Full text of Employment Outlook in Printing Occupations : Bulletin of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, No. 902

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EMPLOYMENT OUTLOOK IN

PRINTING OCCUPATIONS
Duties

•

Qualifications

U N I T E D

S T A T E S

•

D E P A R T M E N T

O C C U P A T I O N A L




Outlook

O F

L A B O R

O U T L O O K

•

Earnings

•

S E R I E S

B U R E A U
•

•

W orking Conditions

O F

L A B O R

B U L L E T I N

N O .

S T A T I S T I C S
902




View of web rotary press showing pressman checking the tension of
the paper before starting the run.

Journeyman in background is

fitting stereotype plates on the rollers and regulating the flow of ink.

Cover picture:
Photograph by U. S. Department of Labor.

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
L. B. Schwellenbach, Secretary

BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS
Ewan Clague, Commissioner

+

Employment Outlook in
Printing Occupations

B ulletin N o. 902

UNITED STATES
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 1947

For sale by tbe Superintendent of Documents, U . S. Government Printing Office
Washington 25, D. C. - Price 20 cents




L E TTE R O F T R A N S M I T T A L

U n it e d S t a t e s D e p a r t m e n t
B ureau

of

op

L abor,

L abor S t a t i s t i c s ,

Washington , D . C ., June 1,1947.
T

he

Se c r etar y

of

L abor :

I have the honor to transmit herewith the report on a study of employment outlook in
printing occupations. This is one of a series of occupational studies, conducted in the
Bureau’s Occupational Outlook Division for use in vocational counseling o f veterans,
young people in school, and others interested in choosing a field o f work.
The report was prepared by Samuel Vernoff, under the supervision of Helen Wood.
Doris M. Graham performed the library research and assisted in the preparation o f the
report. Sections on earnings were prepared with the help of Donald H. Gerrish, of the
Bureau’s Wage Analysis Branch, and are based largely on data collected by that Branch.
The Bureau wishes to acknowledge the generous assistance received from the Printing
Industries of America (Fred J. Hartman, educational director), the Granhic Arts Asso­
ciation o f Washington, D. C. (George I. Mallonee, executive secretary), other trade
associations, and the Joint Lithographic Advisory Council; from officials o f many unions;
from members of the staffs of the Government Printing Office, Bureau of Engraving and
Printing, U. S. Employment Service, and other Government agencies.
E w a n C l a g u e , Commissioner of Labor Statistics .
H


n


on.

L . B . Sc h w e ix e n b a c h ,

Secretary of Labor .

C O N TEN TS
Page

Introduction___________________________________________________________________
The printing industries_________________________________________________________
The methods of printing______________________________________ „ _______________
The printing workers__________________________________________________________
Employment prospects_________________________________________________________
Earnings______________________________________________________________________
Labor organization_____________________________________
How to enter printing occupations_____________________________________________
Composing-room occupations__________________________________________________
Hand compositors and typesetters_________________________________________
Qualifications for employment-------------------------------------------------------------Employment prospects________
Earnings_____________________________________________________________
Linotype operators________________________________________________________
Qualifications for employment_________________________________________
Employment prospects________________________________________________
Earnings_____________________________________________________________
Monotype keyboard operators_____________________________________________
Employment prospects________________________________________________
Earnings_____________________________________________________________
Monotype caster operators________________________________________________
Qualifications for employment____________________________________
Employment prospects________________________________________________
Earnings_____________________________________________-________________
Proofreaders______________________________________________________________
Employment prospects________________________________________________
Earnings_____________________________________________________________
Electrotypers and stereotypers_________________________________________________
Qualifications for employment_____________________________________________
Employment prospects____________________________________________________
Earnings------------------------------------------Photoengravers and rotogravure photoengravers-----------------------------------------------Photoengravers___________________________________________________________
Qualifications for employment_________________________________________
Employment prospects________________________________________________
Earnings_____________________________________________________________
Rotogravure photoengravers_______________________________________________
Qualifications for employment_________________________________________
Employment prospects________________________
Earnings_____________________________________________________________
Lithographic occupations______________________________________________________
Nature of the work________________________________________________________
Cameramen__________________________________________________________
Artists and letterers___________________________________________________
Platemakers__________________________________________________________
Cutters___________________________________________________________________
Numbers employed and places of employment--------------------------------------------Qualifications for employment-------------------------------------------------------------------Employment prospects______________
Earnings________________________________




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iii

Pressroom occupations_________________________________________________________
Pressmen_________________________________________________________________
Qualifications for employment_________________________________________
Employment prospects__________________ _____________________________
Earnings_____________________________________________________________
Press assistants___________________________________________________________
Employment prospects________________________________________________
Earnings_____________________________________________________________
Bindery occupations___________________________________________________________
Bookbinders______________________________________________________________
Qualifications for employment_________________________________________
Employment prospects____________
Earnings_____________________________________________________________
Bindery workers__________________________________________________________
Employment prospects_________________________________________ j._____
Earnings______,____________^__________________________________________
Appendixes:
I— Number of establishments, value of products, and number of persons em­
ployed in printing, publishing, and allied industries,1939_________________
II— Union wage scales in major newspaper printing trades in selected cities, July
1, 1946_________________________________________________________________
III— Union wage scales in major book and job printing trades in selected cities,
July 1, 1946____________________________________________________________
IV—
Addresses of labor organizations and trade associations_________________
V— Suggested readings_______________________________________________________
VI— Occupational outlook publications of the BureauofLabor Statistics________

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Photographs credited to the U. S. Department of Labor were taken by James B. Bind­
ley, and are by courtesy of Judd and Detweiler, Inc., Mercury Press, Inc., and George A.
Simonds and Co.




EMPLOYMENT OUTLOOK IN PRINTING OCCUPATIONS
Introduction

Printing is an art, a great industry, and one o f
our chief means of communication. Developed in
Germany about five hundred years ago, printing
made possible the extension o f education. As
printed books and pamphlets multiplied and news­
papers began to be published, they played a great
part in spreading ideas, influencing public opinion,
and aiding the people to obtain a voice in govern­
ment. Their contribution to the growth o f democ­
racy was so fundamental that freedom o f the press
was one of the basic rights incorporated in the first
amendment to the United States Constitution.

Over 600,000 men and women made their living
in the printing industries in 1946. More workers
were employed in printing than in such large man­
ufacturing industries as furniture, leather, and
rubber or such important public utilities as tele­
phone and electric-light companies. Printing is
especially important as a field o f employment for
skilled men, affording opportunities in many d if­
ferent skilled occupations and, as a rule, paying
better-than-average wages. Jobs are to be found,
in all parts of the country, in small towns as well
as big cities. Many printing craftsmen are in busi­
ness for themselves.

The Printing Industries
Printing plants supply us with a great variety
o f products—ranging from newspapers to greet­
ing cards, from books to advertising circulars, from
paper money to labels.
The establishments engaged in newspaper print­
ing and publishing make up by far the largest
printing industry in terms of employment (see
chart 1) -1 More than a third of the people work­
ing in the printing industries in 1939 were in news­
paper shops. Furthermore, the dollar value o f
items produced in newspaper plants was much
greater than for that o f the products o f any other
printing industry.
General commercial or job printing is the second
largest printing industry. There are many more
commercial shops than newspaper plants, but the
average job shop is so small that commercial
printing as a whole has both fewer employees and
a smaller dollar value o f output than newspaper
printing.



Periodicals and books are the next largest print­
ing industries. Smaller industries are engaged
mainly in producing lithographed items of various
types, greeting cards, or gravure products, or in
doing bookbinding and other bindery work. The
so-called service industries for the printing trades
do mainly typesetting, photoengraving, or other
work for printing shops. In addition, many
printing and bindery workers are employed by
government agencies, libraries, and manufac­
turers and other firms doing some printing in con­
nection with a business of another type. The
largest printing plant in the world is the United
States Government Printing Office in Washington,
D. C.
1 The classification of printing plants in
used by the Census of Manufactures.
It
appendix, which also gives figures on the
ments, value of products, and number
employees in each industry (see p. 3 0 ).

this bulletin is that
is discussed in the
number of establish­
of proprietors and

i

CHART I

NEWSPAPER AND JOB SHOPS EMPLOY
MOST PRINTING WORKERS
NUMBERS EMPLOYED AND NUMBERS OF PLANTS
IN PRINTING AND ALLIED INDUSTRIES, 1939

EM PLOYM ENT
TH O U S A N D S

UNITED STA TES DEPARTMENT OP LABOR
BUREAU O F LABOR STA TISTICS

2




INDUSTRY

NUMBER OF P LA N TS
TH O U S A N D S

Source: CENSUS OF MANUFACTURES AND CENSUS OF BUSINESS
REFER TO APPENDIX FOR FIGURES AND EXPLANATIONS

The number of separate printing plants is
great—about 39,000 in 1939, not counting shops
outside the printing industries. Only one group
of manufacturing industries (food processing) in­
cluded more establishments than this. Some
printing plants are million-dollar enterprises with
hundreds of employees, but a great number of
printing plants are very small. In 1939, there
were about 14,000 shops (over a third of the total)
with an output valued at less than $5,000 a year
and often with only 1 worker, the owner himself.
Almost every small town has a printing shop o f
some kind—frequently a small newspaper plant
which also handles any job printing needed in
the community. However, a large part of the
country’s printing is done in 10 industrial cen­

ters—New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Los An­
geles, San Francisco, Detroit, Cleveland, St. Louis,
Cincinnati, and Minneapolis-St. Paul. In 1939,
about half of all employees in the printing and
allied industries were in these centers. In job and
periodical printing, and some of the smaller in­
dustries, the proportion of employees in the 10
major centers was even greater. The proportion
was, however, much less (only 32 percent) in the
newspaper industry, since there are a great many
small local newspapers scattered throughout the
country. In addition, some large plants are lo­
cated in other centers, including Boston, Cam­
bridge, Clinton, and Norwood, Mass.; Albany and
Garden City, N. Y . ; Rahway, N. J .; Richmond,
V a .; Hammond, In d .; and Kingsport, Tenn.

The M ethods o f Printing
The three main methods o f printing are letterpress, lithography, and gravure.
In letterpress (or relief) printing, the letters
and designs to be reproduced are raised above the
nonprinting areas of the type or the press plate.
When the actual printing is done, ink is applied
only to the letters and designs, usually by means
of an inking roller.
In lithography (or offset printing), the plate is
smooth or nearly so, with both the image and non­
image areas on the same level, instead of on dif­
ferent levels as in letterpress and gravure work.
Lithography makes use of the principle that grease
and water repel each other. The image areas o f
the plate are coated with a greasy substance to
which the greasy printing ink will adhere. On
the press, the plate is moistened with water before
each inking, with the result that only the image
areas take up the greasy ink from the inking roller.
In gravure (or intaglio) work, the relation be­
tween the printing and nonprinting areas of the
plate is opposite to that in letterpress. The letters
and designs to be printed are cut or etched into the
plate and are below the nonprinting surface. Ink
has to be applied to the entire plate, but the sur­
face is then wiped or scraped, leaving ink only
in the depressions. In printing, suction is created,
which lifts the ink out onto the paper.
Letterpress is the oldest and by far the most
common printing process. Practically all news­



papers, most books and magazines, and most com­
mercial jobs are printed by this method. The
work done by photoengraving shops (which make
plates for use in relief printing of illustrations
and other copy that cannot be set up in type) and
by stereotyping and electrotyping shops (which
produce metal duplicates of type forms and photo­
engravings, for use as press plates) is also part of
letterpress printing.
Lithography, though still much less common
than letterpress Work, is the most rapidly growing
method of reproduction. Practically all items
printed by the relief process are also produced by
lithography—including, for example, books, cal­
endars, maps, posters, labels, office forms, sheet
music, and even newspapers. Almost all printing
on metal and much of the printing on rough paper
is done by this method.
Gravure printing, the least common process, is
o f two main types: rotogravure (in which press
plates are made from pictures by a method based
on photography) and hand or machine engraving.
The beautiful picture supplements of some Sun­
day newspapers are the best known rotogravure
products, but some magazine and other pictures
are printed by this means. The process is used
also in some printing on metal and metal foil.
Hand or machine engraving is used in making
engraved stationery, greeting cards, and similar
products.
3

CHART 2

HAND COMPOSITORS AND LINOTYPE OPERATORS
ARE LARGEST SKILLED TRADES
EMPLOYMENT. IN THE IMPORTANT SKILLED AND SEM I-SKILLED PRINTING
AND BINDERY OCCUPATIONS, 1940
100

COMPOSING-ROOM OCCUPATIONS

— t

COMPOSITORS ANO TYPESETTERS, HAND

LINOTYPE OPERATORS

MONOTYPE KEYBOARD OPERATORS

PROOFREADERS

MONOTYPE CASTER OPERATORS

ELECTROTYPERS AND STEREOTYPERS
PHOTOENGRAVERS AND ROTOGRAVURE
PHOTOENGRAVERS
LITHOGRAPHIC OCCUPATIONS
PLATEMAKERS
A R TISTS AND LETTERERS

CAMERAMEN

C UTTER S

PRESSROOM OCCUPATIONS
PRESSMEN AND PLATE PRINTERS

PRESS ASSISTANTS

BINDERY OCCUPATIONS
BINDERY WORKERS, SEM I-SKILLED

BOOKBINDERS
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS

4



BASED ON 1940 CENSUS OF POPULATION AND OTHER SOURCES

The Printing Workers
The all-round printer, skilled in typesetting and
also in operating a press, was the typical printing
worker up to the closing years of the nineteenth
century. Some craftsmen who are adept in both
these kinds o f work are still employed in small
newspaper and job shops. In the printing indus­
tries as a whole, they are, however, greatly out­
numbered by specialized craftsmen and semi­
skilled employees.
The largest group o f skilled and semiskilled
workers are in the composing room, the depart­
ment responsible for typesetting. Other major
groups are the printing pressmen and their assist­
ants, photoengravers and rotogravure photoen­
gravers, electrotypers and sterotypers, litho­
graphic workers, and bookbinders and bindery
workers. Chart 2 shows the number of people
employed in 1940 in each o f the main occupations
in these categories.
Besides the occupations shown in chart 2, there
are many other small groups of skilled or semi­
skilled printing workers. In some plants, espe­
cially in the newspaper industry, the composingroom work force includes Ludlow operators, who
run a typecasting machine known as the Ludlow
Typograph. Big composing rooms nearly always
employ one or more “ stonemen,” who place the
pages o f type in the large type forms in which they
leave the department. Another small group of
workers found in large plants are the mechanics
who specialize in repairing and adjusting type­

setting machines, printing presses, or bindery
machines. Steel- and copper-plate engravers, on
the other hand, work mainly in small engraving
shops. They cut or etch lettering and designs in
the plates, by hand or machine.
Most of the occupations indicated in the chart
and the preceding paragraph are skilled jobs. The
main exceptions are press assistants and bindery
workers whose jobs are semiskilled, as are those
of many monotype caster operators and some litho­
graphic workers. Proofreaders in nonunion shops
are sometimes classed as clerical employees.
In skilled occupations practically all the work­
ers are men. However, many o f the semiskilled
workers, especially in binderies, are women. Ne­
groes are rarely employed in skilled jobs, except
in shops which print newspapers or other items for
the Negro community. A greater number are em­
ployed in semiskilled occupations.
To complete the picture of the printing work
force, the professional, administrative, clerical,
and unskilled employees o f printing plants should
be mentioned. The chief professional workers are
the reporting and editorial staffs o f newspapers
and other houses that do their own publishing. In
addition, all sizable plants have executives, esti­
mators, salesmen, stenographers and other clerks,
and laborers of various types. These employees
usually have duties much like those o f comparable
personnel in other industries.

