(printing press clanging) - [Narrator] Letter by letter, the printer forms the words in his composing stick in the same way that Gutenberg, the first printer of the western world did more than five centuries ago.

Everyone is aware of the time, for the century of the Linotype machine is nearing its end, as Sunday July 2nd, 1978 marks the last day of an age-old method of printing in this composing room.

Lines of type and picture cuts are made up into full-page form, guided by editors' layout sheets.

And the last one to close is page one.

(hammer banging) - [Printer] Okay on one.

- [Narrator] On time, the pressure of one ton per square inch is forced upon the cardboard.

The mat is now right reading.

It is the end of the age of printing.

- I hate to see it, it's inevitable that we're gonna go into computers.

All the knowledge I've acquired over these 26 years is all locked up in a little box now called a computer, and I think probably most jobs are gonna end up the same way.

(keys clacking) - [Narrator] These seasoned printers, retrained, have made the transition from the old to the new.

(bar clanging) (birds chirping) - [Howard] When my son finished camp, he told me, "Oh, they have a printing press up there."

I said, "They do?"

So I went up to see what they had, and had their press and a cabinet of type, and obviously they wanted to expand.

So obviously, I got involved, and went up, and there was just four of the little hand presses, and organized the type, and I'd come at the beginning and get the presses all set up.

- [Print Turner] I'm the kind of person where I don't function well without structure.

I dislike being told like, "Oh yeah, just go off and do like whatever you want," and like, I tend to turn print like, to de-stress, and to like get away from like the anxiety of life.

So, if it was something that was completely unstructured, it would not do that for me anymore.

(metal clanging) (print turner humming) (printing press clacking rhythmically) - [Howard] Over the years, as the counselors came in, I showed them how to print.

Here they were taking pieces of type and composing it into words.

All that was all hand, and so when they walked home with their little cards, or their pad or sign, whatever they made to their parents, parents could see that they had done it all themselves.

- [Print Turner] Print at my sleepaway camp, it's mostly like little like greeting cards, like we would get little like, probably two-by-three like stamps, and then, you know, you would just like print it onto a piece of paper.

It was, you know, like water-based, like ink pads, it wasn't like the real like oil ink that like you use in print shop like this.

(roller rolling) - [Howard] I taught grades 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 for 35 years altogether.

There were some students that I had that had come to the Country Day for the first time, didn't know too many others, and somehow they found the print shop was a place of security, and they really began to thrive, and then obviously they do well in the academic field.

But when they came to the print shop, they were able to relax and enjoy, because everyone was having a wonderful time.

It was a happy place.

- Print kind of became something I really enjoyed, like once I got up into like AP art, like I really enjoyed like with the group environment of seeing how other people like troubleshooted their, like printing, and how they're like, "Oh, well that was awful," and then someone else being like, "Oh, but like that element really worked well in like my art piece, so like, let me implement that."

But all of my prints end up like, you know, like slightly wonky this way, or like, you double print over, like lines are gonna go here and then there, but like, I think that's kind of what makes it fun, is because you get all these different prints that like you weren't expecting.

As something falls out of like mass popularity, and like being like the overwhelming, like way something is produced, like eventually it will just, you know, go into the background, unless there are people who keep like the practice going.

And I think that's a bit easier when it's something more, like universally open to everybody, like something like printing, it's still sustainable.

- [Howard] Wood shop or pottery is something that they had either done before or heard about.

But printing is picking up pieces of type one letter at a time.

I don't think any student that came in said, "Oh, I know all about that."

And I tried to instill a little bit about how printing began, (printing press clanging) and showed hold them how printing had changed the world.

It just ha happens, you pick up a newspaper, and then you read, and you don't think about, well, how'd they get the type on the paper, how'd they do, you know, all that?

They had to have it printed, so.

(printing press clanging) (bird chirping)