34 A Corner in the Press Room
Another very interesting corner of this great printing establishment is that devoted to the job printing presses, a manufacturing division where we print the millions of blank forms used in the numerous clerical and merchandise departments of our house. There are nine small presses used for printing small quantities of stationery and office blanks, and seven automatic presses which produce enormous quantities of office blanks in one or two colors of ink. These automatic machines are marvels of mechanical ingenuity, each press being self feeding and running at a rate of speed which produces from five to seven thousand printed sheets per hour. If Gutenberg, the inventor of printing, could come back to earth today and glance into a modern printing establishment, he would scarcely recognize the craft he followed in his lifetime. Even Benjamin Franklin, one of earliest printers in America, would see little in common between the printing press of his day and the great complicated machine of today which converts a roll of white paper into thousands of printed and folded pages every sixty minutes. Probably no industry of our time has made more rapid strides than the printing industry and it is even now undergoing great and important changes. The invention of typesetting machines and rotary printing presses has cheapened the production of newspapers, periodicals and books and has placed the finest literature of the :.ges within the reach of those in the most moderate circumstances. In the production of our catalogues we have taken advantage of every improvement, every up to date facility and believe we operate the finest printing plant in America, manufacturing a larger quantity of printed matter than is usedoin the business of any other commercial institution of today, and if the present rate of increase in the demand for our catalogue is maintained this year, this great printing department must be further enlarged.
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