In Torekällberget's print shop paper prints such as flyers, invitation cards, business cards, labels and bills are made. The objects in the workshop date from 1875-1910 and come from various print shops in Södertälje.
Print shops have existed in Sweden since the end of the 15th century. During the 19th century they became much more common, even in smaller cities. Most workshops were small, with a printer and one or more apprentices. At small print shops, the printer did all the work himself.
From the middle of the 19th century, it became common for the printing companies to employ female employees. They usually worked as a typesetter. The typesetter placed the letters in the correct order before they were printed. The first typesetter machine in Sweden was installed at Svenska Dagbladet in 1898. The machines came to replace the typesetters work.
When the letters were set, they would be printed on paper in multiple copies. The first printing presses were made of wood. From the 19th century they were manufactured in cast iron.
Paper was long made of lump. Lump was fabric debris collected from textile factories and ordinary homes. In the 1870s, pulp began to be made of wood on a larger scale. Industrialization led to paper becoming cheap and demand for paper printing increased.
In the workshop
In the print shop here on Torekällberget, the letters are set by hand. In the printing press, the letters are called types. Until the end of the 19th century, all text was set by hand with loose types. In the workshop there is a large storage furniture with many narrow boxes. In the long narrow drawers, the types are stored. The types are available in several different styles, or fonts.
This is one of the fonts found in the boxes and is called Bodoni.
Images can be reproduced with the help of clichés that were commissioned from cliché institutions in the early 1900s. From style foundries, small illustrations in lead were ordered that could be reused as many times as one wanted. A skilled typesetter could compose its own illustrations with different characters.
When the types are set, they should be printed on paper. This is done in printing presses. The printing presses in this workshop are operated with foot or hand force. The largest printing press in the workshop is a tramp-driven printing press from the 1880s. It belonged to the county newspaper in Södertälje.
After the paper prints have been printed, they may need to be cut. The cutting machine closest to the window is probably the oldest machine in the workshop, from 1875.