Employment Prospects
There will be many thousands of job openings
in printing during the next few years, including
a much larger number o f training opportunities
than usual.
A t the end o f World War I I there were marked
labor shortages in almost all occupations. How­
ever, before the war (in 1940), about 1 out of
every 10 skilled and semiskilled printing workers
was unemployed. This situation quickly changed
after Pearl Harbor, when many workers went into
the armed forces and into war industries. In ad­
dition, there were, o f course, some retirements and
deaths. Replacements could not be obtained in
sufficient numbers, because of the Nation-wide
739 3420— 47-----2




labor shortage. As would be expected, it was par­
ticularly hard to recruit young men for training.
Since the end o f the war, employers have been
rehiring former employees and have taken on a
good many new trainees. The number o f produc­
tion workers employed has risen steadily (by about
a fourth between September 1945 and December
1946 in the printing industries as a whole). There
are still shortages of journeymen in many parts
o f the country, however. The outlook is for
greater and greater activity and employment in
all branches of printing, at least during the next
few years, because of growing demands for printed
products such as advertising materials and text5

books, ending o f wartime controls, increasing
availability of new machinery and supplies, and
other factors. Unusually large numbers of job
openings owing to retirements and deaths may
also be expected for a while, because of the post­
ponement o f retirements during and since the war
and the fact that the average age o f journeymen
is therefore higher than before. For all these
reasons, it will generally be easy for skilled work­
ers to get jobs during the years immediately ahead.
In addition, there should continue to be a good
many training opportunities, although the num­
bers o f apprentices who may be employed at any
time are limited by the ratios o f apprentices to
journeymen established by union agreements.
Veterans with related civilian or military training
and experience will generally be given preference
for apprentice positions. Some of them should be
able to obtain advanced status as learners, instead
o f being hired as beginners.
Openings for newcomers will probably be fewer

after the next year or two. In fact, the peak in
hiring may already have been reached. However,
workers who now have jobs in the printing field
or who obtain them “ while the getting is good”
are likely to be able to hold them indefinitely.
Printing employment tends to be less affected by
declines in general business activity than employ­
ment in manufacturing as a whole. Moreover,
the long-run trend in employment is upward in
most printing occupations.
In general, the largest number of job openings
will be in the printing centers previously men­
tioned (p. 3). Opportunities will, however, be
more scattered in some branches of printing than
in others. They will, for example, be more wide­
spread in newspaper than in job printing; but in
lithography, they will be concentrated in the major
centers to a greater extent than in either of these
industries. In all branches of printing, competi­
tion for jobs is likely to be keenest in largest
cities.

Earnings
Earnings tend to be higher in printing than in
many other industries, owing to the large number
o f skilled workers employed, the strong influence
of the printing unions, and other factors. In 1940,
wage earners in book and job shops averaged 81
cents an hour; newspaper and periodical plants,
$1.03. By comparison, the average for all manu­
facturing was only 66 cents an hour. In no other
manufacturing industry for which information
was available were average earnings as high as in
newspaper and periodical plants. This was still
true during 1946, when earnings averaged $1.21
an hour in book and job shops and $1.46 in news­
papers and periodicals, compared with $1.08 in all
manufacturing.
What an individual printing worker can expect
to make varies greatly from one occupation to an­
other, as well as from city to city, and in other
ways. The best source o f information on wages
in different occupations are union wage scales.
These scales are the minimum rates paid under
collective-bargaining agreements and are usually
uniform for each occupation in a given locality.
They are, in general, representative of wage rates
in skilled and semiskilled printing trades, which
are all highly organized.2

6


In July 1946, union wage scales averaged about
$1.58 an hour. For the skilled workers, rates were
generally between $1.30 and $2.00 an hour; for the
others, they were usually between 70 cents and
$1.30. Since July 1946, wage scales have increased
further in many large cities. Chart 3 shows the
average wage rates for most o f the major trades.
Later sections o f this bulletin give additional in­
formation on wages in these and other occupations.
A detailed table on union wage rates in different
cities is included in the appendix (p. 31).
The wage scales that have been cited are the
basic rates received by employees on day shifts.
In most printing plants, as in many other man­
ufacturing establishments, workers are paid time
and a half for overtime work not only above a
standard number of hours a week but also above
8 hours a day. The standard workweek is usually
3 7/2 hours in newspaper plants. In other print­
ing shops, it is usually 40 hours. W ork on Sun­
days and holidays is customarily paid for at time2 Union wage scales are not available for unskilled jobs.
Moreover, they do not include premium pay for overtime or other
special payments or bonuses. A s a result, they are not com­
parable with the average earnings figures given in the preceding
paragraph, which include aU types of wage payments and cover
all wage earners.

CHART 3

WAGE RATES IN PRINTING TRADES
AVERAGE UNION RATES PER HOUR IN NEW SPAPER AND
OTH ER PRINTING P L A N T S , FOR S E L E C T E D OCCUPATIONS
JULY I, 1946

NEWSPAPER SHOPS
P H O TO EN G R A V ER S

P R E S S M E N -IN -C H A R G E

C O M P O S IT O R S , H A N D

C O M P O S IN G -M A C H IN E O P E R A T O R S

PR ESSM EN , JO U R N E Y M E N

S TER EO TY P ER S

OTHER PRINTING SHOPS
P H O TO EN G R A V ER S

ELEC TR O TYP ER S

C O M P O S IN G -M A C H IN E

O P ER A TO R S

C O M P O S IT O R S , H A N D

PRESSM EN,

C Y L IN D E R

B O O K B IN D E R S

PRESSM EN,

PRESS

A S S IS T A N T S

P LA TEN

AND FEEDER S

B IN D E R Y

W OM EN

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS




7

and-a-half or double-time rates in most branches
o f printing. In newspaper plants, the standard
workweek often includes Sundays and work has
to go on as usual on holidays; however, time and
a half or double time is paid for these days only
when they are not part of the employee’s regular
shift. Night-shift workers in union shops gen­
erally receive about $5 extra for a 37/2- or 40-hour
week. There are many other types of provisions
for overtime and special rates of pay.
How much workers earn during a year depends
not only on their rates o f pay but also on how.

regularly they are employed. Printing workers
are fortunate in having steadier employment and
earnings than those in many other industries.
Earnings tend to be especially steady in news­
paper work.
Paid vacations are called for by most wage
agreements. The majority of union workers re­
ceive 2 weeks’ vacation with pay after 1 year of
employment. In addition, the printing unions
are noted for welfare provisions for their mem­
bers ; for example, pensions, sanitarium facilities,
and educational programs.

Labor Organization
Workers seeking jobs in printing trades will
find that the printing unions not only influence
wages and working conditions but often have a
strong voice in determining hiring policies. Many
plants are covered by closed-shop agreements,
under which all workers in specified trades have
to belong to the appropriate union. Union mem­
bers are also often employed in plants having no
union contracts.
There are six major unions of printing workers.
Five are craft unions affiliated with the American
Federation o f Labor—the International Typo­
graphical Union, International Printing Press­
men’s and Assistants’ Union o f North America,
International Photo-Engravers’ Union of North
America, International Stereotypers’ and Electro­
typers’ Union, and the International Brotherhood
o f Bookbinders. The sixth, the Amalgamated
Lithographers o f America, organizes workers in
all lithographic occupations. It is a member o f
the Congress o f Industrial Organizations.
Most typesetters and other composing-room
workers are represented by the International
Typographical Union. In newspaper and job
printing, either shop foremen who are themselves

union men or the union shop chairmen usually do
the hiring, disciplining, and firing of composingroom employees, in accordance with union rules.
Pressroom workers, too, are usually covered by
union agreements. Practically all the letterpress
and rotogravure pressmen who are organized be­
long to the International Printing Pressmen and
Assistants’ Union. The large majority o f litho­
graphic and offset pressmen, as of other litho­
graphic workers, are in the Amalgamated Lithog­
raphers of America.
Photoengravers are almost completely organ­
ized by the International Photo-Engravers’ Union
o f North America. The proportion o f stereo­
typers and electrotypers unionized by the Interna­
tional Stereotypers’ and Electrotypers’ Union is
likewise extremely high.
Although employees in binderies are not so
strongly organized as the groups discussed in the
last two paragraphs, many skilled bookbinders
and other bindery workers are represented by the
Internationa] Brotherhood o f Bookbinders. The
proportion of workers belonging to this union is
higher among journeymen than among less-skilled
employees.

H ow To Enter Printing Occupations
Apprenticeship is the accepted way of entering
skilled printing occupations. With very rare ex­
ceptions, it is the only means by which one may
qualify as a journeyman in a union shop.
Printing apprenticeships usually last from 4 to
6 years, depending on the occupation and whether
the shop is union or nonunion. The training pro­

8


gram covers all phases o f the particular trade and
almost always includes classes in related technical
subjects as well as training on the job. When an
apprentice starts out, he is usually paid 30 or 40
percent o f the wage rate for journeymen. How­
ever, his pay is increased once or twice a year, until,
in the final year or half-year of training, he re­

ceives 80 or 90 percent o f the journeyman rate.
Men who have had some experience in the trade,
in either civilian life or in the armed forces, can
often obtain credit for this. They will then start
out at a wage above the beginning apprentice rate,
and the length o f time before they become journey­
men will be reduced. Veterans who qualify under
the G I bill o f rights may also receive allowances
from the Federal Government during part or all
o f the training period.
T o be eligible for apprenticeship, applicants are
generally required to be 18 (though sometimes
only 17) years o f age and not over 30. A physical
examination is usually given to find out whether
the applicant is free from communicable diseases,
has eyesight adequate for the particular occupa­
tion, and is in good enough physical condition to
do the work which will be involved in his job.
Exceptional physical strength is rarely required.
Moreover, printing is, on the whole, a relatively
good field o f employment for handicapped people.
A considerable number o f workers with speech or
hearing defects—even some who are totally deaf—
are employed, particularly as linotypists and com­
positors. Men who have lost 1 or both legs or do
not have the use of all 10 fingers have proved satis­
factory in some composing-room occupations. In
general, success in a job depends on the individual’s
ability to do the work and to adjust himself to
specific working conditions. Therefore, handi­
capped people should not consider themselves au­
tomatically disqualified for employment in the
industry but should seek competent professional
advice.
Education is another factor which employers
consider in selecting apprentices. High-school
graduation is usually required and always pre­
ferred. A thorough knowledge o f spelling, punc­
tuation, and grammar is essential for most trades.




Technical training in a printing trade school is
desirable. I f a person had printing courses in
high school (thousands o f junior and senior high
schools offer such courses as a part o f their indus­
trial arts programs), this will also be greatly in
his favor. In addition, courses in art, such as
drawing, design, color, and lettering, are helpful
for many kinds o f printing work.
Information on opportunities for apprentice­
ship or other types of printing employment in a
particular locality may be obtained from several
different sources. Applicants may go to the near­
est office o f their State employment service, affili­
ated with the U. S. Employment Service, or to any
printing plants in the neighborhood (the addresses
can be obtained from the classified section of the
local telephone directory). Local unions and local
employer associations can be o f great assistance.
I f none are listed in the telephone directory, an
applicant may write to the national headquarters
o f these organizations (the addresses are given
in the appendix, p. 33) and ask them to refer the
letters to their nearest branches. Editors o f home­
town newspapers can also give valuable informa­
tion and advice. Veterans may find out about
opportunities for on-the-job training and other
questions at veterans’ information centers or offices
of the Veterans Administration or from veterans’
representatives in offices of their State employment
service.
The employment outlook in many important
skilled and semiskilled occupations is discussed in
the following sections of this bulletin, which also
presents information on the nature of the work,
qualifications for employment, and earnings in
each trade.3
8 A list of books and pamphlets, which contain additional in­
formation on printing occupations and are available in many
public libraries, is given in the appendix (p. 3 4 ).

9

CHART 4

A GENERAL PICTURE OF THE FLOW OF WORK
IN PRINTING
LETTERPRESS

LITHOGRAPHIC

I COPY I

COMPOSING ROOM 1
HAND COMPOSITORS
LIN O TY P E OPERATORS
MONOTYPE KEYBOARO
OPERATORS
MONOTYPE CASTER
OPERATORS
PROOFREADERS
OTHERS

ELECTR O ­
TYPERS

I COPY I

l

1
CAMERAM EN

PHOTO­
ENGRAVERS

ROTO­
GRAVURE
1 COPY I

i
A R T IS TS

ROTOGRAVURE
PHOTO­
ENGRAVERS

PLATEMAKERS

STEREO­
TYPERS

PRESSROOM
ROTOGRAVURE
LETTER PR ESS PRESSMEN LITHOGRAPHIC
PRESSMEN
PRESSMEN
AND
AND ASSISTANTS
AND ASSISTANTS ASSISTANTS

BINDERY
BOOKBINDERS
BINDERY WORKERS

MAILING OR SHIPPING
TO

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
BUREAU OF LABOR S TA TIS TIC S


10


CUSTO M ER

Composing-Room Occupations
Copy to be printed by the letterpress process
starts its trip through a printing plant in the com­
posing room, as shown in chart 4. There the type
is set and assembled in type forms, ready for the
pressroom—or for electrotyping or stereotyping,
if printing is to be done from press plates instead
o f directly from the type forms.

