Mergenthaler, Ottmar (ôt`mär mĕr`gən-tä'lər), 1854–99, American inventor of the Linotype (see printing printing, means of producing reproductions of written material or images in multiple copies. There are four traditional types of printing: relief printing (with which this article is mainly concerned), intaglio, lithography, and screen process printing.
..... Click the link for more information. ). Mergenthaler was born in Germany. He emigrated to the United States in 1872 and was employed to inspect and repair clocks in the government buildings in Washington, D.C. After 1876 he lived in Baltimore, where he perfected his linotype, first patented in 1884 and put into operation in 1886 in the office of the New York Tribune. The machine revolutionized the publishing industry by allowing lines of metal type to be set from a keyboard similar to a typewriter instead of each piece of type being set by hand.

Mergenthaler, Ottmar

(born May 11, 1854, Hachtel, Württemberg—died Oct. 28, 1899, Baltimore, Md., U.S.) German-U.S. inventor. He immigrated to the U.S. in 1872. While working in a Baltimore machine shop he began experimenting with type molds, and in 1884 he patented the Linotype typesetting machine. The reduced costs achieved by thus speeding up the typesetting process led to a dramatic expansion of all kinds of publishing.