The Heavyweight Bout: Linotype vs Monotype. The Two Dominant Technologies of Hot-Metal Typesetting Square Off

   “The invention and success of the Linotype and Monotype casting machines around the turn of the   twentieth century marked the greatest transformation in printing since Gutenberg. For more than   sixty years the industrial empires they created competed hotly over both market share and   typographic improvement. Each machine had its strengths and weaknesses, and each had its   partisans.”

  John Kristensen, proprietor of Firefly Press in Boston, Massachusetts, is a typographer and   letterpress printer who owns, operates, and loves both Linotypes and Monotypes. He has firm   well-grounded opinions about both machines. John will present something of the founding and   history of the two companies, discuss enough of the technology to convey their almost   unbelievable complexity and ingenuity, and consider how the Linotype and Monotype   influenced and perhaps improved the art of typography. An historian and collector as well as a   printer, Kristensen is a frequent lecturer and instructor on the art and practice of letterpress   printing. In 2009, he delivered the annual Lieberman Lecture of the American Printing History   Association which, in condensed form, is reprinted in the current issue of the Association’s   journal, Printing History.