Ottmar Mergenthaler (1854-1899), the German-American inventor of the Linotype, revolutionized the printing industry with his remarkable typesetting-typecasting machine.

Ottmar Mergenthaler was born in Hachtel, Germany, on May 11, 1854. He became an apprentice watchmaker in Bietigheim at the age of 14. After 4 years there, he emigrated to the United States. He found immediate employment in the Washington, D.C., shop of August Hahl, where various types of scientific instruments, including a great many models of new inventions required for the patent application, were made. Mergenthaler's talents were soon recognized, and his services became much in demand.

Shortly after Hahl relocated his business to Baltimore in 1876, Mergenthaler was asked to correct defects in a writing machine devised by Charles T. Moore and James O. Clephane. The machine was intended to produce print by typewriting words upon a strip of paper, which would then be reproduced by a lithographic process. Mergenthaler corrected the...