H a nd Compositors and Typesetters
The oldest and largest composing-room occupa­
tion is that o f hand compositor or typesetter.
About 90,000 of these journeymen printers were
employed in 1940. In some small shops, all the
type is still set by hand. This involves setting
each line o f type in a “composing stick”—letter
by letter and line by line (as shown in the accom­
panying picture)— and, when the stick is full,
sliding the completed lines onto a shallow metal
tray or “galley.” In many shops, all “straight
matter” (such as you are now reading) is set by
machine, but hand compositors are still needed to
set some o f the type required for headlines, titles,
and other special work, and to assemble the ma­
chine- and hand-set type. Taking proofs of type
that has been set (that is, printing a few copies on
a proof press), checking the proofs against the
original copy, and correcting errors in typesetting
are among the other duties sometimes performed
by compositors, particularly in small shops. These
workers may be responsible also for page make-up
(arranging type and any needed engravings into
pages) and for locking the completed pages.into
forms. In large plants, however, page make-up
is usually done by special “make-up men,” chosen
from among the compositors, and the type forms
are generally locked up by “ stonemen.”
All the major branches o f printing—newspaper,
job, book, and periodical—employ large numbers
o f hand compositors. Smaller numbers work in
other kinds of printing shops or in service shops
doing typesetting on contract for printing estab­
lishments. A good many men in the occupation
have their own small job or service shops.



Qualifications for Employment
A 6-year apprenticeship is usually required for
employment as a journeyman compositor or type­
setter. In union shops, apprenticeship is always
of this length, except in the case of some veterans
with military experience related to printing and
apprentices for whom shop foremen recommend
shorter training periods in recognition o f their
outstanding abilities. The apprenticeship in­
cludes a considerable amount o f classroom and cor­
respondence study. Printed manuals o f instruc­
tion have been prepared by the International
Typographical Union and the Printing Industry
o f America; these are used not only in apprentice­
ship programs but also in vocational schools.
Besides having the educational qualifications
needed for all skilled printing occupations
(p. 9), a compositor should be good in arith­
metic, so that he can calculate spacing o f type on
pages. A knowledge o f English is especially im­
portant in this occupation, since the worker should
be able to catch errors in copy before setting type.
Imagination and artistic ability in planning page
lay-outs are assets which may help him to advance
to lay-out work or make a success in business for
himself.
For a job in this trade, the worker should be
in good enough physical condition to enable him
to be on his feet 8 hours a day and move around
considerably. He should also be able to use hands,
arms, and eyes constantly.

Employment Prospects
Employment opportunities for journeymen
compositors are expected to be good in most parts
of the country during the next few years. In
some areas, however, an oversupply of craftsmen
developed after YJ-day, and experienced men are
still available for employment in a few localities.
For inexperienced men, there will be large num­
bers of openings as trainees for several years.
After that, training opportunities will become
11

Earnings
Hand compositors are among the better-paid
printing trades workers. Union wage rates in
this trade averaged $1.85 an hour in newspaper
shops and $1.65 an hour in other shops in July
1946. Both these averages were well above the
average union scale for all printing trades ($1.58
an hour). Wage scales for compositors in news­
paper plants ranged from $1.16 in Binghamton,
N. Y., to $2.08 in Chicago, 111. In other shops,
wage scales ranged from $1.01 an hour in Port­
land, Maine, to $1.86 in Seattle, Wash.

Linotype Operators

Courtesy of U . S . Government Printing Office, Washington, D . C .

Hand compositor setting type in a composing stick.

much fewer. Contrary to the upward trend in
most printing occupations, employment in this
field will no doubt tend to decrease (as it was do­
ing before the war) owing to continued advances®
in machine typesetting and to other factors. The
decline will be slow and will probably not involve
many lay-offs. Men in the occupation, including
those who enter during the current period of ex­
pansion, should have a good chance of holding
their jobs indefinitely, especially if they have ma­
chine (linotype or monotype) as well as hand
skills.
For years there have been so many small gen­
eral printing shops that competition for business
has been keen in most parts of the country and
earnings have often been very inadequate. Some
veterans and others wishing to go into business
for themselves may, however, find opportunities
during the next few years, as machinery and
paper become more readily available. Generally,
those with good all-round civilian experience will
have the best chance of success. Men with com­
posing-room skills plus supervisory and man­
agerial abilities will also find some immediate
openings in salaried positions with large and wellestablished firms and, in general, good opportunity
for advancement to such positions.

12


In the late 1880’s, a new machine, which was to
revolutionize the composing room and the print­
ing industries generally, came into use. This ma­
chine, the now famous linotype, sets type very
much more rapidly than is possible by hand (as
does the “ intertype,” a similar machine invented
some years later). Reading from copy clipped to
the machine’s copyboarcl, the linotype or intertype
operator selects the letters and other characters
to be printed by operating a keyboard which has
about 90 keys. After he completes each line, he
works a lever, and the machine then casts the lines
of type automatically in solid strips known as
slugs. Other duties performed by the operator in­
clude removing type from the machine, putting
new pigs (blocks) of type metal into the melting
pot, and making adjustments. In shops having a
considerable number of linotype machines, how­
ever, a machinist is usually employed who makes
all but the minor adjustments directly connected
with machine operation.
As linotype and intertype machines have come
into wider and wider use, the number of operators
needed has increased, until they are now the second
largest group of composing-room workers. In
1940, about 60,000 of them were employed. The
largest numbers of such workers are in newspaper
and job shops, but some are employed in book and
periodical houses and in service shops doing ma­
chine typesetting for printing firms. Some lino­
type operators have their own service shops.

739342°—
47------8


Courtesy of U . S . Government Printing Office, Washington, D . C.

Linotype operator at the keyboard of a linotype machine.

13

Qualifications for Employment
Like hand compositors and typesetters, these ma­
chine operators are skilled journeymen. The ap­
prenticeship requirements for their occupation are
usually the same as for hand compositors, except
that in the last 6 months of training the linotypist
apprentice specializes and receives training in ma­
chine work. Qualifications needed by apprentices
are much the same for machine as for hand type­
setting. However, there is less need for artistic
ability and more for mechanical aptitude, to help
the linotypist understand the mechanism of his
machine and make adjustments.
Photograph by U. S. Department of Labor.

Employment Prospects

Journeyman operating monotype keyboard.

The employment outlook for skilled linotype
(and intertype,) operators during the next few
years is very good in the country as a whole, al­
though there may be an oversupply of workers in
a few local areas, as in the case of hand composi­
tors. There will also be a great many training op­
portunities in the next couple of years, and fewer
openings for newcomers thereafter. The longrange outlook is, however, more favorable than
for hand compositors. Employment of linotype
operators has so far tended to rise. This upward
trend is expected to continue for an indefinite num­
ber of years, although eventually technological and
other factors may lead to a stable or even a de­
clining trend in employment.

cally in long shallow trays known as galleys. The
monotype has a keyboard similar to that of a type­
writer, but with some 200 keys. Unlike the lino­
type, which does the whole typesetting job, the
monotype keyboard machine only perforates a
narrow roll of paper for use later in the separate
casting machine.
The workers who operate the keyboard and
make the many different adjustments needed are
called monotype keyboard operators (sometimes
simply monotype operators). They are a rather
small occupational group; only about 6,000 were
employed in 1940. Most of them work for book
or periodical houses; some few, for job and service
shops.
In general, qualifications for employment are
the same as for linotype operators.

Earnings
Linotype operators tend to have much the same
rates of pay as hand compositors. In July 1946,
the average union scale for linotypists in news­
paper shops was $1.85 an hour; in others, $1.69.
Wage rates in newspaper plants ranged from $1.15
in York, Pa., to $2.08 in Chicago. Of the other
shops, those in Portland, Maine, had the lowest
scale, $1.01; those in Detroit, the highest, $1.85.

M onotype Keyboard Operators
Another step forward in typesetting was the
invention of the monotype keyboard and mono­
type casting machines. With these machines, it
is possible to cast individual letters and other type
characters automatically (instead of solid lines, as
in linotyping) and to assemble the type automatiDigitized for14
FRASER


Employment Prospects
In the country as a whole, qualified journeymen
should find it easy to get jobs in this occupation
for the next 2 or 3 years,. In addition, employers
will, for a few years, need many more trainees
than usual. The actual number of training oppor­
tunities will not be large, however, because the
occupation is so small.
Openings are likely to become fewer after the
next few years, as in other composing-room occu­
pations. Employment will probably tend to rise
indefinitely, however.

Earnings
Wage rates for monotype keyboard operators
are generally the same as those for linotype
operators.

Photograph by U . S . Department of Labor.

Monotype caster operator adjusting position of newly cast type as it comes out of the machine.

M onotype Caster Operators
Workers in this occupation operate the mono­
type casting machines previously referred to,
which cast and assemble type automatically,
guided by the perforations in the rolls of paper
prepared by the monotype keyboard operators.
The caster operators not only adjust and tend the
machines but usually are required to know the
mechanism in order to make repairs. In shops
having several casting machines, the operator
may supervise unskilled workers who tend the
machines.
Up to the present time, only one caster operator
has been employed to about every three keyboard
operators, taking the printing industries as a
whole. The occupation is therefore very small,



employing only about 2,000 workers in 1940. The
types of plants using caster operators are of course
the same as for keyboard operators—chiefly book
aud periodical houses and, to some extent, job and
service shops.

Qualifications for Employment
Most newcomers to this occupation learn to op­
erate the machine at a monotype school. Training
is then rounded out on the job. This experience is
especially needed for the most skilled and best
paying jobs in the occupation, which require an
understanding of the mechanism of the caster and
ability to make adjustments and repairs. Persons
entering the occupation should be physically
strong and in good health.
15

Employment Prospects
This is another occupation in which employ­
ment opportunities for experienced workers
should be good, especially during the next few
years. Employment is expected to rise at an even
faster rate than among keyboard operators. There
will be many more openings for newcomers than in
the past. There is room, however, for only a lim­
ited number of new workers in this small occupa­
tion, and competition for the openings is likely to
be keen.

Earnings
Most monotype caster operators have about the
same wage rates as linotypists (p. 14). Those
without responsibility for adjustments or repairs
earn less.

Proofreaders
To guard against errors in the final printed
product, it is customary to make proofs of type
set-ups and read these carefully against the origi­
nal copy. In small shops, journeyman typesetters
and advanced apprentices may do the proofread­
ing, which is considered very responsible work.
In most large plants, however, particularly in the
newspaper, book, and periodical industries, there
are special proofreaders. Altogether, about 5,000
such workers were employed in 1940, including
a good many women.
The work is done in one of two ways. Either
the proofreader puts the proof and the copy side
by side and reads one against the other, a line at
a time, by himself, or he has the material read to
him by a copyholder while he follows the proof.
Where there are errors, he notes the corrections
needed, using standard proofreaders’ marks.
Workers usually enter the occupation from
another composing-room job or a front-office job
with the same company. Skilled compositors and
composing-machine operators who are no longer
able to do typesetting at the speeds required may
take positions as proofreaders. Those who do so
are allowed to keep their journeyman status, at
least in union shops.
Digitized for
1 6 FRASER


Photograph by U . S. Department of Labor.

Proofreaders following copy as copyholders read to them.

Knowledge of grammar, spelling, and punctua­
tion is very important to help the proofreader find
and correct errors. The work requires good hear­
ing and good eyesight.

Employment Prospects
Increased printing activity is expected to mean
rising employment of proofreaders in the next
few years and also in the long run. Though most
of the jobs will be filled by workers already in the
printing industries, there will be a few openings
for veterans and others with experience related to
proofreading. Persons completely new to the field
will have little if any chance for jobs.

Earnings
In union shops, proofreaders generally have the
same wage scales as hand compositors (p. 12). In
nonunion shops, however, the wage rates for proof­
readers, particularly women, are likely to be lower.
In January 1942, for example, straight-time
hourly earnings were typically 95 cents to $1.30
for men but only 50 to 80 cents for women, taking
union and nonunion shops together. Since that
time, there haATe been sizable wage increases in this
as in other printing occupations.

Electrotypers and Stereotypers
From the composing room, type forms often go
to the electrotyping or stereotyping department
(or to an independent service shop doing such
work for printing firms). Electrotyping and
stereotyping are two different processes, which
have the same purpose—making metal press plates
from the type forms. One reason why it may be
necessary to use such plates, instead of printing
directly from the forms, is that a number o f dupli­
cate plates may be needed (any number can be
turned out by either electrotyping or stereotyp­
ing) . When a large edition of a book or magazine
is printed, several plates must be used one after
the other, to prevent the printing surfaces from
becoming too worn to make clear impressions. By
means of duplicate plates, printers can also use
several presses on the same job at the same time
and thus finish a big run quickly. This is especially
important in daily newspaper plants, which have
to rush many thousands o f papers onto the streets
with news that is no more than an hour or two
old. Furthermore, the rotary presses used in many
big plants require curved plates (which can be
made by either process), and type forms are always
flat.
In electrotyping, a wax mold of the type form
is usually made, though lead or some other ma­
terial may be used instead. To make a wax mold,
the electrotyper first lays the type form on the
bed of a power molding press. He then places on
top o f the press a metal sheet coated with wax
and applies the pressure, thus obtaining an im­
pression of the type form in the wax. The next
major steps are to give the mold a thin coating
o f copper by pouring copper-sulphate solution
over it (sometimes nickel is used instead) and to
suspend it in a battery tank filled with the same
solution. When the current is turned on, a shell
of copper is deposited on top of the copper coat­
ing. When stripped from the mold, backed with
metal, carefully finished, and mounted, this shell
becomes a plate ready for use in the pressroom.
The stereotyping process is much simpler, quick­
er, and less expensive than electrotyping, but it
does not yield as fine a plate. Stereotypers make
molds of papier mache (a strong material com­
posed of paper pulp), instead of wax or lead.
Their work involves placing a damp papier mache



pad on top of the type form and running both
through a rolling machine. After the paper mold
has been dried, it is used in casting a compositionlead plate, which needs only trimming to be ready
for the pressroom.
Journeymen electrotypers and stereotypers must
know how to handle all the tasks involved in their
respective processes, although in practice they are
often assigned to only one phase of the work.
Neither occupation is a large one. In 1940, only
about 7,500 or 8,000 journeymen were employed
in both trades. Electrotypers work mainly in large
book and periodical plants or shops (often owned
and run by one or two journeymen) which service
the book and periodical industries. Stereotypers
work mainly in newspaper plants or shops servic­
ing newspaper publishers. Some large commer­
cial shops and other kinds of printing plants also
use a few men in these occupations.

Qualifications for Employment
To qualify for either type of work, a 5- or 6-year
apprenticeship is usually required. The training
is quite different for each trade; rarely do journey­
men change from one occupation to the other.
Young men who wish to become electrotyper
or stereotyper apprentices need the same educaElectrotyper placing wax mold on top of type form which is on bed of power
molding press.
Photograph by U . S . Department of Labor.

17

tional qualifications as are required for all print­
ing trades (p. 9). In addition, mechanical train­
ing and courses in chemistry and metallurgy are
useful.
In work rooms where electrotyping or stereo­
typing is done, there are frequently fumes and
dust and the temperature and humidity are often
extremely high. Moreover, the work involves lift­
ing o f very heavy plates and type forms. People
entering the occupations should be strong enough
and in good enough health to work under these
conditions.

