Photo of the Casting room of Rumford Press,
Concord, NH, 1942
My mother, Catherine Messer is standing on the left in this photo.
After the war my mother worked as a Monotype keyboard operator until the change to computer typesetting, then she worked on a computer VDT to set type until Rumford Press closed in 1983.
My father David Kalloch also operated the monotype caster until the early 1970's when Rumford Press made the change to computer typesetting. As a child I remember visiting him at work and seeing him operating the caster machine.
My father David H. Kalloch is standing on the right in this photo.
Our last name "KALLOCH" cast in Monotype.
The individual letters are surrounded by spacers (leads & slugs),
and tied together with string.
The Monotype Keyboard and Caster.
The keyboard machine punched holes onto a roll of paper 4 1/4 inches wide which was then put into the
caster machine to mold individual pieces of lead type for the characters which the keyboard operator typed.
Another type of printing at the time was called Ludlow
Here is my name cast in Ludlow type
"Kenneth David Kalloch"
It is amazing how much typesetting and printing has evolved in the past 30 something years. It's also a little strange to think that while the first astronauts were walking on the moon in the late 1960's and early 1970's that printing was still being done with moveable lead type as had been done since Johann Guttenburg in the 15th century.
