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https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/twilight-of-the-velocipede/?utm_source=newsletter
By Alex Wright
Twilight of the VelocipedeTypesetting Races before the Age of Linotype
Before Linotype revolutionised typesetting in the 1880s, compositors set texts by hand — and they set them fast. Alex Wright rediscovers the thrilling world of typesetting races, which drew crowds in the thousands, offered huge cash prizes, and helped women “Swifts” fight for workplace equity.
Published
May 13, 2026
Frontispiece to William C. Barnes, Joseph McCann, and Alexander Duguid’s A Collation of Facts Related to Fast Typesetting (1887) — Source.
On the afternoon of Saturday, February 19, 1870, a young compositor named George Arensberg astonished the printing world when he achieved a feat few thought possible: setting more than two thousand “ems” of solid minion type in a single hour (about 760 words, or 13 words a minute).
As a recent hire at The New York Times, the twenty-year-old Arensberg — nicknamed “The Boy” — soon caught the attention of his colleagues for his remarkable dexterity. His reputation spread quickly around the city’s newspaper composing rooms. That afternoon, a gaggle of fellow compositors from all over town gathered to watch while Times foreman E. A. Donaldson wielded a stopwatch. Working before a standard California job case, Arensberg set his first stick of type in 13 minutes and 55 seconds; his second in 13 minutes and 50 seconds; his third in an even 14 minutes; and his fourth in 14 minutes and 10 seconds. When the tallies were counted, he had averaged just under 15 minutes a stick — four sticks to the hour — bringing him to an unprecedented total of 2,064 ems.1
At the time, a typical compositor was expected to set roughly 700 ems an hour. Twelve hundred was considered fast; 1,400 was exceptional; breaking the 2,000 mark seemed like a physical impossibility. It was the typesetting equivalent of running a four-minute mile. Arensberg’s peers bestowed him with a new nickname: the “Velocipede”. Soon, Arensberg was the most famous typesetter in the world, and over the decade that followed his record-setting performance, typesetting races became increasingly popular with the broader public.
Once conducted informally in the back rooms of printshops, typesetting races were now public spectacles. Their growing popularity coincided with the rise of “dime museums”, a new breed of amusement halls that had started to spring up across the country alongside vaudeville, circuses, and ballparks.2 In the races hosted by these dime museums, the fastest compositors, known as “Swifts”, drew crowds in the thousands and commanded prize purses ranging as high as $1,000 — half a year’s wages for a typical typesetter.
Long before the public took an interest in the 1870s, these races had been a staple of printshop life. Even in small country shops, printers regularly challenged each other to ad hoc contests for beer money or small change. But as larger composing rooms emerged with the rise of the big city dailies, the competition intensified. The races became prevalent enough to warrant a formal set of rules, published in the 1887 booklet Fast Typesetting, along with official competition guidelines and a list of past racing results, promising trophies of silver composing sticks to future winners.3
Advertisement for a typesetting tournament that commenced on 11 January 1886. Joseph McCann of the New York Herald faced down the reigning champion, W. C. Barnes of the New York World and other contestants — Source.
Cover of William C. Barnes, Joseph McCann, and Alexander Duguid’s A Collation of Facts Related to Fast Typesetting (1887) — Source.
In the years that followed Arensberg’s record-setting performance, legions of challengers tried — and failed — to topple his record. Competing under colorful monikers — “Kid” DeJarnatt, “Bangs” Levy, and “Young Jack” Fasey — they carved out reputations in what soon became a national touring circuit. A few became minor celebrities, like the Tribune’s star compositor, Thomas Rooker, who took to wearing diamond studs on his shirts.4 One particularly gifted compositor, William C. Barnes, stunned onlookers by setting type blindfolded, with his type cases reversed.5
In 1877, John Bell of The Cincinnati Enquirer issued a public challenge: he would put his team of fellow printshop compositors, the “Big Ten”, up against any other composing room in the country. The prize money: $1,000. Other newspapers accepted the challenge — and lost. In 1881, the print world took notice when a young type sticker named Harry Cole defeated the legendary Myles Johnson in a dramatic contest in the composing room of The New York Herald. But Arensberg’s record stood untouched until 1886, when another up-and-coming typesetter named Alex Duguid finally took the crown.6 His fellow typesetters celebrated his achievement with a banquet at Cincinnati’s Grand Hotel, sponsored by his native Cincinnati Typesetters’ Union.7
Although typesetting as a profession was scarcely limited to newspapers — compositors worked across the publishing industry on all kinds of printed matter — books, magazines, posters, pamphlets, and so forth — the type-racing phenomenon was unique to newspaper printers. This was partly a function of a deadline-driven work culture that valued speed over precision: book compositors typically accepted lower wages than their newspaper peers in exchange for cleaner working conditions and a more convivial atmosphere. The competitive spirit of these races also evoked the “sporting life” that characterized life in the newspaper trade in these raucous years. News compositors took enormous pride in their reputation for hard work and even harder living. Most (though not all) were bachelors and enthusiastic participants in a ribald lifestyle that revolved around saloons, boarding houses, and billiard halls. They put in a full day’s work but also often drank heavily, swore, gambled, and pushed the edges of social decorum with a “code of slang”, as one contemporary magazine put it, and a proclivity for “unwarranted familiarity”.8 It was, in other words, a boys’ club.
Yet even as type racing started to capture public interest in the 1870s, a new cadre of ambitious outsiders — women — were already knocking on the doors of that club.
Detail from a German print of female typesetters after a drawing by Colanus, 1894 — Source
Women learning typesetting at Berlin’s Lette-Verein, 1902 — Source.