Employment Prospects
Journeyman electrotypers and stereotypers, like
most other groups of skilled printing craftsmen,
will generally find it easy to get jobs in the imme­
diate future and will have a good chance of hold­
ing their jobs indefinitely. Some men with all­
round experience and managerial abilities will be
able to go into business for themselves, with fair
chances of success. There will also be more train­
ing opportunities than usual at least for a year
or two. Openings for both journeymen and train­
ees will, at best, total no more than a few hundred
a year, however—including vacancies due to turn­
over and also the new jobs which are expected to
arise in the immediate future and over the long
run.
Jobs and business opportunities for electro­
typers and stereotypers are available in fewer lo­
calities than for most other groups of printing
workers. They will seldom be found outside large
industrial areas and will be mainly in or around
New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, and
Cincinnati.

Earnings
Wage rates for electrotypers tended to be higher
than those for any other occupation except photo­
engravers. The average union scale for electro­
typers was $1.87 an hour in July 1916.


18


Photograph by U . S. Department of Labor.

Stereotyper holding mold which he has just removed from newly cast lead plate.
He is about to pull the plate from the machine (an automatic tubular vacuum
casting machine). Hot lead plate shows white in picture.

Stereotypers (in newspaper printing) had con­
siderably lower pay, the average rate being $1.73
an hour.
The pay of electrotypers and stereotypers varies
rather widely from one city to another. The low­
est union rate for electrotypers in July 1946 was
$1.15 an hour in Nashville, Tenn.; the highest,
$2.10 in New York City, Chicago, and Newark.
Rates for stereotypers ranged from $1.15 an hour
in Little Rock, Ark., to $2.00 in San Francisco,
Calif. Stereotyper rates also varied considerably
from one branch of printing to another; the com­
paratively few men in periodical printing tended
to have the highest pay.

Photoengravers and Rotogravure Photoengravers
Photoengravers enter into the printing process
when copy to be reproduced by letterpress includes
pictures or designs. As has already been men­
tioned, the photoengraving department supplies
the composing room with any needed plates of
illustrations and other material that cannot be
set up in type. On these plates, the printing sur­
faces stand out in relief above the nonprinting
spaces, as do the letters on the accompanying type.
Rotogravure photoengravers also make plates
for use in reproducing pictures, but these are gra­
vure plates with the image etched below the sur­
face. The printing has to be done on special roto­
gravure presses, and often the entire process, from
preparation of the plates through printing, is car­
ried out in separate plants specializing in this kind
of work.

Photoengravers
Photoengravers are skilled journeymen, able to
handle all the operations involved in their process.
Sometimes, the entire job o f producing a plate is
done by one man. More often, however, especially
in large shops, the work is divided among a num­
ber o f photoengravers, who may then be known by
such titles as photographer, printer, etcher, fin­
isher, router, blocker, or prover, according to the
particular phase o f the work handled.
The photographer starts the process by photo­
graphing the material to be reproduced, using the
necessary screens or color filters, and develops the
negative. Making a print from the negative on a
metal plate coated with sensitized solution is the
job of the printer. Since the coating over the
image areas of the plate is hardened by exposure
to light during the printing process or by further
chemical treatment, these areas are protected
against the acid into which the plate is put by
the etcher. The background areas are, however,
etched away by this acid, leaving the image stand­
ing out in relief. After that, there are still a few
more operations to be carried out—including fin­
ishing (careful inspection and touching up with
hand tools), routing (cutting away metal from the
nonprinting parts o f the plate to prevent them
from touching the inking roller during printing),



blocking (mounting the engraving on a wooden
block to make it the right height), and proving
(printing a sample copy on a proof press).
Somewhat less than 10,000 men were employed
as photoengravers in 1940, including both all-round
men and specialists. The largest number work in
service shops whose main business is making photo­
engravings for use by others; many journeymen
have their own shops. Newspaper plants, book and
periodical houses, and the United States Govern­
ment Printing Office and Bureau o f Engraving
and Printing also employ considerable numbers of
photoengravers.

Qualifications for Employment
A 6-year apprenticeship is generally required
to become a journeyman. The training covers all
phases of the process and includes a large amount
(864 hours) o f classroom instruction.
Since photoengravers’ duties involve constant,
close work with their eyes, good eyesight is es­
sential in this occupation. Because of the work
with acids and other chemicals which give off
fumes, the occupation is not a good one for people
with respiratory disabilities. Many employers re­
quire physical examinations for prospective pho­
toengravers, testing both eyes and lungs. Among
the types o f school training which are helpful, in
addition to those needed for all printing trades
(p. 9), are courses in chemistry and metallurgy.

Employment Prospects
Employment opportunities for qualified jour­
neymen are expected to be fairly good in this small
occupation in the immediate future. Some men
with all-round experience and business abilities
should find favorable opportunities to open their
own shops. There will not be many openings for
apprentices during the next year or two, however—
probably no more than a hundred or so in the
entire country.
In the long run, employment is likely to level off,
and openings for both journeymen and apprentices
will probably be few.
19

Photograph by U . S . Department of Labor.

Photoengraver (etcher) using magnifying glass to inspect depth of "bite” in plate which he has just removed from acid bath.

Earning s
Photoengravers have, on the whole, higher wage
rates than any other group of printing craftsmen
studied, with the exception of rotogravure men.
In July 1946, the average union scale for photo­
engravers in newspaper plants was $2.06 an hour;
in other shops, $1.97. Although rates were highest
in the New York City area (about $2.25 an hour),
other metropolitan areas also had high pay scales.
The lowest scale for union photoengravers in any
of the cities where a survey was made was $1.35.

Rotogravure Photoengravers
Rotogravure work is a relatively new process,
which was being used increasingly before the war.
So far, however, it has never employed more than

20


a few hundred journeymen in the entire country.
These men are a very highly skilled group. Like
regular photoengravers, they are required to know
all phases of their process, although they usually
specialize in one of them. The operations which
they handle are much like those involved in photo­
engraving, except that a positive (instead of a
negative) is used in making the plate and it is
the image (rather than the background) areas
which are etched away.
A few large newspaper and commercial plants
have departments which reproduce pictures by
this method. However, rotogravure men are em­
ployed mainly in independent rotogravure plants.
Most of them work for half a dozen big firms
which handle a large proportion of all rotogravure
work.

Photograph by U . S. Department of Labor.

Photoengraver (router) cutting away metal from nonprinting areas of a plate.

Qualifications for Employment
It is possible to enter the occupation either by
a 6-year apprenticeship in a rotogravure shop or
by transferring from photoengraving. Photoen­
gravers are usually required to complete a pro­
bationary training period before being classified
as skilled rotogravure men. The qualifications
needed by apprentices are the same for rotogra­
vure work as for photoengraving.

Employment Prospects
There will be little room for newcomers in this
occupation during the next year or so. During the
war, the amount of rotogravure printing was much
reduced, and a large proportion of the journeymen
and anprentices either went into the armed serv­



ices or transferred to photoengraving. The vol­
ume of rotogravure work is now rapidly returning
to prewar levels, and there is frequent need for
additional workers. However, these openings are
being filled in most instances by former workers
returning to the trade. Since the occupation is
expected to go on expanding for an indefinite
period, there should be some opportunities for
newcomers after another year or two—but only a
very few each year, because the total number of
men employed is so small.

Earnings
As already indicated, rotogravure men are
among the highest paid printing craftsmen. In
general, their wage scales are above even the high
rates for photoengravers doing letterpress work
(p. 20).
21

Lithographic Occupations
Any kind o f printing job that can be done by
letterpress or gravure can be done also by lithog­
raphy ( or offset printing). Which method is used,
however, depends on many practical considera­
tions. Lithography has special advantages when
the copy to be reproduced includes photographs,
drawings, or paintings and particularly when
these are in color. In present-day lithographic
work, the plates are usually made by a photo­
graphic process, and the method is often referred
to as photolithography. There are a few types of
work—posters, for example—in which some of the
plates are still made by hand.
The largest group of lithographic workers is
made up of platemakers; other major occupational
groups are cameramen, artists and letterers, press­
men, and press assistants. This section deals with
the first three of these groups and with an occupa­
tion not yet mentioned, that of cutter. Informa­
tion on lithographic pressmen is given in the sec­
tion on pressroom occupations (p. 25).

Digitized for
22FRASER


Nature of the W o r k
Cameramen
The cameramen who photograph the copy to be
printed are highly skilled workers. They do sev­
eral different kinds of photography—in black and
white or in color; of drawings or photographs; on
glass plates or negative paper or film. The work
includes not only taking the pictures and develop­
ing the negatives, but also related duties. Almost
always, cameramen specialize in only one type of
photography.

Artists and Letterers
After negatives have been made and developed,
they frequently have to be retouched, to lighten or
intensify certain parts. This is done by hand, with
chemicals and dyes, and is one of the many highly
skilled operations handled by craftsmen in the art
department. Artists may have to correct colors

Artists preparing copy for reproduction by lithography.
Courtesy of U . S . Government Printing Office, Washington, D . C .

in the final press plates. They also draw posters
or other pictures on stone or metal plates or on
special paper, on the comparatively rare occasions
when hand methods are used in place of photo­
lithography. Lettering is usually done by hand,
although sometimes by machine.
To be journeymen, artists have to be adept either
in one or more of the various retouching methods
or in hand drawing with lithographic crayon.
Like cameramen, they are customarily assigned to
only one phase of the work and may then be known,
for example, as dot etchers (who do a highly
specialized type of retouching), retouchers, crayon
artists, or letterers, depending on their particular
job.

Platemakers
In photolithography, negatives and positives
made by cameramen and corrected by artists are
transferred onto press plates by workers in the
platemaking or chemical department. The worker




first places a metal plate with a light-sensitive
coating in a vacuum frame or photocomposing ma­
chine; puts a photographic negative (or, some­
times a positive) on top of it; and makes an ex­
posure under an arc lamp. The plate is then de­
veloped and chemically treated, so as to make
the nonimage areas repellant to grease when damp
but to leave the image areas receptive to it. The
foregoing indicates only a few of the main steps
in this highly complicated and technical process.
Platemakers in small shops often perform all
the different operations. Those in large shops,
however, are likely to be more specialized; they
may, for example, operate only a vacuum frame
or a photocomposing machine.
Besides platemakers using these photomechan­
ical methods, there are some who do hand trans­
ferring—although this process has been largely
displaced by photomechanical platemaking. The
hand-transfer platemaker places special transfer
paper on a design and runs both through a transfer

Platemakers coating and developing lithographic plates.
Courtesy of U . S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D . C.

23

press. Next, he carefully removes this paper,
which now has on it the image to be reproduced,
places it on the press plate, and presses the design
into the grain o f the plate. Finally, he treats the
plate in various ways. He may also have other
duties to perform.

Cutters
For persons who wish jobs in lithography but
who are unable to qualify for work in the other
occupations discussed, one of the most interesting
possibilities is a position as paper trimmer or
cutter. The work is similar in many ways to that
done by cutters in other branches of printing and
in some industries outside the printing group.
These workers may use cutting machines not only
to cut paper to the sizes needed for the press, but
also to cut the large press sheets after printing, in
order to separate the different items which were
printed together. The cuts must be carefully
planned and accurately carried out. Cutters are
also responsible for adjusting the knives, clamps,
and other devices on their cutting machines and
for the upkeep of the machines.

Numbers Employed and Places of
Employment
Since lithography is used to only a limited ex­
tent compared with letterpress printing, all the
occupations that have been discussed are small.
About 5,000 platemakers were employed in 1946.
Pressmen totaled about 3,300 or 3,400, and their
assistants around 4,000. Artists and letterers
numbered approximately 3,000; cameramen, about
1,200, and cutters, roughly 1,000.
Most workers in these occupations are em­
ployed in plants specializing in lithography.
However, a good many work in job shops or other
letterpress plants which have lithographic depart­
ments, or for firms in other industries which do
printing o f their own by the lithographic process.

Qualifications for Employment
To become an all-round, skilled cameraman,
artist, or platemaker generally requires a 4- or
5-year apprenticeship covering all phases of the
given department’s work. For Tess-skilled jobs


24


in these departments and also for the job of cutter,
shorter periods of training are needed. Besides
on-the-job training, many plants give supplement­
ary training courses. Training programs are o f­
fered also in organized trade schools and other
places.
The educational and physical qualifications
needed for lithographic occupations are much the
same as for printing occupations in general (p. 9).
Men with physical handicaps of many types can
qualify for jobs.

Employment Prospects
Qualified craftsmen should have little trouble
getting jobs in lithographic occupations during the
years immediately ahead. The labor shortages
which developed during the war have been re­
lieved only in part since VJ-day. Moreover, this
is the fastest growing printing process. Employ­
ment opportunities will probably be very good also
for men with training and experience in semi­
skilled lithographic occupations. In addition, em­
ployers will, for some time, need more trainees
than usual, but the actual number o f openings for
newcomers will not be large in any occupation in
any one yeai*.
A few men will find favorable opportunities to
open their own shops. The chances are likely to
be best in localities which do not already have a
well-established lithographic business.
The long-run outlook is for continued rapid rises
in employment in all major lithographic occupa­
tions. Although by far the largest numbers o f
job openings—probably half of the total—will be
in three cities (New York, Chicago, and San Fran­
cisco) during the next few years, opportunities will
become more and more widespread as time goes on.

Earnings
Skilled cameramen, artists, and platemakers
were generally paid more than $1 an hour— fre­
quently much more—in the last years before the
war. Cutters usually made between 80 cents and
$1 an hour. By the fall o f 1946, wage rates had
increased on the average by at least 25 percent in
these occupations. Since that time, wages have
risen still higher.

Pressroom Occupations
Type forms from composing rooms, press plates
from electrotyping and stereotyping departments,
rotogravure plates, and lithographic plates all go
to a pressroom, when the time comes for the actual
printing to be done. In small shops, this depart­
ment may consist of only one or two small presses
in a back room or a corner of the shop. In big
plants, however, pressrooms are large, with many
workers and, frequently, huge presses. Often
these machines are so heavy and create so much
vibration that the department has to be located on
the ground floor or in the basement.

Pressmen
Skilled pressmen, the key workers in the de­
partment, are the third largest group of printing
Pressman using paper to level plate.




craftsmen. In 1940, about 33,000 o f them were
employed. Only hand compositors and linotype
operators were more numerous.
Pressmen’s basic duties are to “make-ready” and
then tend the presses while in operation. The ob­
ject of the make-ready, which is one of the most
delicate and difficult parts of the work, is to ensure
printing impressions that are distinct and even
and neither too dark nor too light. This is accom­
plished by such means as placing pieces of paper
of exactly the right thicknesses underneath low
areas of the press plate or type form to level i't,
and attaching pieces of tissue paper to the surface
of the cylinder or flat platen which makes the
impression. Pressmen also have to make many
other adjustments—for example, those controlling

Press is a small flatbed cylinder press for letterpress printing.
Photograph by U. S . Department of Labor.

