Hoe's Four-Cylinder Rotary Press
1847

Speeding up the production of the printed word
This rotary press was made by Richard M. Hoe, a prolific New York City inventor of presses and press components in the early 1800s. Hoe's company began making hand presses in 1822 before switching to the production of faster-printing cylinder presses nine years later. The speed of the cylinder press was limited, however. It printed just one page with each back-and-forth motion of its bed. Hoe hit upon the idea of fastening lead type around the circumference of a very large cylinder in the center of the press. By rotating the cylinder, he thus created a rotary press that turned constantly in one direction. The number of pages printed per hour now depended on how fast this large cylinder turned--and on how many impression cylinders were fitted around its circumference. The Hoe rotary press shown here has four.

	First commercial installation, 1847
	U.S. Patent No. 5199
	Web display only

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