have photographs of my lab mates and your photoset brings back so many fond memories of those guys, gals and times. Thanks for giving us a small glimpse into your world with this great set of images. No face recognition or autofocus but great photography was possible! You nailed it.
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Art Meripol replied:

Comment posted: 22/02/2026

I grew up mostly in Dallas but before I got into photography. Still even I knew of Meisel. What a great place. It was a national name and spoke quality. Cool that you learned your craft there, back when it was a craft. Today everyone claims even mass produced items as 'artisan' but Meisel really was. We must be about the same age since I started my photo journey 50 years ago as well. So much change, much but not all to the better. Going from my OM-1 and Zuiko lenses back then to my digital monsters now but it's still storytelling. I just need the eye focus since mine don't as well these days. Thanks Bill.

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John F. on Looking back from the other side

Comment posted: 22/02/2026

Art, thank you for sharing these images! While I'm young enough that I wasn't alive during the final days of linotype, I befriended an old-timer who spoke of linotype machines, and it's quite the treat to be able to see pictures of them, particularly in use!

Thanks for what you shared, I appreciate it.
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Art Meripol replied:

Comment posted: 22/02/2026

I am sure I resemble that old-timer. But we sure had fun. I hadn't looked at these in so many years and was pleased that I seemed to document almost the whole process and in focus!

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Ben Mackey on Looking back from the other side

Comment posted: 22/02/2026

Art - what a fantastic look at a long vanished world. Your story brings to life not just the process but also the people (craftsmen really) involved in getting the news into people's hands.

You mention exacto knives and paste for page layout. That was newly installed state of the art at my high school paper. Forget the make (Compugraphic maybe) but computers replaced linotype monsters like your Mergenthalers about when I arrived. The output was paper equivalents to hot type slugs. Then the knives and paste would come out. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
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Art Meripol replied:

Comment posted: 22/02/2026

Thanks Ben. I see it all still in my mind. Great memories and they just bring back the great people I worked with in those days.

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Martin Siegel on Looking back from the other side

Comment posted: 22/02/2026

Great text and images, thank you for the (hi)story!
A few years back Flo "Doc" Kaps, the man behind the Impossible Project, saved one of the last functioning Linotypes machines of Europe to be used in his Supersense manufacury. So another relation between the Linotype and photography ;)
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Tony Warren on Looking back from the other side

Comment posted: 22/02/2026

Art, thank you for such a fascinating and moving piece that I have read in a long time. So many industries had their own unique culture that was a bond between the people who made it all work. This brings all this out in such an evocative way. It must have been an amazingly rewarding working life. I am a great fan of Terry Pratchett and your story here will make my next re-reading of "The Truth" so much ore enjoyable. The description of the hot type press and how it was operated will bring it to life so much more for me. Your final image almost brought me to tears for what it represents. It was another world. Thank you again.
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Art Meripol replied:

Comment posted: 22/02/2026

Tony thank you so much! Your comments mean so much to me. There really was a working bond among that group. I hand't considered it quite in that way till I read your thoughts. I haven't read The Truth. I've only heard the Discworld name but not investigated the series. But reading the synopsis now of The Truth has me very interested.

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Tony Warren replied:

Comment posted: 22/02/2026

I'm sure you would relate to the protagonists and the Discworld novels are all very entertaining. I re-read all 42 regularly and always find something new to make me chuckle. Mind you, in my eighties, as they say, I regularly make new friends every day.

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Art Meripol replied:

Comment posted: 22/02/2026

I'm a reader. I read all sorts of things and I'm not locked into any specific genre. I just like good writing. Fiction or non I need a good storyteller. When I find a writer I enjoy I'll work my way through their catalog so I see some 42 books in my future! Thank you. One question though Tony, is the series enhanced by reading in order?

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Tony Warren replied:

Comment posted: 22/02/2026

Pratchett used to say there was no particular order but there are themes, characters and situations that eventually lead to sequences to fully enjoy them. For me, there are so many characters I can overlay on people I have come across in life and some I had to deal with, one of the reasons I enjoy them so much. But I have only come to this through reading them all at least once or more. I would say there are Sam Vimes, the witches (Weatherwax and Ogg) and Rincewind that benefit from reading in order of publication. The rest can mostly be read in any order. I started with Pyramids because I have always been interested in Egyptian history but it simply draws on themes and features of the period, much like many of Pratchett's works. They is basically satirical and humorous comments on life in general.