25

margins and the flaw of ink to the inking roller.
In some shops, they are responsible not only for
tending the presses but for oiling and cleaning
them and making at least minor repairs. In many
cases they have assistants whose work they
supervise.
Within this broad outline, pressmen’s work var­
ies greatly from one type of shop to another, be­
cause o f the great differences in the kinds and
sizes o f presses used. Small commercial shops,
many o f which are owned and run by pressmen
themselves in partnership with compositors, gen­
erally have small and relatively simple platen (or
job) presses that are often fed paper by hand. At
the other extreme are the big newspaper plants
with their tremendous web-rotary presses. These
giant presses are fed paper in big rolls (or webs).
They print the paper on both sides by means of a
series of cylinders; cut the pages apart, and assem­
ble, and fold them; and finally count the finished
newspaper sections, which emerge from the press
ready for the mailing room. To do all this auto­
matically requires many different mechanisms,
all of which must have frequent attention while a
run is being made. Presses of this kind are there­
fore operated by crews of journeymen and lessskilled workers, under the direction of a pressmanin-charge.
Another type o f press on which men specialize
is that used in offset printing. An offset press has
three cylinders, the first carrying the curved plate;
the second, a rubber blanket; and the third, the
paper on which an impression is to be made. The
plate does not print directly onto the paper but
instead transfers the impression to the rubber
blanket around the second cylinder which then
offsets the image onto the paper. Another special
feature is the dampening rollers which pass over
the plate before each inking, to prevent the greasy
ink from adhering to the nonprinting areas of the
plate. Both these features create extra complica­
tions for the pressman. Experts emphasize also
that, in printing by this method, “kiss” pressure
only is needed (much less pressure than is involved
in relief and gravure printing), and that delicate
and skillful ^adjustments by the pressman are re­
quired to attain exactly the right pressure.
Pressmen may specialize also in operating direct
lithographic presses, which make impressions on
paper directly from lithographic plates instead of
using the offset principle. There are, in addition,

26


other types o f presses including the rotogravure
press, a rotary press with a “ doctor” blade which
scrapes the surplus ink off the surface o f the plate.

Qualifications for Employment
To become a skilled pressman requires 3 to 5
years o f apprenticeship. Usually, men receive
training on only one type of press, and opinion
differs as to how readily journeymen can become
skilled on other types of presses. The length o f
the apprenticeship and the content o f the training
largely depend on the kind of press involved. For
work on an offset press, for example, the appren­
ticeship period is almost always 5 years.
Apprentices are generally chosen from among
the press assistants and others already employed
by the company. They must have completed at
least the eighth grade in school; some employees
require high-school graduation. Since they will
often have to blend their own inks, a knowledge o f
color is necessary. Courses in art are therefore
very helpful.
Physical strength and endurance are necessary
for work on some kinds o f presses, where the pressman has to lift heavy type forms and press plates
and be on his feet all day. Another quality needed
is mechanical aptitude, to assist the worker in
making adjustments and repairs to the presses.

Employment Prospects
In this as in most other printing occupations,
employers will need all qualified journeymen likely
to be available during the next few years. In addi­
tion, there will be many apprenticeship opportu­
nities, especially as new machinery becomes avail­
able. Proportionately speaking, the greatest in­
creases in employment will be in lithographic
work. Nevertheless, openings in this branch o f
the occupation will be few, because the total num­
ber of lithographic pressmen employed is small
(about 3,300 or 3,400 in 1946). In the long run,
employment o f pressmen will probably have an
upward trend, as it had before the war.

Earnings
Wage rates for pressmen depend on the make
and style o f press operated, as well as the type o f
printing plant and other factors. Rates were
highest in the newspaper industry, where press-

men-in-charge averaged $1.91 an hour, and other
journeymen, $1.76 in July 1946. Outside news­
paper plants, the average union scale for cylinder
pressmen was $1.65 an hour; for platen pressmen,
$1.42. O f the pressmen for whom information
was available, all but platen pressmen tended to
have rates well above the average ($1.58) for all
printing trades.

Press Assistants
The duties of press assistants range from merely
feeding sheets o f paper into hand-fed presses to
helping pressmen make ready and operate large
and complicated rotary presses. Workers whose
main responsibility is feeding are often referred
to simply as feeders.
The nonjourneymen on web-rotary crews in
newspaper plants are commonly known as flyboys.
They pick up the newspapers as they come out of
the press and load them onto hand trucks; they
also wheel the trucks out o f the pressroom and do
other work.
In 1940 the total number o f press assistants em­
ployed was roughly 8 or 9 thousand, not counting
flyboys in newspaper plants. The ratio o f assist­
ants to pressmen varies greatly from one establish­
ment to another, depending on the size o f the
plant, the type of press used, and other factors.
Many shops are too small to have any pressroom
helpers.

Promotion to apprentice pressman and eventu­
ally to journeyman is possible for many though
not all press assistants. Those who aspire to such
promotions need the same general qualifications
as are needed by apprentice pressmen (p. 26).

Employment Prospects
Several hundred job openings for press assist^
ants may be expected each year for the next few
years. After that, openings will probably become
much fewer. Before the war, the printing indus­
tries tended not to hire as many press assistants
as they lost owing to turn-over. It is likely that
this tendency will appear again after the current
need for labor has been met and that employment
in the occupation will resume its long-range down­
ward trend. However, lay-offs will probably be
made only in exceptional circumstances.

Earnings
In July 1946, press assistants in union shops out­
side the newspaper industry had an average wage
rate o f $1.32 an hour. Those who were merely
press feeders had somewhat lower pay than the
ones whose main job was to assist journeymen in
the make-ready and in operating the presses.
Helpers in newspaper pressrooms made less than
press assistants in other printing shops, although
the reverse was true for skilled pressmen.

Bindery Occupations
Many products are finished when they leave the
pressroom. This is true of a wide variety of items
produced by job shops—business forms, printed
stationery, labels, advertising flyers, and so forth.
Newspapers, except the few that are bound for
libraries, never see a bindery department. Never­
theless, binderies play a part in the manufacture
of many products besides books. Whenever a
magazine or pamphlet or even a small calendar
is sewed or stapled together, this is considered a
bindery operation.

Bookbinders
Making a book out o f the big, flat sheets of paper
that come into the bindery from the pressroom is
by far the most complicated type o f bindery work.
The first step is to fold the printed sheets, each of



which contains many pages, so that these pages
will be in the right order. When so folded into
sections o f 16 or 32 pages, the sheets are known as
signatures. The next steps are to insert any illus­
trations that have been printed separately, to as­
semble the signatures in proper order, and to sew
them together. The resulting book bodies are
shaped in various ways, usually with power presses
and trimming machines, and fabric strips are
glued to the backs to reinforce them. Sometimes,
the edges of the pages are gilded or colored. Cov­
ers are glued or pasted onto the book bodies, after
which the books undergo a variety of finishing
operations and, frequently, are wrapped in paper
jackets.
Skilled bookbinders seldom handle all these d if­
ferent tasks, although many journeymen have had
training in all of them. Especially in large shops,
27

the bookbinders are likely to be assigned to one or
a few operations, most often to the operation of
complicated machines.
The majority o f journeymen are employed in
shops whose main business is bookbinding. How­
ever, a good many work in the bindery rooms of
large book, periodical, and commercial printing
plants. Some are employed in libraries, where the
work is done mainly by hand and also differs in
other respects from that performed elsewhere.
Rough estimates suggest that, altogether, about
15 or 20 thousand men had journeyman jobs in
1940, making this the fourth largest group of
printing craftsmen.

Employment Prospects
Both journeyman and apprentice openings will
be more numerous during the next few years than
they were for many years before the war. The
occupation was greatly overcrowded in the last
prewar years; thousands of skilled workers were
unemployed or had been forced to take jobs paying
less than a journeyman’s wage. During the war,
a labor shortage developed in this occupation, as
in printing crafts generally, and there are still
many openings. The shortage is unlikely to last
more than a few years longer, however. It is ex­
pected that eventually the number of opportuni­
ties will be small and that employment in the occu­
pation will resume its long-run downward trend.

Qualifications for Employment
Completion o f a 4-year apprenticeship is usu­
ally required of men seeking to qualify as skilled
bookbinders. The apprenticeship programs may
vary considerably between the different types of
shops. Where large quantities of books are bound
on a mass-production basis, emphasis is on the
most modern machine methods. Where fine hand
binding is done, the training is mainly in hand
methods, including artistic designing and decora­
tions of leather covers.
Bookbinder putting gold lettering on back of book with hand tool.

Digitized for
28FRASER


Photograph by U . S. Department of Labor.

Earnings
Union rates for journeyman bookbinders aver­
aged $1.50 an hour in July 1946. For over twothirds of these skilled workers, wage scales were
between $1.30 and $1.60 per hour. In general, pay
scales in the occupation were below the average
($1.58) for all printing trades.

Bindery W orkers
In many binderies, especially large ones, a great
part of the work is done by employees trained in
only one operation or in a small group of related
tasks. These semiskilled workers are mostly
women, though a few are men. The women
handle a variety of hand or light-machine opera­
tions—such as hand folding, pasting-in of inserts,
assembling signatures by hand, machine sewing,
gluing fabric reinforcement on signatures, and
feeding machines. The men are usually assigned
to more intricate machine jobs; they may operate
assembling, trimming, stamping, and many other
types of machines.
The bindery workers are by far the largest group
of semiskilled workers in the printing and allied
industries. Roughly TO or 80 thousand of them
were employed in 1940. Large numbers are used
both in independent binderies and in the bindery
departments of big printing plants. For inexpe­
rienced men and women entering the occupation, a
training period, which may be as long as 1 or 2
years, is frequently required. In union shops,
there are always formal training programs.

Photograph by U . S . Department of Labor.

Bindery workers “ casing-in” small booklets (putting covers on pages). Girl at far right is running cover through machine which puts glue on inside.
Girl in the center is inserting pages in cover. Man is straightening pages and folding booklets.

Employment Prospects

Earnings

For several years, experienced workers will
probably have little difficulty in getting jobs in
this occupation. There will also be hundreds of
openings for inexperienced workers each year.
After the next few years, opportunities are likely
to become fewer and there may not be enough jobs
for all persons seeking work. But the long-run
trend of employment is upward, as in most print­
ing occupations. Workers who now have jobs or
who enter the field during the current expansion
in employment will have a good chance of keeping
their positions indefinitely.

Women bindery workers have the lowest wage
rates of any group of production workers in the
printing and allied industries. In July 1946, the
average union scale for these women was 81 cents
an hour, with 9 out of 10 having rates between TO
cents and $1.00. These union scales were probabfy representative of all wage rates for women
in the occupation although, unlike printing work­
ers, many bindery employees, especially women,
are not covered by union agreements.
Men doing semiskilled machine work were gen­
erally paid somewhat more than the usual top rate
for women. The few doing hand operations had
rates similar to those for women workers.




29

A P P E N D IX E S
I. Number of Establishments, V a lu e of Products, and Number of Persons Employed
in Printing, Publishing, and A llie d Industries, 1 9 3 9 1
Number of
establishments

Industry 1
2

Total __

__________ ____ ______

__ __ _

Plants reporting value of product more than
$5,000________________________________________
Newspapers____
.
. . .
General commercial (job) printing
_ _ _
Periodicals .
__
__
__
_____
_
_ _ __
Books__ _ _
Lithography 3
. .
Greeting cards, not hand painted
Gravure, rotogravure, and photogravure 4___
Service shops:
Photoengraving..
_
_
. __ _
Machine and hand typesetting
Engraving (steel, copperplate, and
wood) 5__
__
_______ _______
Electrotyping and stereotyping. __ ____
Bookbinding and related industries
Plants reporting value of product less than
$5,000________________________________________
Printing and publishing _
_
_____ . . .
Bookbinding. _
_

38, 762

Value of products (millions
of dollars)

Number employed
Proprietors

Employees

$2, 614

32, 322

561, 861

878
309
595
558
396
749
109
24

2, 578
910
515
469
237
154
39
19

18, 147
6, 014
8,216
782
576
278
70
5

552, 505
207, 429
126, 059
61, 972
42, 559
34, 722
9, 983
3, 114

694
641

56
25

384
538

13, 747
8, 100

436
234
1, 133

22
29
103

329
62
893

6, 865
6, 333
31, 622

13, 884
13, 570
314

36
35
1

14, 175
13, 835
340

9, 356
9, 046
310

24,
7,
9,
2,
1,

1 Census of Manufactures, vol. II, pt. 1, 1939; and Census of Business, vol. Ill, Service Establishments, 1939.
2 The industry in which an establishment was classified by the Bureau of the Census was determined by its chief product or products (measured in
dollar value of output during 1939), except in the case of newspaper printing. Plants which had done any work of this type during 1939 were classed in the
newspaper industry, even if they had also done commercial or other work having a greater value. See the U . S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the
Census, Industry Classifications for the Census of Manufactures, 1989, pp. 1 and 46-48.
3 This industry is made up of establishments primarily engaged in preparing lithograph plates and in printing from such plates. The greater part of
the work is done to individual order, but in some cases lithographed calendars, commercial forms, maps, illustrated cards, posters, and other items are made
for sale. Lithographing of books and pamphlets for publishers is classified in the book printing industry. A great many plants, classified in other printing
industries or outside the printing group, do some lithographic work; the Joint Lithographic Advisory Council estimates that at least 2,000 separate estab­
lishments had lithographic equipment in 1939 and that, by 1946, the number had increased to about 2,600.
4 Most establishments in this industry are rotogravure plants, which make plates of pictures by a photo-mechanical process and also print from these plates.
Some few do other types of gravure printing.
« These shops service the printing industries with plates engraved by hand or machine and sometimes also print from the plates they make.

