Ottmar Mergenthaler (1854-1899) was a keen student of engineering. However, his father could not afford to finance his son's higher education, and at the age of 14 the young Mergenthaler was apprenticed to a local watchmaker. Four years later, he emigrated to the United States, taking a job with an uncle who owned a machine shop in Washington, DC. Mergenthaler made several efforts to set type by machine--one of which involved making type molds of papier-mâché.