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Art Meripol replied:

Comment posted: 22/02/2026

I'm all in! Will be hitting up my local library.

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Tony Warren replied:

Comment posted: 22/02/2026

I'm sure you will enjoy his work - probably start with "The Colour of Magic" which sets the scene and is the first book in the series.

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Gary Smith on Looking back from the other side

Comment posted: 22/02/2026

And now the question could easily be: What's a newspaper? We actually do still get a twice weekly local. Our "big" daily paper in Portland has shrunk so much that it could be printed on a single sheet. We gave up subscribing to that about 10 years ago. My grandfather was an editor for a big paper in New Jersey and a family friend went a little crazy when his typesetting job was replaced by computer.

Nice article and shots Art!
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Art Meripol replied:

Comment posted: 22/02/2026

isn't that the truth! Sad too. Our paper here in Birmingham went from 7 to 3 days some years ago. Then went to web only. And it's of little use. Hardly and staff so it's filled with click bait. I bet your grandfather was one tough guy. I had an uncle who was a typesetter and foreman for a small paper in Texas and later for the Dallas Times Herald. As little kids we'd go see him and he'd set our name in type, handing us a still warm slug. He was a favorite uncle of mine. I think he retired before the paper went away.

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Leon Winnert on Looking back from the other side

Comment posted: 23/02/2026

Hi Art,

Wonderful!!

Of course on this side of the pond those of us of a certain vintage have rosy memories of the mythology and excitement of the Street of Shame*. Heidelberg being the name synonymous for a print machine. Arthur Christiansen legendary editor of the Daily Express. Victor Blackman renowned staff photographer of the Daily Express who communicated with and inspired many an amateur photographer.

Keeping with the name checking of Press Photographers there is Sir Don McCullen chronicler of the down trodden and many wars. Jane Bown, portraitist, who spent her entire career at the Observer.

All gone now. Gone down river to Wapping. But as we keep noting from high profile court case the Street of Shame’s lack of ethics in certain quarters has relocated there too and are alive and well.

However, whist technology may have changed the means of production and the industry shrunk in size it’s output hasn’t. Its just delivered to us in diverse formats now. There are many, many excellent journalists and photographers doing great work even though you might not personally agree with their outputs.

* Fleet Street.

p.s Sir Don McCullen at 90 yeras of age is till very much alive and well.
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Art Meripol replied:

Comment posted: 23/02/2026

the only name here I'm familiar with is Sir Don McCullen. But the quality and talent of photographers on your side of The Atlantic is well known. I have my own list of greats that inspired me including Sebastiao Salgado, Eugene Smith and legions of newspaper photographers in the US from the 60's and 70's. Thanks you for sharing those names and thoughts. Always glad to learn some new people to check out and admire.

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Zach on Looking back from the other side

Comment posted: 24/02/2026

A fascinating read, Art! From an era before my time. I wonder if any of those old machines are still running somewhere; that's quite the process (and that's saying something, considering what people are on this site for!)

The pace of technology is brisk and waits for no one! The change from hot type, to cold type, to dedicated word processor software as outlined by Dave Powell's comment, it's a technological shift that many work environments can attest to. Heck, I remember hearing about a fast food joint I worked at getting cameras and sensors and other gizmos for monitoring the food; years prior, we thought the digital timers and thermometers on the fryers were neat!

You've inspired me to continue a personal project of mine in taking photos of places as I knew them and change as it happens
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Art Meripol replied:

Comment posted: 24/02/2026

If my post inspired you on your personal project I'm humbled and thrilled. Thanks so much Zach. I cannot imagine that there isn't one somewhere still being used. Maybe in a museum setting or a third world country. After all vinyl albums, and FILM! are back too.

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Alexander Seidler on Looking back from the other side

Comment posted: 24/02/2026

Thanks for that great time travel, Art !
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Geoff Chaplin on Looking back from the other side

Comment posted: 24/02/2026

Brilliant story and images and very nostalgic. My father worked in a printing company as a commercial artist and occasionally took me to the art and camera rooms and to the printing side - not a newspaper room but some overlap in technology and environment. Sadly I didn't document the old technology before it was gone. Of course my father became a victim of the change in technology but even so analogue 'photoshop' continued until he had reached retirement age and was happy to leave.
Very evocative story snd images, thanks.
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Art Meripol replied:

Comment posted: 24/02/2026

thanks Geoff. Glad you got to experience a bit of it and especially with your Dad.