30




II. Union W a g e Scales in M a jo r Newspaper Printing Tracies in Selected Cities,
July I, 19461
City and State

Hand com­
positors

Atlanta, Ga___ _________________________________________
Baltimore, M d . ______________________ ____ ___________
Birmingham, Ala_________________________ ______________
Boston, Mass____________________________________________
Buffalo, N . Y ____________________________________________
Butte, Mont
__ ____ __ _ ____ ___ _________________
Charleston, S. C _______ ___ _________ _________________

Chicago, 111______________________________________________
Cincinnati, Ohio________________________________________
Cleveland, Ohio-------- -----------------------------------------------------Columbus, Ohio_________________________________________
Davenport, Iowa-------------------------------------------------------------Dayton, Ohio____________________________________________
Denver, Colo____________________________________________

(1
2)

Des Moines, Iowa-----------------------------------------------------------Detroit, Mich______: ------------------ ----------------------------------Duluth, Minn___________________________________________

Houston, Tex_'_-------------- -------------------------------------------------Indianapolis, Ind----------- -------------------------------------------------Jacksonville, Fla--------------------------------------------------------------Kansas City, M o-------------------------------------------------------------Los Angefes, Calif-----------------------------------------------------------Louisville, K y ___________________________________________
Madison Wis
_ _ ____ ___________________________
Manchester, N . H ------------------------------------------ ------- ---------Memphis, Tenn--------------------------------------------------------------Milwaukee, W is--------------------------------------------------------------Minneapolis, Minn---------------------------------------------------------Mobile, Ala ____________ __________________ __________
Moline, 111.................... - ------- --------------------------------------------Nashville, Tenn--------------------------------------------------------------Newark N J
______________________________________
New Haven, Conn__ _________ ,__________________________
New Orleans, La-------------------------------------------------------------New York, N . Y -------------------------------------------------------------Norfolk, Va----------------------------------------- ---------- ------------------

Composingmachine
operators

1.40

1.63

1.28
1.63
1.73
1.75
1.65
1.58

1.23
1.70
1.68
1.68-1.99
1.59
1.34
(2)
1.48
1.43

1.87
1.78
1.84-2.19
1.92
1.40
(2)
1. 57
1.53

1.32
2.08
1.87
1.90
1.70
1.66

1 32
2.08
1.87
1.90
1.70
1.66
1.57
1.65

(2)
1.48
1.43-1.49

(2)

1.70
1.87
1.92

2.15
2.00
2.13
2.03
(2)

1.77
1.64

1.59
1.99
1.44
1.52
1.50
1.58
1.62
1.87
1.35

1.59
1.99
1.44
1.52
1.50
1.58
1.62
1.87
1 35

1.56
1.90
1.29
1.36
1.33
1.58
1.38
1.85

1.64
2.12
1.53

1.65
1.60
1.37
1.73
1.65
1.45
1.34
1.52
1.81

1.65
1.60
1 37
1.73
1.65
1 45
l! 34
1.52
1.81

1.65
1.45-1.50
1.13
1.61
1.50
1.45
1.34
1.34
1.52

1.65
1.75

1.37
1.75
1.34
1.35
2.07
1.41

1.37
1. 75
1.34
1.35
2.07
1.41

1.75
1.72
1.69

(2)

1.36
1.58
1.45
1.35
1.84
1.25

Oklahoma City, Okla------------------------------------------------------Omaha, Nebr------------------------------------------------------------------Peoria, 111_______________________________________________
Philadelphia, Pa------ ------- -----------------------------------------------Phoenix Ariz
_______________________________ _______
Pittsburgh, Pa--------------------------- - ------- ---------------------------Portland Maine ___________________ _________________
Portland, Oreg--------------- ------------------------------------------------Providence, R. I--------------------------------------------------------------Reading, Pa ___________________________________________

1.53
1.51
1.45
1.54
1.42
1.87
1.30-1.38
1.72
1.67
1.46

1.53
1.51
1.45
1.54
1.42
1.87
1.30-1.39
1.72
1.67
1.46

1.41
1.51
1.39
1.49
1.42
1.72
1.38
1.67
1.65
1.46

Richmond, Va----- ------- ----------------------------------------------------Rochester, N . Y --------------------------------------------------------------Rock Island (111.) district2-----------------------------------------------St. Louis, M o------------------------------------------------------------------St. Paul, Minn-------------------------------------------------------------- -Salt Lake City, Utah-------------------------------------------------------San Antonio, Tex------ ------- ----------------------------------------------San Francisco, Calif---------------------------------------------------------Scranton, Pa------------ -------------------------------------------------------Seattle, Wash---------------------- ------------------------------------------

1.40
1.55
1.47
1.84
1.76
1.48
1.47
1.87
1.67
1.86

1.40
1.55
1.47
1.84
1.76
1.48
1.47
1.87
1.67
1.86

1.34
1.60
1.55
1.78
1.54
1.38
1.30
1.75
1.59
1.73

South Bend, Ind ______________________________________
Spokane, Wash
______________________________________
Springfield, Mass ______________________________________
Tampa, Fla_____________________________________________
Toledo, Ohio____________________________________________
Washington, D . C -----------------------------------------------------------Wichita, Kans-------------------- ------- -------------------------------------Worcester, M ass.------ ---------------------- - .........- ........................
York, Pa
__ __________________ ___________ ■__
Youngstown, Ohio _
__ ____________________________

1.46
1.63

1.46
1.63

1.43
1.77
1.83
1.32
1.47
1.15
1.59

1.43
1.77
1.83
1.32
1.47
1.15
1.59

1.39
1.57
1.50
1.43
1.71
1.56
1.24
1.45
1.06
1.63

2. 56
1.97-2.17
1.36
1.39
1.40

1.65
1.36
1.29
1.61
1.50
1.45
1.34
1.50
1.67

1.78
1.42
1.39
1.89
1.63
1.53
1.45
1.64
1.83

1.35
1.74
2.00
1.83
(2)

1.50
1.40
2.25
1.48
1.73
1.57
1.63
1.79

$1.78
1.64

1.56
1.84-1.97
1.29
1.36
1.25
1.45
1.35
1.48

1.82
1.70

1.61
1.29

1.82
1.55
(2)

Pressmen-incharge

1.45

$1.63
1.48
1.40
1.48-1.50
1.73
1.56
1.50

$1.79
1.86

Journeyman
pressmen

1.53
2.04-2.12
1.59-1. 70
1.59

$1.63
1.67
1.40
1.55
1.73
1.65
1.52
1 45
1 38

1.57
1.65

Photo­
engravers

$1.63
1.52
1.40
1.44
1.89-2.04
1.46-1.56
1.47

$1.63
1.67
1.40
1.55
1.73
1.65
1.52
1.45
1.38

1.82
1.55
(2)

Stereotypers

1.42
1.62

1.61
1.27
(2)

1.26
1.65
1.35
1.30
1.79
1.25

1.73
(2)

1.34
1.84
1.48
1.41
1.98
1.38

1.50
1.50
1.45
1.43
1.42
1.60
1.20-1.38
1.60
1.68
1.46

1.63
1.62
1.58
1.57

1.54
1.92
1.50
2.00
1.73
1.60
1.75
1.94
1.83
1.98

1.34
1.55
1.54
1.78
1. 52
1.46
1.30
1.76
1.55
1.73

1.59
1.68
1.70
1.89
1.64
1.59
1.46
1.94
1.60
1.87

1.58
1.45
1.76
2.00
1.58
1.50

1.52
1.38
1.43-1.44
1.54
1.58
1.06
1.32

1.65
1.50
1.57
1.69
1.71
1.13
1.45

1.39

1.51

2.04
1.57
1.58
1.86

1.66
1.70
1.76
1.59

1 U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Wage Analysis Branch: Union Wage Scales, Newspaper Printing Trades, 1946 (mimeographed report). These scales
are the minimum rates paid under collective bargaining agreements and are, in most cases, uniform for each occupation in a given locality; where they are not
u niform , the lowest and highest rates are shown. Where no rate is given, there was no union wage scale for the occupation in the particular city.
2 Rock Island district includes Rock Island and Moline, 111., and Davenport, Iowa.




31

III. Union W a g e Scales in M a jo r Book and Job Printing Trades in Selected
Cities, July I, 1 9 4 6 1
City and State

Hand com­
positors

Composingmachine
operators

Atlanta, Ga________________ ________
___
Baltimore, Md_____ ________ ______________
Binghamton, N . Y ________ ______________
Birmingham, Ala____ ______ ______________
Boston, Mass________ ____ ________________
Buffalo, N . Y_______ ____________ _____ ___
Butte, Mont_______________________________
Charleston, S. C___________________________
Charleston, W . V a.______ ___________ _____

$1.53
1.50
1.37- 1.38
1.55
1.43
1.48
1.44
1.44
1.50

$1.53
1.50
1.38
1.55
1.43- 1.47
1.55
1. 44
1.44
1. 50

1.30
1.82
1.59
1.62
1.60
1.40
(2)
1.80
1.44

1.30
1.82
1.59
1.66
1.60
1.50
(2)
1.80
1.44

2.10
1.63
1.75
1.60
1.38
(2)
1.70
1.45

Des Moines, Iowa_________________________
Detroit, M ich .._______ ____________________
Duluth, Minn________ ____________________
El Paso, Tex_______________________________
Erie, Pa_________ _______ _________________
Grand Rapids, Mich__________ ____ ______
Houston, T e x ... _____ _____ _____________
Indianapolis, Ind_________ ________________
Jackson, Miss_____________________________

1.41
1.83- 1.85
1.20
1. 52
1.34
1.35
1.50
1.46
1.25

1.41
1.83- 1.85

1.57
1.80

Jacksonville, Fla___ _______________________
Kansas City, M o ................ ................. ............
Little Rock, Ark___________________________
Los Angeles, Calif____ ____________________
Louisville, K y _ ._______ ___________________
Madison, W is_____________________________
Manchester, N . H _________________________
Memphis, Tenn______ ____________________
Milwaukee, W is .______ ___________________

1. 50
1. 50
1. 25
1.60
1.38
1.30
1.05
1.35
1.50

Minneapolis, Minn_______ ________ _______

1.50

1.50

Mobile, A la ........................................................
1.31
Moline, 111._____________ __________________
(2)
Nashville, Tenn___________________________ 1.25- 1.38
Newark, N . J .._ ____ ______________________
1.77
New Haven, Conn_________________________
1.18
New Orleans, La__________________________
1.35
New York, N . Y ___________________________
1.83
Norfolk, Va________________________________
1.40

1.31
(2)

Charlotte, N . C .______ _____ ____ _________
Chicago, 111____ ___________________________
Cincinnati, Ohio..____ ____________________
Cleveland, Ohio___ _______________________
Columbus, Ohio___________ _______________
Dallas, Tex____ ______ ____________________
Davenport, Iowa__________________________
Dayton, Ohio____________ _________________
Denver, Colo._______ _____________________

1. 52
1.34
1.35
1.50
1.46
1.25

Electro­
typers

1.78
1.18
1.35
1.83
1.40

Platen
pressmen

Press assist­
ants and
feeders

$1.45 $0.80-$l. 04
1.24
.8 9 - 1.21
1.00- 1.25
.6089
.85
1.06
1.25- 1.32
.79- 1.30
1.33 1.00- 1.28
1.25
.57- .83

1. 50

1.50

.88

.90
1.56- 1.88
1.30
1.47
1.60
1.35

.45
.91
.75
. 71- 78
.87
.70

1.45- 1.50
1.33

.78-

1.33- 1.47
1.70- 1.78
1.05
1.36
1.30
1.10
1.35
1.44

1.25
1.47
.78
1.36
1.20
.90
1.10- 1.18
1.31- 1.44

.92- 1.16
1.10- 1. 42
.45

1.32
1.10- 1.65

.90
1.05- 1.11
. 74- 1.32

1.00
1.35
1.44

. 60
170
.80

1.30
1. 50
1.19
1.52
1.18- 1. 79

1.30
1.38- 1.45
1.19
1.42
1.03- 1.18

.65.93. 601.10. 72-

. 90
1.30
. 83
l! 33
1.29

1.25
L38
1.09
l! 52
1.15- 1.16

.70
*78
. 60
!90
.66- .70

1.10
1.10
1. 45- 1. 55

.90
1.10
1.33

.60- .83
. 83- 1.24

1.10
1.35

.60
.70

1.05- 1.61

1.15- 1.38

. 67- 1.18

1.11- 1.38

.60-

1.30
(2)
1.11- 1.25
1.30- 1.75
1.23- 1. 45
1.35
1.83- 2.14

1.30

.65

.88- . 94
1.46- 1.64

1.15- 1.18
1.28- 1.60
1.25
1.35
. 69- 1.91

. 60- . 63
.*80
. 65
.75
.75- .92

1.30
1.30
1.50- 1.84
1.39
1.60- 2.03
.99
1.56
1.10- 1.45
1.19

1.00- 1.08
1.30
1.18
1.46
1.24
1.51
.89
1. 50
1.10- 1.20
1.14- 1.25

1.30

.75

1.38
1.69

1.18
1.61

2.07
1. 57
1.74
1.35
1.44
1.74

1.65

1.50

(2)
1.15
2.10
1.46
1.72
2.10

(2)
1. 50
2.14
1.38
1.50
2.23
1.50

1.41
1.51
1.58
1.95

1.63
1. 50
1.50
1.92

1.50

1.94

1.72
1.40

1.70
1.60

1.41

1.63
1.92
1.63
1.68
1.50

1. 50
1.47
1.35
1.60
1.39
1.60
1.01
1.56
1.25
1.30

1. 50
1.47
1.35
1.60
1.39
1.60
1.01
1.56
1.25
1.35

Richmond, Va_____ ____ __________________
Rochester, N . Y ___________________________
Rock Island (HI.) district*___ _____________
St. Louis, M o______________________________
St. Paul, Minn____________________________
Salt Lake City, Utah______________________
San Antonio, Tex__________________________
San Francisco, Calif_______________________
Scranton, Pa----------------------------------------------Seattle, Wash_______ _____ ________________

1.30
1.38- 1.45
1.32
1.49
1.50
1.50
1.15
1.66
1.43
1.86

1.30
1.38- 1.45

South Bend, Ind_________ ________________
1.36
Spokane, W a sh ..._____ ___________________
1.50
Springfield, Mass__________________________
1.30
1.32
Tampa, Fla_________ _____ ________________
Toledo, Ohio______________ _______________ 1.50- 1.51
Washington, D . C________ _______ _______ _
1.53
Wichita, Kans__________ __________________
1.33
Worcester, M ass..-------------------------------------1.10
York, Pa____________________ ____________
1.20
Youngstown, Ohio_________________________
1.45

1.36

1.50

1.63

1.30
1.32
1.50- 1. 51
1.53
1.33
1.10
1.20
1.45

1.42

1.58- 1.62

1.43
1.90
1.40
1.29

$0.75
.53- .65
.70- . 75
.65
.75
.70
.80

1.64
1.93
1.50

1.50

1.58
1.43
2.00

$1.44
1.32
.97- 1.40
1.25
1.39
1.30
1.38

1.05
1.79
1.16- 1.26

1.75
1.69

1.44
1.50
1.65
1.38

Bindery
women

1.25
1. 71- 2. 23
1.19- 1. 73
1.33- 1. 71
1.60
1.16- 1.38
(2)
1.46- 1.93
1.44

1.60
1.50
1.60

i. 93

Book­
binders

1. 50
2.07
1.80
1.84- 2.18
1.50- 1. 76
1.75
(2)
1.80
1.58

Oklahoma City, Okla______________________
Omaha, Nebr_____________________________
Peoria, 111____ ____ ________________________
Philadelphia, Pa___________________________
Phoenix, Ariz......................................................
Pittsburgh, Pa____________________________
Portland, Maine___________________________
Portland, Oreg-------------------------------------------Providence, R. I._ _____ ___________________
Reading, Pa______________ ________________

