Friday, March 25, 2011

MI Printing: Print Shop at Pioneer Living History Museum

 A print shop was of paramount importance to the community in the days before radio. The communities received their news of the outside world from the telegraph and it was up to the print shop to disseminate it throughout the community.

Many towns were so anxious to begin a newspaper that printers set up their presses outdoors under trees. One editor wrote that he produced the first issue of a town paper "seated upon the stump on an ancient oak ...and with the top of a badly abused beaver hat for a table."

This shop features operating presses typical of those used in Arizona's Territorial newspaper and working "job" shops. Shops like these provided Arizonans with newspapers, handbills, calling cards, invitations, posters, and any other printing need.

The Print Shop is a Reconstruction of an 1890 shop in Phoenix. It contains a printer press, a Washington hand press, and numerous artifacts of the period.