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Bill Brown replied:

Comment posted: 24/02/2026

Geoff, What type of analogue 'photoshop' did your dad do? I was an airbrush retoucher at the height of my analogue career. I removed cars, telephone poles and put in new skies for architectural photographers. The mask cutting was the most tedious part. Sometimes spent hours just cutting the mask to enable precise edits. I also did a little technical illustration for ad agencies. I was too young and too poor to retire when digital came along and I'm still very busy. I still repair analogue photos the old school way when it's needed. I'm one of the last of my kind in the Dallas photo arena. Maybe even the state.

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Bradley Newman on Looking back from the other side

Comment posted: 24/02/2026

My great grandparents owned a print shop here in Los Angeles through the 1940s. Somewhere, I have a picture of my now-90 year-old dad on a tricycle out front of the shop. He was maybe three or four at the time of the picture. They lived in an apartment upstairs, above the shop. Dad says he can still remember the smell of the shop, Boraxo soap, and my great grandmother yelling at my great grandfather not to come upstairs before he stripped off those work clothes. I will share this article with him shortly. Thanks for this look into the past!
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Art Meripol replied:

Comment posted: 24/02/2026

That's wonderful! That photo of your grandfather sound amazing. I have some great old photos of my Dad's parents, my grandparents also in LA where they lived. Grandfather was an artist and for a while he even had a studio on Sunset. But he died in 1936 when my Dad was a teenager so I never had a chance to meet him. But I could easily see a situation like you talked about only with paint and solvents on his clothes and my grandmother chastising him. I hope you share the post. So much fun.

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Justin on Looking back from the other side

Comment posted: 25/02/2026

This is such a great, well-written and well-shot piece.

It really hits home for me since my dad had a design business in New York City for 50 years starting in the 60's. I grew up hanging out and eventually working in his office. I remember the Compugraphics machines that he used into the 1990s, and the galleys, hot wax, and paste-ups. I eventually started working there and today still work in the print (packaging) industry. Sadly newspapers are almost gone, but printing still lives on in consumer packaging.
Around 1996 I went to Cuba and happened to stumble into a store-front linotype printing facility — still in operation printing daily newspapers! Even then it was such a dinosaur, since desktop publishing had already taken over in the US. The press guys were really excited to show me their machinery and even set lines of lead type for me to take home as souvenirs. I even brought a line of type for my father who had not seen lead type at that point for more than 25 years.

Have you seen ‘Farewell, Etaoin Shrdlu’? It's a documentary from 1978 about the final days of the linotype machines at the New York Times.

https://www.nytimes.com/video/insider/100000004687429/farewell-etaoin-shrdlu.html

Thanks again for a great piece!
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Art Meripol replied:

Comment posted: 25/02/2026

Thanks Justin, I think of the way old aircraft from the US found their way to third world countries and imagined linotypes having a similar second life. You've confirmed it! Of course 1996 now seems a long way back too. As a kid one of my Uncles was a typesetter at a newspaper and on a visit he did the same for me, setting my name in hot lead. I probably still have it somewhere. And thank you for the link. I'm going to watch that doc now.

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Neven Jovanovic on Looking back from the other side

Comment posted: 25/02/2026

A great photo essay! One of my grandfathers (whom I never met) was a printing worker by trade in Croatia, then Yugoslavia, before the WW2 -- I must have inherited something, because my few visits to printing offices were strangely fascinating. I feel the same fascination looking at your photographs and reading your reminiscences. Thanks.
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Art Meripol replied:

Comment posted: 25/02/2026

Thank you Neven. I appreciate your note. I never met my grandfather, my Dad's father but always wondered what he would think of me and my career. He was a portrait artist and specialized in miniatures. My profession probably was the technology that killed his business.

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Art Meripol replied:

Comment posted: 25/02/2026

So glad you share that link. The video has some problems but was still a great look beyond my images. And I could have closed my eyes and just listened to the sounds. That bell as the press started up gave me a thrill. Wonderful.

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