1.52
1.50
1.50
1.15
1.66
1.43

Cylinder
pressmen

$1.54 $1.79-$l. 80 $1.20-$l. 45
1.30 1.77- 1.97 1.35- 1.73
1.00- 1.25
1.56
1.75 1.20- 1.63
1.87 1-39- 1. 51
1.40
1.67 1.46- 1.61
1.50
1.38

1. 50
1.25
1.60
1.38
1.30
1.05
1.35
1.50

Photo­
engravers

1.60
1.19
1.30- 1. 53
1.33

1.05
1.60- 1.76

1.04- 1.69
1.28- 1. 54
1.33
1.28- 1.63
1. 21- 1. 68
1.50
1.00
1.66- 1.81
1.37- 1.47
1.86

1.10
1.20- 1.38

1.36- 1.50
1. 50
1.21

1.20- 1.26
1.50

1.68
1.89
1.58
1.63

1.45
1.43- 1.97
1.27

1.68

1.27- 1.32
1.28

1.75
1.93
1.71
2.13

1.12- 1.76
.84- 1.31
1.03- 1.35
1.32
. 90- 1.00
(2)
. 90- 1.28
. 68- 1.18

(2)
.63- 1 00
. 98- 1.48
.9 0 - 1.15
.63- 1.03
1.13- 1.60
. 75- . 85
1.10
1.13
1.37
1.13
1.42
.80
1.06- 1.25
. 90- 1.00
1.04- 1.25

. 901.10. 98. 94-

.83-

.70-

.90
.80
.73
.95

.74

.75

1.31

.72

1.56

.94

1.23- 1.40
1.33- 1.38

.58- .73
.70- .80

1.41
1.11- 1.38

.79
.60- .74

1.38
1.15
1.27
1.39
1.20
1.25
60
1.30
1.14
1.47

1.25
1.66
1.31- 1.36
1.86

1.07
1.12- 1 15
]87

1.45
1. 50
. L30

1 20
1.32- 1.37
1.21- 1.35
1.06

1.17
. 88- 1.38
.82- 1.00

1.35
1.25
1.24

.75
.70
.72

1.15
1.24

1.00
164

1.15
L28

. 75
!65

1. 23- 1.33
1.04- 1.50
1.50
. 75
l! 59
1.10
1.71

. 64. 921.09. 79. 67-

1.30- 1.35

.87-

.4 0 1* Q4.871.23-

•OO
.95
.75
1.05

.72-

.75
. 80
!83

1 U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Wage Analysis Branch: Union Wage Scales, Book and Job Printing Trades 1946 (mimeographed report). These scales
are the minimum rates paid under collective bargaining agreements and are, in most cases, uniform for each occupation in a given locality. Where no rate is
given, there was no union wage scale for the occupation in the particular city. In this table, book and job printing includes all branches of printing except
newspaper.
2 Rock Island district includes Rock Island and Moline, 111., and Davenport, Iowa.

32



I V . Addresses of Labor Organizations and Trade Associations

Amalgamated Lithographers o f America (C IO ),
450 Seventh Avenue, New York, N. Y.
American Newspaper Publishers Association, 370
Lexington Avenue, New York City 17, N. Y.
American Photo-Engravers Association, 166 West
Van Buren Street, Chicago 4, 111.
Book Manufacturers Institute, 25 West Fortythird Street, New York City, N. Y.

International Printing Pressmen’s and Assistants’
Union o f North America (A F L ), Pressmen’s
Home, Tenn.
International Stereotypers’ and Electrotypers’
Union (A F L ), 475 Fifth Avenue, New York,
N. Y.
International Typographical Union (A F L ), PO
Box 728, Indianapolis 6, Ind.

Employing Bookbinders of America, 28 West
Forty-fourth Street, New York City, N. Y.

Joint Lithographic Advisory Council, 70 Pine
Street, New York, N. Y. Benjamin M. Robin­
son, Sec.

Employing Printers Association o f America, 53
West Jackson Boulevard, Chicago 4, 111.

Library Binding Institute, 501 Fifth Avenue, New
York City, N. Y.

International Allied Printing Trades Association
(A F L ), 307 A F L Building, Washington 1, D. C.

Lithographers National Association, Inc., 420 Lex­
ington Avenue, New York City 17, N. Y.

International Association o f Electrotypers and
Stereotypers, Inc., 350 East Twenty-second
Street, Chicago, 111.

Lithographic Technical Foundation, Inc., 131
East Thirty-ninth Street, New York City 17,
N. Y.

International Brotherhood o f
Bookbinders
(A F L ), 901 Massachusetts Avenue, Washing­
ton 1, D. C.

National Association of Photo-Lithographers, 1776
Broadway, New York City 19, N. Y.

International Photo-Engravers’ Union o f North
America (A F L ), 292 Madison Avenue, New
York City 17, N. Y.




National Publishers Association, 232 Madison
Avenue, New York City 16, N. Y.
Printing Industry of America, Inc., 719 Fifteenth
Street, NW, Washington 5, D. C.

33

V . Suggested Readings
American Photo-Engraver, International Photo-Engravers’ Union of North
America, St. Louis, Missouri. Published monthly.
American Pressman, International Printing Pressmen and Assistants’
Union of North America, Pressmen’s Home, Tennessee. Published
monthly.
The Printing Trades and Their Workers, by Florence E. Clark, International
Textbook Company, Scranton, Pennsylvania, 1939.
Dictionary of Printing Terms, Porte Publishing Co., Salt Lake City, Utah,
1941.
Dictionary of Occupational Titles, U. S. Department of Labor, and the U.S.
Employment Service, Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C.,
1939.
Earnings and Hours in Book and Job Printing, January 1942, U. S. Depart­
ment of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Division of Wage Analysis,
Government Printing Office, 1943.
Graphic Arts Education, by Fred J. Hartman, “A Compendium of Mechan­
ical Workers in Printing and Allied Trades,” Summer Issue, 1944.
International Bookbinder, International Brotherhood of Bookbinders, A F L
Building, Washington, D. C. Published bimonthly.
Is There a Job for Me in Lithography ? Joint Lithographic Advisory Coun­
cil, January 1945.
Job Possibilities in the Printing, Publishing and Allied Graphic Arts Indus­
tries with particular emphasis on the Book Manufacturing Industry, Book
Manufacturer’s Institute, Inc., New York City, 1945.
Lithographers’ Journal, Amalgamated Lithographers o f America, 450
Seventh Avenue, New York City, N. Y.
The Printing Trades, by Jacob Loft, Farrar and Rinehart, Inc., 1944.
Marketing Opportunities, Lithographers National Association, Inc., New
York City, vol. 4, number 5.
Modern Lithography, The Photo-Lithographer, Inc., New York City.
lished monthly.

Pub­

Occupational Data for Counselors, U.S. Department of Labor, in cooperation
with Federal Security Agency, U.S. Office of Education, Government
Printing Office, Washington, D. C., 1945.
Handbook of Labor Unions, by Florence Peterson, American Council on Pub­
lic Affairs, Washington, D. C., 1944, pp. 53,191, 278, 298, 357, and 393.
Printing, Walden, Sons and Mott, Inc., 41 Park Row, New York City.
lished monthly.

Pub­

The Lithographer’s Manual, by Walter E. Soderstrom, Waltewin Publishing
Company, New York City, 1940.
Union Wages and Hours in the Printing Trades, U. S. Department of Labor,
Bureau of Labor Statistics. Published annually.

34


V I. Occupational O u tlo o k Publications of the
Bureau of Labor Statistics
Studies of employment trends and opportunities in the various occupations
and professions are made by the Occupational Outlook Service o f the Bureau
o f Labor Statistics.
Reports are prepared for use in the vocational guidance of veterans, young
people in schools, and others considering the choice of an occupation. Schools
concerned with vocational training and employers and trade-unions interested
in on-the-job training have also found the reports helpful in planning pro­
grams in line with prospective employment opportunities.
Occupational outlook reports are issued as bulletins of the Bureau o f Labor
Statistics; sometimes they are also published in the Monthly Labor Review
(subscription per year, $3.50; single copy 30 cents). Both the Monthly Labor
Review and the bulletins may be purchased from the Superintendent of Docu­
ments, Washington 25, D. C.
Two types of reports are issued:
Occupational outlook bulletins describe the long-run outlook for employ­
ment in each occupation and give information on earnings, working condi­
tions, and the training required.
Special bulletins are issued from time to time on such subjects as the general
employment outlook, trends in the various States, and occupational mobility.

Occupational Outlook Bulletins
Employment Opportunities for Diesel-Engine Mechanics

Bulletin No. 813 (1945), price 5 cents.
ruary 1945).

(Monthly Labor Review, Feb­

Employment Opportunities in Aviation Occupations, Part I— Postwar Employment
Outlook

Bulletin No. 837-1 (1945), price 10 cents.
April and June 1945).

(Monthly Labor Review,

Employment Opportunities in Aviation Occupations, Part II— Duties, Qualifications,
Earnings, and Working Conditions

Bulletin 837-2 (1947), price 20 cents. Sections on hours of work and
earnings in Monthly Labor Review, August 1946.
Employment Outlook for Automobile Mechanics

Bulletin No. 842 (1945), price 10 cents.
ruary 1946).

(Monthly Labor Review, Feb­

Employment Opportunities for Welders

Bulletin No. 844 (1945), price 10 cents.
tember 1945).

(Monthly Labor Review, Sep­

Postwar Outlook for Physicians

Bulletin No. 863 (1946), price 10 cents.
cember 1945).



(Monthly Labor Review, De­

35

Employment Outlook in Foundry Occupations

Bulletin No. 880 (1946), price 15 cents.
cember 1945, and April 1946).

(Monthly Labor Review, De­

Postwar Employment Prospects for Women in the Hosiery Industry

Bulletin No. 835 (1945), price 5 cents.
1945) .

(Monthly Labor Review, May

Employment Outlook for Business Machine Servicemen

Bulletin No. 892 (1947), price 15 cents.
Employment Outlook in Machine Shop Occupations

Bulletin No. 895 (1947), price 20 cents.
Employment Outlook in Hotel Occupations

Bulletin No. 905 (1947). In press.

Special Bulletins
Occupational Data for Counselors, A Handbook of Census Information Selected for
Use in Guidance

Bulletin No. 817 (1945), price 10 cents. (Prepared jointly with the Oc­
cupational Information and Guidance Service, U. S. Office of Education).
Factors Affecting Earnings in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering

Bulletin No. 881 (1946), price 10 cents.
1946) .

(Monthly Labor Review, June

State and Regional Variations in Prospective Labor Supply


36


Bulletin No. 893 (1947), price 15 cents.

Supplement to Bulletin 902, Employment Outlook in Printing Occupations
II. (R ev.) Union W a g e Scales in M a jo r Newspaper Printing Tracies in
Selected Cities, July 1, 19491
City and State

Hand com­
positors

Composingmachine
operators

Stereotypers

Photoengravers

Journeyman
pressmen

Atlanta, Ga-------------- ------------ ----------- ----------------------------Baltimore, M d .____ _____ __________________ ______ _____
Birmingham, Ala_______ ____________________ ____ _______
Boston, Mass_____ __________ ______________________ ____
Buffalo, N . Y ______________________________________ _____
Butte, Mont
_
_ ___ ________ ____ _________
Charleston, W . Va
___ _______ _______________

$2.40
2.40
2.33
2.52
2.40
2.31
2 2.00

$2.40
2.40
2.33
2.52
2.40
2.31
2 2.00

$2.40
2.14
2.11
2.58
2.31
2.29
2.05

Charlotte, N. C .
_____ _______________________
Chicago, ill______________________________ ____ __________
Cincinnati, Ohio________________________ _____ ______1-----Cleveland, Ohio_______ __________________________________
Columbus, Ohio_______________________________ _______
__ ________________
Dallas, Tex
Davenport, Iowa________________________ _____ ___________

2.05
2.63-2.75
2.53
2.53
2.48
2.46
(3)

2.05
2.63-2.75
2.53
2.53
2.48
2.46
(3)

2.05
2.48
2.43
2.44
2.41
2.38

Dayton, Ohio___ _____ _________________ ___________ ____
Denver, Colo_____________________ ______ ____________
Des Moines, Iowa____________________ ________________
Detroit, Mich__________________________________________ Duluth, Minn_________________________ ________________
El Paso, Tex
__
_ _ ____________
Erie, Pa
__
........ .......... _

2.33
2.42
2.33
1.50-2.69
2.09
2.27
2.19

2.33
2.42
2.33
1.50-2.69
2.09
2.27
2.19

2.31
2. 27
2.31
2.60
1.83
2.10
2.05

2.40
2.45
2.33
2.50-2.84
2.32

2.19
2.27
2.30
2.52-2.59
1.93
2.10
2.05

Houston, T e x .._____ _____________ _________ ______ _____
Indianapolis, Ind_______________________ ________________
Jacksonville, Fla__________________ ____ __________ ______
Kansas City, M o____ _____________________________ ______
___________
Little Rock, Ark
__
Los Angeles, Calif__________ ______ ______________________

2.30
2.51
2.45
2.39
2.33
2.10
2.48

2.30
2.51
2.45
2.39
2.33
2.10
2.48

2.30
2.25
2.30
2.39
2 2.00-2.30
2.02
2.35

2.00
2.53
2.65
2.39
2.61

2.13
2.18
2.28
2.39
2 2.33
2.02
2.40

2.37
2.03
2.35
2.40
2.60
2.23

2.37
2.03
2.35
2.40
2.60
2.23

2.35
2.03
1.94
2.32
2.50
2.10

Louisville, K y _____ ____ _ __________ _________________
____
Mane.hester, N . H
. .
.
Memphis, Tenn. ________ ________________ _____ ________
Milwaukee, W is_______________________ ____ ______ _____
Minneapolis, Minn_____________________ _____ __________
___________
Mobile, Ala
.
Moline, 111____ ______ _________________________ _________

(3)

(3)

(3)

$2.56
2.49
2.32
2.70
2.67

2.92
2.61
2. 76-2.81
2.84
(3)

(3)

2.64

2.18
2. 59
2.59
2.66-2.78
2.53
2. 54
(3)
2.31
2.40
2.46
2. 72-2.79
2.07
2.16

2.24
2.46
2.52
2 2.47
2.60
2.61

2.35
1.87
2.53
2.32-2.42
2.50
2.10
(3)
2.37
2.00
2.03
2.58-2.76
2.08
2.33-2.40
2.11

