The paper web went over the space he’s sitting in from one cylinder to the other where they were inked and printed.
Several of the people who worked at the printing plant had cameras and were forever taking photos in the plant and out. There was a dark room and they developed the photos right there.
Henry and his brother Hugh were the co-owners, printers, and everything at Cleage Printers, which was located in back of their brother, Dr. Louis Cleage’s Clinic on Lovett.
They mainly printed throw-a-away ad papers for small grocery stores. After the 1967 Detroit riot, so many stores went out of business that Cleage Printers also had to go out of business. Henry went back to law and Hugh eventually became the care giver for their mother after she broke her hip in her 90s.
You can read all about Cleage Printers at this link.
I was always fascinated by printing. I worked in a photocopy/digital print shop for years, which is as close as you can get these days, but it’s not the same. I took some classes in old-fashioned printing and type-setting and it was such a different craft. Those are some great pictures!
Cleage Printers didn’t use lead type. They used photographic plates that were attached to the rollers. Now, I did hae a cousin of my grandmother who did print his paper, The Detroit Tribune, using type setting. Unfortunately that was before my time and I have zero photos of the shop.
I’m glad I had a chance to experience the whole print shop thing.
Printing presses have come a long way…and I wonder what’s happened now in the digital age to all those huge metal constructions. I had a friend show me how he worked on a compositor (I think that was what it was called – where the type was set by a very noisy machine.) Paper quality varied and was also important. I buy special magazines that are printed in Australia now, Emergence Magazine. For the beautiful photos, articles and wonderful feel of good papers.
The paper used on the big press came in gigantic rolls of newsprint. Not feel good quality paper. Also not made to last for generations. The old newspapers I have are slowly getting more and more brittle and I’m glad they were digitized.
There was also a small press that was used to print up flyers and also some poetry books. The paper used was better – for the flyers like the paper I use on my printer here and some heavier manila paper for the poetry books.
For sure it was not a fine art shop.