22-23 Jul - Print Shop

The Times and Seasons and Nauvoo Neighbor were printed here. In the beginning Don Carlos Smith was the publisher. Eventually, John Taylor became the editor of both papers. The missionaries in the shop took us through the process of setting type, inking and printing the paper. We learned where some common terms came from: Furniture were the blocks of wood used to hold the type in place; Quoin (pronounced coin) is the key that locks the paragraph in place. This is where “to coin a phrase” comes from. Dingbats are decorative spacers; the chase is the frame for setting the type. If type was too big, it had to be “cut to the chase.” On the press was the coffin or resting place for the finished type for printing, so the paper was “put to bed.” Stereotypes were lead molds of types made for mass production.