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Once Upon a Job: Putting a Stamp on the Future With Tools of the Past

Jennifer Mitchell
/
Maine Public
A Tale of Two T's: Printer Dennis J. Watson has drawers full of letters ranging from large to tiny in point size, and in different fonts.

These days, when people say they're sending a document to the printer, they usually mean they're zapping it over to the Xerox machine.  It's never been easier to duplicate a stack of signs, letters, or notices.  But that's a relatively new development. 

“Once Upon a Job” is a series looking at some of the uncommon skills that are still being put to good use. In this installment, we visit a printer who is still proud of his old fashioned letterpress and won't do things any other way.

Dennis J. Watson has decided to resist the computer age. "I enjoy the old technology. Never turned on one computer yet in my life."

He says he had a "close call" with a microwave oven once, but that's as high-tech as Watson's lifestyle is likely to get. 

"My press is 1879, that I run everyday. Everything I have to do is know-how. I got to know my math, I got to know my spelling, because there's no computer to tell me that there's a mistake."

For Watson, choosing a low-tech lifestyle is almost an act civil disobedience. "Technology has taken too many jobs away from people. And it's taking more and I don't like seeing that happen."

Credit Jennifer Mitchell / Maine Public
/
Maine Public
Dennis J. Watson has been letterpress printing since high school, when he became the "printer's devil" for his father at Burr Printing in Bangor.

Letterpress printing has its roots in the 15th century, when Johannes Gutenberg fashioned a printing device out of a modified wine press. It used a system of moveable type - itself dating to ancient China - where each letter or symbol exists as a separate piece that can be placed where it's needed. This is called typesetting, and printers like Watson do it manually for each word, line, and page they need to print.

"This is where all my typesetting is done," Watson says, as he opens specialized chests of drawers.  Each tray holds a particular style of font and point size. Within each font tray, compartments hold a multitude of small lead pieces, and on the end of each piece is the raised relief of a single letter, punctuation mark, or a blank spacer.

"And it's not in alphabetical order, it goes according to what letter you use the most - like up here," Watson points out, "is your letter E. It's the biggest compartment in your whole typesetting drawer."

To make a word or a sentence, Watson picks up what is called a composing stick - a sort of handheld rack- that he fills with letters and spaces in the right order, which he tightens into place with miscellaneous bits.

The letters all appear to him in mirror image. Watson is pretty good at reading in this way.  He has to be, since there's no delete key on a printing press. But he takes the stick over to a small manual press designed for further proofreading.

Lead letters, in mirror image, are placed on a composing stick before being locked into place and put into the printing press.

"Then I roll it through the press like that," he says, "and I have something that I can look at in print, that I can look at it and see if there's any misspellings. I proofread it."

When he's happy with the setting, he takes the prepared type to the printing room, where he locks it all in place.  The round plate on the 140-year-old printer is inked and he's ready to go.

As the machine gapes open, Watson swiftly places a piece of card inside. The machine bites down, and then opens up just long enough for him to simultaneously pull out the stamped card and slide another in its place.

"So you seem to really get into a rhythm," I tell him.

"You do," he says. "You got to keep track of your hand and there's not much room. You can actually get your fingers in the wrong spot and you gotta be careful you don't do it."

Watson learned the business from his father who had gone to work at Burr Printing in 1941.  He started out as the perpetually ink-covered "printer's devil" - the person responsible for sweeping floors and scrubbing equipment. Eventually he took over the business. 

And despite the rise of offset, photo, and digital printing Watson says there's been something of a revival for letterpress. "When you touch a photocopy, it's flat print. When you touch mine, you can actually feel the embossing right into the paper. People like that."

Wedding invitations, cards for antique dealers, and product labels for local produce are keeping him busy.

But even though the business is doing well, Watson has had to think about his future.  He's in his 60's now. "I'm getting toward the year of retirement age," he says, sighing heavily, "and this past year I sold it to Bangor Lettershop. They didn't want to see this letterpress printing die out. I think they are going to carry this on."

Watson remains on the payroll as the new letterpress expert. And he may soon have a printer's devil of his own.

Credit Jennifer Mitchell / Maine Public
/
Maine Public
Preston Nickerson, left, and Dennis J. Watson.

Preston Nickerson, who runs the offset printer, says he's ready to go old school. "I'm going to try. Hopefully I'll come back with all my fingers."

"Are you all up on your spelling, your math, your grammar?" I ask.

"Absolutely not," he says, laughing. "I'll be spellchecking on Google, on my phone, while I do it - no problem." 

This story was originally published on Aug. 18, 2017.