2.47
2.13
2.18
2.78-3.01

2.18
2 2.00-2.27
2.27
2.16
1.92
2.42
2.36

2.31
2 2.20-2.43

2.71
2.51
2.13

2.05
2.06
2.32
2.14
2.40
2.22
2.12

2.19
2.31
2.45
2.30
2.59
2.24
2.26

2. 25
2.67
4 2.82

2.002.49
2.19

2. 25
2.74
2.57

2.70

2.53
2.25
1.95

2.67
2.38
2.08

(3)

2.56
2.13
2.08
1.81-2.73
2.27
2.33
2.12

2.56
2.13
2.08
1.81-2.73
2.27
2.33
2.13

2.40
2.00
2.08
2.43
2.20
2.33
2.13

2.48

Peoria, 111________________________________________________
Philadelphia, Pa________ ______ ______ _______ __________
Phoonix, Ariz
Pittsburgh, Pa----------------------- -------- --------------------------------Portland, Maine
.
__
___________
Portland, Oreg_____________ ______ ______________________
Providence, R. I______ ____ _________________ ___________

2.18
2.29
2.27
2.53
1.95
2.57
2.42

2.18
2.29
2.27
2.53

2.38
2.59

2.57
2.42

2 2.22
2.20
2. 27
2.37
1.92
2.49
2.36

Reading, Pa------------------------------------- -------------------------------Richmond, V a ____________________ ______ ________ _____
Rochester, N . Y __________________________ ____ __________
Rock Island (111.) District3
..
__
____________
St. Louis, M o ___________________________________________
St. Paul, Minn_____________________________ ____ _______
Salt Lake City, Utah___________________ ______ _________

2.06
2.11
2.32
2.14
2.67
2.55
2.30

2.06
2.11
2.32
2.14
2.67
2.55
2.30

2.05
2.06
2.32
2.14
2.40
2.33
2.16

San Antonio, Tex____ _____ _________________ _____ _____
San Francisco, Calif____________ ______ __________ _______
Scranton, P a .._________ ____________ _______ _______ ____
South Bend, Ind
_
.
___ _____
Seattle, Wash...................................................... ......... ............
Spokane, Wash
_
____ __ ____
Springfield, Mass
_
__ _____

2.23
2.60
2.31
2.29
2.71
2.49
1.95

2.23
2.60
2.31
2.29
2.71
2.49
1.95

2.00
2.48
2.23
2.11
2.71
2.43

Toledo, Ohio-------------------------------------------------------------------Washington, D. C -------------------- ------------------------------ -------Wichita, Kans________________________ _______ __________
W nrpaster, Mass
York, Pa
. ___________________________
Youngstown, O h io .............. ............ .......................... ......... .

2.48
2.60
2.13
2.29
1.96
2.29

2.48
2.60
2.13
2.29
1.96
2.29

2.41
2.26
2.05
2.16
1.96
2.24

http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/
806587—50
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

2.05
2.41
2.46
2.42-2. 78
2.40
2.33
(3)

$2.60
2.33
2.27
2.51-2.64
2.02-2. 51

2.59
1.92
2.39
2.63
2.60

Newark, N . J__________________ _____ _________ _________
New Haven, Conn
. __________________________________
New Orleans, La_______________ ____ ____________________
New York, N. Y ____________ ____ _______________________
Norfolk, Va
Oklahoma City, Okla___________________________ ____ ____
Omaha, Nebr__________ ____ ____________________________

i
U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Division of Wage Statistics: Union
Wage Seales,Newspaper Printing Trades, July 1,1949 (available upon request).
These scales are the minimum wage rates agreed upon through collective
bargaining between employers and trade unions and are, in most cases,
uniform for each occupation in a given locality. Where no rate is given, there
was no effective union wage scale for the occupation in the particular city.
Day rates
shown except where noted.
Digitized
for are
FRASER

$2.40
2.14
2.11
2.33-2.45
1.88-2.31
2.27
1.95

Pressmen-incharge

2.13
2.92
2.15
2.59
2.28

2.71
2.03
2.62
2.68
----2.71

2.08
2.72
2.67
2.38-2.40
2.13

2.38-2.47
2.351.97
2.05
1.78-1.96
2.13

2 .5i
2.52
2.69
(3)

2. 57
2.26

2.23
2.62
2.49

2.45-2.75
2.55
2.04
2.26

2 Hate for preceding contract period. Negotiations under way at time of
survey.
3 Rock Island district includes Rock Island and Moline, 111., and Daven­
port, Iowa.
4 Night work.

III. (R ev.) Union W a g e Scale in M a jo r Book and Job Printing Trades in
Selected Cities, July I, 19491
City and State

Atlanta, Ga_______________________________
Baltimore, M d____________________ -----____
Birmingham, Ala--------------------------------------Boston, Mass--------------- ---------- ------------------Buffalo, N. Y ----------------------------------------------

Hand
compositors

$2.25
2. CO
2.28
2.13
2.24

Composingmachine
operators

Photoen­
gravers

Cylinder
pressmen

$2.37
2.00
2.25
2.20
2.10

$2.56
2.40-2.67
2.35
2.40
2.40

$2.20-2.36
1 86-2.09
2.08
2.07-2.24
2.16-2.40
2.21
2.15

$2.20
1.70
2.08
1.86-1.95
2. CO
2.07
2.03

2.88
2.19
2.55
2.25
2.35
(3)

2.27
2.92-2.98
2.40
2.56-2.86
2.25-2.40
2.13
(3)

2.00
2.48-2.59
1.66-2.06
2.31
22.24
1.68
(3)

1.75
2.29-2.79
1.66-1.77

2.40
2.19
2.33
2. 50-2.67
2.00

2.25-2.40
2.14
1.96-2.01
2.48
1.58
1.84
2.00

Electro­
typers

$2.25
2.00
2.28
2.13
2.30

2.15

2.15

Columbus, Ohio----------- ---------- - ....................
Dallas, Tex________________________________
Davenport, Iowa____________ _____________

2.05
2.54
2.34
2.35
2.35
2.35
(3)

2.05
2.54-3.11
2.34
2.40
2.35
2.35
(3)

Dayton, Ohio............. .........................................
Denver, Colo_____________ ____________ . .
Des Moines, Iowa .................... .........................
Detroit, Mich---------- ------------- --------------------Duluth, Minn _____ _____ _______________
El Paso, T e x ._____________________________
Erie, P a __ __________________________ ____

2.37-2.40
2.41
2.05
2.53-2.64
1.75
2.27
2.00

2.37-2.40
2.41
2.05
2. 53-2.64
1.75
2.27
2.00

2.39
2.32
2.25
2.66

Grand Rapids, Mich_______________________
Houston, Tex.-------------------------------------------Indianapolis, Ind---------------------------------------Jacksonville, Fla___________________________
Kansas City, M o ..-------- ----------------------------Little Rock, A r k __________________________
Los Angeles, Calif------------------------- ---------- -

2.05-2.30
2.51
2.21
1.88
2.30
1.90
2.47

2.05-2.30
2.51
2.21
1.88
2.30
1.90
2.47

2.25
2.35
2.25

Louisville, K y _____________________________
Manchester, N . H _________________________
Memphis, Tenn_______ _____ _____ _______
Milwaukee, W is-------------------- ---------- ---------Minneapolis, Minn------------------------------------Mobile, Ala____ _____ ________________ ____
Moline, 111--------- ------- ---------------------- ----------

2.06
1.65
2.00
2.28
2.35
2.05
(3>

2.06
1.65
2.00
2.28
2.35-2.48
2.05
(3)

Newark, N . J------ ------- ---------- -------------------New Haven, Conn— -------------------------------New Orleans, La________________________ _
New York, N. Y ...............................................
Norfolk, Va........... ............................... .............
Oklahoma City, Okla............... .......... ............
Omaha, N ebr... ------------- ----------------- -------

2.48
1.88
2.00
2.48

2.48
1.88
2.00
2.48

2.88
2.25
2.20
2.88

1.90
2.13

1.90
2.13

1.88

2.97
2.13
2.00
3.00-3.06
2.13
2.38
2.66

Peoria, 111__________________ ________ _____
Philadelphia, Pa________________ _______ _
Phoenix, Ariz................ .......... ..................... .
Pittsburgh, Pa-------------------------------------------Portland, Maine—. ........... ...............................
Portland, Oreg------------------ ---------- --------------Providence, R. I ___________ _________ ______

2.08
2.20
2.27
2.40
1.23
2.40
1.98

2.08
2.20
2.27
2.40
1.23
2.40
1.98

2 2.25
2.70

2.13
2.59

1.85

2.52

2." 53~
2.20

2.60
2.40

Reading, P a .................................. ....................
Richmond, Va_______________ _______ ______
Rochester, N. Y ____ __________ __________ .
Rock Island (111.) district3.-. -------------------St. Louis, M o-------------------------------- ---------- St. Paul, M in n ... ------------------------------------Salt Lake City, Utah----------------------------------

1.96
1.75
2.15-2.21
1.85
2.24
2.35-2.37
1.88

1.96
1.75
2.15-2.21
1.85
2.24
2.35-2.37
1.88

San Antonio, Tex. ________________________
San Francisco, Calif.--------- -----------------------Scranton, Pa_______________________________
Seattle, Wash______________________________
South Bend, In d ...____ ____________________
Spokane, Wash............. ............ .......... ..............
Springfield, Mass_______ ____ ___ ____ _____

2.13
2.58
2.20
2.71
2.10
2.25

2.13
2.58
2.20

Toledo, Ohio--------- ------------------------------------Washington, D. C . . . ---------------------------------Wichita, Kans_____ _______________________
Worcester, Mass___________________________
York, Pa_______ _____________________ ____
Youngstown, Ohio______________ ______ ___

2.06-2.07
2.36
2.13
1.73
1.85
2.07

2.06-2.07
2.36
2.13
1.73
1.85
2.07

Chicago, 111_______________ ____ ___________
Cincinnati, Ohio--------------- --------------- ----------

2.64

2.67

2.00
2.30
2.56

2.11-2.15
2.40
2.35
2.54
22.40

(3)

2.10

' l i . S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Division of Wage Statistics: Union
Wage Scales, Book and Job Printing Trades July 1,1949 (available upon re­
quest). These scales are the minimum wage rates agreed upon through
collective bargaining between employers and trade unions and are, in most
cases, uniform for each occupation in a given locality. Where no rate is given,




2.30

2.38
2.40
2.08
2.28

(3)

2.03
1.96
2.21
2. 56

2.47
2.18
2.40
2.40-2.67

2.53
2.12
2. 71
2.24

2.25
2.67
2.07
2.79
2.16

2.30

2.08

2.19
2. 50

2.23
2.51
2.40
2.13

2.20
1.94

2.13

Platen
pressmen

Press
assistants
and feeders
$1.49
1.30-1.67
1.04-1.44
1.17-1.93
1.56-2.C2
.92-1.32

Book­
binders

Bindery
women

$2.19
1.77
2.08
2.07
1.95
2.21
2.15

$1.13
. 65- . 93
1.10
1.11
1.00
1.30
1.21

1.82-2.54
1.66-1.73
1.57-1.95
2 1.85
1.65-1.68
(3)

1.55-1.60
2.23-2.56
2.03
2.20
2.30
1.75
(3)

.93
1.35-1.39
1.15
1.05-1.12
1.25
.90
(3)

2.02-2.25
1.97
1.84
2.20
1.24-1.44
1.84
1.90

1.43-1.89
.95-1.65
1.30-1.70
1.60-2.11
.90-1.13

1.79-2.28
1.98
1.95
1.60-2.11

1.05-1.31
1.15
1.08
1.09-1.23

2.00
2.16-2.30
2.18-2.27
1. 50
2.30-2.37
1.84
2.30

1.75
1.88-2.05
2.04-2.18
1.50
2.14-2.24
1.62
2.19

1.30-1.60
1.83-1.90
1.18-2.05
1.30
1.45-1.83
. 90-1.10
1.61-1.96

2.16
2.18

1.22
1.21

2.20
1.78
2.42

1.24
.92
1.45

1. 83-1.95
1.65
1.95-2.05
2.10
1.52-2. 51
1.85
(3)

1.60-1.68
1.43-1.51
1.68
2.08-2.12
1.72-2.29
1.85
(3)

1.25-1.85

1.68-1.80

1.00-1.03

.90-1.35
1.33-1.93
1.39-1.96

1.75
2.08
2.00

.88
1.03
1.00

(3)

(3)

1.99-2.61
1.83-2.35
2.00-2.08
2.48-2.63

2.21-2.48
1.70-2.03
1.40-1.78
2.16-2.32

1.46-2.18
1.45-1.81
.98-1.53
.99-2.12

2.08-2.28
1.90
1.80
. 97-2.50

1.19
.90-1.03
.95
1.00-1.20

1.90
1.80

1.74
1.55

1.19-1.35
1.55

1.90-2.00

1.04-1.14

2.03
2.19-2.62
2.27
2.40-2.57
1.21-1.33
2.40
1.93

1.91
2.03
2.12
2.31
1.10
2.33
1.93

1.63-1.88
1.55-2.12
1.70
1.41-2.08
.88
1.63-1.92
1.46-1. 54

1.85-1.90

.95

2.06-2.19

1.12-1.25

2.40

1.33

1.92
1.83-1.98
1.97-2.39
1.76-1.80
1.95-2.14
2.35-2.55
1.88

1.81-1.86
1.45
1.77-2.19
1.50-1.59
1.83-2.08
1.72-2.35
1.70

1.55-1.86
. 76-1.59
1.39-1.81
1.09-1.62
1.16-2.01
1.34-1.95

1.13-1.63
2.07-2.27

. 81- . 88
1.09-1.20

2.02-2.04
2.22

1.11
1.08-1.29

1.75
2.58
2.11-2.22
2.57
1.92-1! 97
2.25
1.95

1.60
2.48
1.80
2.37
1.92
2.25

1.00-1.25
l ’ 60-2.03
1.42-1.80
1 70-2.04
L72
1.68-1.73
1.39

1.75
2.58
1.84-1.91
2. 57
L 97
2.25
1.95

. 88
L45
1.08
1.43
L10
1 25
i uu
no
1.

2.06
2.28-2.74
1.82-2.07
1.75
1.92-1.97
2.00

1.94-1.99
2.06-2.19

1.79
1.55-2.06
1.37-1.74

1.91
2.13
2.03

1.20
1.00
1.12

1.65-1.70
.90-1.41

1 80-2.00
1.77

1 03
.85

2 2.24
1.86
(3)

1.38
1.92
2.00

(3)

there was no effective union wage scale for the occupation in the particular
city. Day rates are shown except where noted.
2 Rate for preceding contract period. Negotiations under way at time of
survey.
3 Rock Island district includes Rock Island and Moline, 111., and Daven­
port, Iowa.

U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: I9 S 0