Historic Printing Presses You Can Still See

Before computers, every printed page passed through a machine like one of these. This gallery follows the press from Gutenberg's wooden screw press through the iron hand presses of the 1800s to the cylinder presses, platens and typesetting machines that kept letterpress going well into the 20th century. The test for a place: the machine or print shop survives, or is a faithful reconstruction, and you can see it in a museum, library or historic site. Reconstructions and reproductions are labeled as such. The photos run roughly in the order the designs appeared.